For those who remember militant trade unionists laying siege to newspaper offices in the 1980s, the scenes outside printing plants in Hertfordshire and on Merseyside on Friday night and Saturday morning brought back bad memories. Only this time it wasn’t trade unions stifling a free Press by blocking the distribution of newspapers. The culprits were … Read more
The wicked old Soviet Union had a privileged administrative class. By Soviet standards they were well paid, and the lucky ones got dachas — cushy second homes. These unaccountable bureaucrats were called the nomenklatura. Although Britain is a parliamentary democracy, we have developed our own nomenklatura. They are highly remunerated and not infrequently incompetent. Although … Read more
Are we turning the corner? Is there light ahead? Can we discern traces of economic recovery? Or is this a comparative calm before a storm that will be far more tumultuous than anything we have experienced in the past six months and test this error-prone Government to breaking point? Let’s look on the brighter side for … Read more
Where is Boris? We are told he’s camping in Scotland with fiancée Carrie Symonds and baby son Wilfred. It’s hard to imagine him banging in tent pegs, or hunched over a flickering Primus stove. Maybe he’s not really camping and being bitten to death by midges but sheltering in a friend’s house on some pleasant … Read more
Whenever migrants cross the English Channel in considerable numbers, as is happening at the moment, government politicians tend to employ two reach-me-down arguments. One is to blame the French, who are declared shifty and generally unhelpful. If only they would keep their eye on the ball, it is said, fewer migrants would leave their shores … Read more
What should we feel now that the investigation into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence 27 years ago has for all practical purposes been wound up? Frustration, certainly. And sadness. Two of his murderers were finally brought to justice in 2012, and are serving time in prison, but no other suspects have ever been … Read more
The Roman Emperor Caligula reputedly planned to appoint his horse a Consul. As Prime Minister, Robert Salisbury made his nephew Arthur Balfour Chief Secretary of Ireland in 1887. Hence, some say, the phrase ‘Bob’s your uncle’. I wonder whether a phrase will enter the language as a result of Boris Johnson doling out a life … Read more
Do we have a corrupt and rotten Establishment teeming with people who are happy to take money from countries that wish us ill, particularly Russia and China? It’s a depressing suggestion. But over the past few weeks we’ve seen more evidence that some of the great and good have – how shall I put it? … Read more
William Gladstone’s first Budget speech as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1853 lasted nearly five hours, and cemented his political reputation. He laid the ground for tax and tariff reductions which boosted the British economy. Rishi Sunak’s Summer Statement yesterday — not a proper Budget — lasted less than half an hour, and contained imaginative … Read more
Boris Johnson has not looked as cheerful for a long time as he did in the Commons yesterday. His is a sunny nature and he does not like to be cast in the part of Charles Dickens’s Thomas Gradgrind — a sober man obsessed with numbers. That is a role he cedes happily to Sir … Read more