Telegraph Blogs

Newt Gingrich is sliding in the polls. CNN reports that his once formidable national lead over Mitt Romney has slipped to a statistical dead heat (both are on 28 percent). In the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa, Public Policy Polling says that Newt is now running third. Ron Paul is first (23 percent) and Romney is… Read more

The Foreign Secretary’s harder line on the EU has been a shock to his Europhile mandarins It is said in Downing Street that shortly before David Cameron set off for his showdown in Brussels, he was offered a spot of strategic advice by William Hague. “If it’s a choice between keeping the euro together or… Read more

Following Lutfur’s recent disappointment at the PCC, there is more bad news for Tower Hamlets’ extremist-linked mayor. His cabinet member for the environment, Cllr Shahed Ali, has been running a company that owes the taxman a great deal of money. Companies House records show that Cllr Ali was company secretary and a director of a… Read more

The differences between conservatives and libertarians are more problematic in theory than in practice. The issues which most fiercely divide them tend to be slightly abstruse: drugs, pornography and the like. On the biggies – parental choice in schools, welfare reform, tax cuts, opposition to the EU – they agree. And the reason they agree… Read more

The older I get the more I come to understand that life can basically be broken up into three stages – worrying about sex, worrying about money, and worrying about health. And anyone under the age of 18 reading this – however bad you think your angst it, it’s nothing compared to the despair you’ll… Read more

There’s nothing like a common enemy to bind people together. Even better is declaring victory over that enemy. That is what Coalition ministers are doing today in their struggle with public-sector trade unions over pension reform. Since the EU summit in Brussels earlier this month, chatter at Westminster has been about the stability of the… Read more

I don’t regard myself as more than averagely sentimental and there isn’t too much music that reduces me to tears. But a moment in Britten’s St Nicolas does it with press-button certainty, when the pickled boys come back to life and sing their Alleluias. And as usual it had me passing off my snuffles as… Read more

First things first. The “authenticity” or otherwise of the Shroud of Turin does not have any implications for whether or not Christ was real, or whether He was divine. If it was a medieval forgery, it doesn’t mean the stories aren’t true; if it really was made in the first century AD, it doesn’t mean… Read more

In November of this year, I wrote about 2011’s  “cold wall of sound”  and suggested we were in a year of little joy music-wise, with CD players weeping witchhouse, chillwave or Adele’s creepy heartbreak instead of anything resembling cheery pop hits. One thing is sure: there hasn’t been one Crazy, by which I mean one,… Read more

It’s all very well David Cameron claiming he is the champion of the military covenant, but his words are meaningless if they are not translated into action. And the Government’s decision to implement a pay deal for those serving in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces which amounts to a real terms cut in pay does not… Read more

Nick Clegg says that the House of Lords is “an affront” to democracy. Leaving aside for a moment the fact that Nick Clegg himself is a one-man affront to the possibility of sane and grounded political discourse, let us ask whether there is any truth in what he says about the Lords: The Lords is… Read more

A few weeks ago I wrote that 40-year-old marketing directors didn’t “get” social media. It struck a nerve. Many social media marketing managers agreed and aired their bottled-up frustrations with bosses who weren’t prepared to learn. Meanwhile, some “40-year-old marketing directors” were offended. (For the record, I’m 40 too – it’s about attitude, not age),… Read more

Joe Biden has caused a bit of a stir this week with his bizarre suggestion that “the Taliban per se is not our enemy”, just a decade on from the 9/11 attacks, carried out by al-Qaeda, and aided and abetted in Afghanistan by none other than the Taliban. The comments formed part of a wider… Read more

Václav Havel was a playwright, philosopher and president. Above all he was a freedom fighter who challenged the Soviet regime that oppressed his Czech homeland. His dissent was punished by four years’ imprisonment – yet that period behind bars failed to break his character, or embitter it. Havel, then, was a giant among men. Who… Read more

Since April Lutfur Rahman, the extremist-backed mayor of Tower Hamlets, has been pursuing a PCC campaign against the Telegraph. He has over the last eight months made four complaints, all of which were finally resolved to our satisfaction last week. 1. That we described him as “extremist-backed” by virtue of his “close links” to an… Read more

Last Saturday I had one of the more moving musical experiences of my life – for a few minutes I played with Ivry Gitlis at the Wigmore Hall. It was an extraordinary occasion, the first in a series in which Steven Isserlis will interview three friends whose long, colourful lives go beyond mere fascination –… Read more

Mr Lutfur Rahman, Mayor of Tower Hamlets, complained to the Press Complaints Commission that two blog postings, headlined “Lutfur Rahman councillor charged with fraud” and “Lutfur Rahman: all his controversies in one place”, published on The Daily Telegraph’s website (telegraph.co.uk) on 13 April 2011 and 20 October 2011 respectively, were inaccurate and misleading in breach… Read more

Big business gets a better deal from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) than small firms and ordinary taxpayers, according to an investigation by MPs. HMRC denies the allegations in the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report but some accountants support them. Following official confirmation of millions of mistakes in Pay As You Earn (PAYE) tax bills… Read more

There was a fascinating vignette on Ken and David Mellor’s LBC show on Saturday. Mick Whelan, the general secretary of the rail union Aslef, worked on a weekend to put the case for his downtrodden Tube drivers (they are, you’ll remember, striking on Boxing Day and three other days for triple time and extra holiday… Read more

Euro rage is reaching new heights over Britain’s latest outrage. Our refusal to pony up a further €31bn we cannot afford, to prop up a monetary union that was created against our wishes and better judgment, and launched with the malevolent purpose of accelerating the great leap forward to a European state that is inherently… Read more

Roland Rudd, the lobbyist who leads leads the last bedraggled survivors of the pro-EU cause in Britain – a bit like that fellow on the Raft of the Medusa who’s flapping a rag over his head – has written an unintentionally hilarious piece in the Times in which he argues that, if were to withdraw,… Read more

There was a striking moment during William Hague’s joint press conference with Guido Westerwelle, the German foreign minister, who stopped off in London to soothe relations after that euro ding-dong that so exercised the French. Indeed, the Quai d’Orsay will be anxious – or possibly narked – by their collegiate display. Mr Westerwelle, playing Garfunkel… Read more