Going the wrong way one step at a time
If I were to give you a budget to choose your perfect house, you would quickly have a clear idea of what to buy. And typically your perfect house will be a bit boring. That’s because, when you can only...
View Article£67,000 is not enough for the brightest and the best
Last year, I had an exchange with Hugo Rifkind on Twitter in which I bet him dinner at Clarke’s that his father would stand down before the next election. My reasoning was that, at the age of 68, his...
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Golden league Some MPs who earn Sir Malcolm Rifkind’s rate of £5,000 a day: — Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury): £3,333 for four hours work as deputy chairman of Woburn Energy. — Greg Barker (Bexhill and...
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Inequality, not socialism, is now the greatest threat to conservatism
Had the public been asked, before Monday morning, to identify two MPs who stood for honesty and decency, the names Jack Straw and Sir Malcolm Rifkind would have been prominent among their replies. Both...
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The Spectator’s Notes
Amnesty International and others have placed a large newspaper advertisement telling Michael Gove ‘Don’t Scrap Our Human Rights’. The ad asserts that ‘A government cannot give human rights or take them...
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Forty years on The forthcoming EU referendum has rekindled memories of the in-out Common Market referendum of 1975. But it seems a strange looking-glass world now. — Mrs Thatcher was a keen ‘yes’...
View ArticleLaying down the law
A great test of political leadership is how well you deal with vested interests on your own side. In his first speech as Lord Chancellor this week, Michael Gove has shown himself willing to tackle a...
View ArticleHouse in order
The shaming of Lord Sewel was a classic tabloid exposé. The fact that a peer of the realm (albeit one appointed by Tony Blair) was caught on camera apparently ingesting Class A drugs in the company of...
View ArticleFlashmob rule
What should be the response of politicians to mass emailings and Twitter storms? The question is an urgent one, especially for Conservative MPs, given the general truth that mass petitions, in which...
View ArticleLetters
Trimming the ermine Sir: I am a new boy in the House of Lords compared with Viscount Astor — though I did hear Manny Shinwell speak — but he is right that it is bursting at the seams, and something...
View ArticleSurviving the purge
Listen http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/jeremycorbynsbritain/media.mp3 How long does it take to rebuild a political machine? Twelve months? Two years? Three years? Maybe it can’t be done at all. Jeremy...
View ArticleThe Spectator’s notes
When the Labour party began, its purpose was the representation of labour (i.e. workers) in the House of Commons. Indeed, its name was the Labour Representation Committee. Its goal was gradually...
View ArticlePortrait of the week
Home After it was twice defeated in the Lords on its plans to reduce working tax credits, the government announced a review of the workings of Parliament, to be led by Lord Strathclyde, the former...
View ArticleThe Corbyn crack-up
Jeremy Corbyn is a rarity among politicians. All his enemies are on his own side. For the Tories, Ukip and the SNP, Corbyn is a dream made real. They could not love him more. As the riotous scenes at...
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Labour’s England problem
In the window of a council house on a working-class estate in Exeter was a sticker bearing the cross of St George and a simple warning: ‘If this flag offends you, why not consider moving to another...
View ArticleThe shame of Iraq
‘If it falls apart, everything falls apart in the region’ — Note from Tony Blair to George W. Bush, 2 June 2003. The extraordinary length of time that we have had to wait for Sir John Chilcot’s...
View ArticleLetters
Lurid about Leavers Sir: Matthew Parris has spent much of the past few months denigrating those of us who want to leave the EU, but his latest article (‘For the first time, I feel ashamed to be...
View ArticleLabour of the negative
Reason, Hegel argued, advances by negation, each thought becoming more focused as it wrestles with its opposite. This ‘labour of the negative’ is the true discipline of the mind, and the way in which...
View ArticleThe Spectator’s Notes
The English tradition of dissenting judgments in important civil cases is a good one. They are often better than the… See the full story of The Spectator’s Notes on The Spectator.
View ArticleA wake-up call for Parliament
LONDON, ENGLAND - JANUARY 17: Artist Kaya Mar holds his latest painting of Theresa May dressed as a police officer holding a truncheon with 'Hard Brexit' written on it in front of the Houses of...
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