Telegraph Blogs

The days are long gone when a Cabinet member would take the blame as well as the praise It is almost 30 years since a British politician last resigned on a matter of honour. That was Lord Carrington, who insisted on taking the responsibility for British unpreparedness ahead of the Argentine invasion of the Falklands. In… Read more

On some definitions, we already have a fiscal union. The European Central Bank is furiously buying up Italian bonds with money contributed by German, Austrian, Dutch and Finnish taxpayers. And you know what? It’s making no difference. Italian ten-year debt has surged past the level which triggered bailouts in Ireland, Greece and Portugal. One-year debt… Read more

As Italy follows Greece to the brink of economic meltdown, rampaging uncertainty is turning everyone from an economic pseudo-savant into a peasant, desperate to hang on to commodities they can trust. And peasants like gold, of course, which – on the back of Italy’s difficulties – was trading higher at $1,794 an ounce yesterday, and… Read more

Yesterday I had a close encounter with BBC Radio 4. On receiving an email yesterday afternoon asking whether I might be able to ‘help’ with a programme going out today, I called them back. A friendly woman replied. It turned out that they had spotted one of my earlier Telegraph Blog pieces and wanted to… Read more

It beggars belief. How can anyone protest against government “cuts” on the day when Italy’s bond yield has risen above 7 per cent? As any fule kno, the government hasn’t actually cut public expenditure. In April-May 2011, public expenditure was 4.1 per cent higher than in April-May 2010. Even after factoring in inflation, that’s a… Read more

David Cameron has announced that Jobseekers who do not find sustainable work after they have been through the Government’s new welfare-to-work scheme, the Work Programme, will be made to do compulsory work in the community for six months. “Workfare” is what people normally call such schemes. This is welcome news – and something I’ve been… Read more

Call me a traitor to my peers, but today’s ”student” protest represents a total misuse of time, energy and resources. Last year, the vast majority of British students were united by their opposition to the findings of the Browne Review and to the proposed rise in tuition fees. Protesters came from across the country, and from many different backgrounds and… Read more

The father of art history, Giorgio Vasari, tells a beautiful story about the Leonardo cartoon above: Finally, he made a cartoon, in which there was an Our lady and a Saint Anne with a Christ, which not only made all the craftsmen marvel, but when it was finished for two days men and women, young and… Read more

The clip in Nick Robinson’s report last night was great, but the full thing is even better. If you haven’t got round to it yet, here’s George Osborne’s demolition of the Tobin Tax in full at Ecofin yesterday

After a third morning of nasty front pages, Theresa May would have been less than human if she wasn’t a tad anxious about PMQs today. Fortunately for the Home Secretary, she had lots of allies in the Commons, none of them more helpful than Ed Miliband. After several days of impressive work on UK borders… Read more

The student protests are nothing more than a new type of initiation ceremony. They give left-wing students a chance to band together, get into a state, smash things up, and then brag about it to their friends. But at least university initiations happen within the confines of a Wetherspoon’s. As the European leaders fight to… Read more

There’s a gripe I hear a lot from kids of student age and it goes like this: “You had a free uni education so why shouldn’t we?” The short answer to that is “autres temps, autres moeurs”. But they wouldn’t understand, a) because their school French teacher was probably long since sacked in the Blair… Read more

A second leaked “confidential document” (aka press release) emerged this week about TfL’s plans for driverless Tube trains, revealing that they could begin as early as 2015. Someone is clearly testing the waters. Good. It’s an idea I’ve been pushing for three years, since I went to Paris and saw how they’re automating an entire… Read more

As we watch Italy’s 10-year bond yields near 7.5pc and threaten to detonate the explosive charge on €1.9 trillion of debt, it is time for the world to reimpose order. You cannot allow the biggest bankruptcy in history to run its course – with calamitous domino implications – before all options have been exhausted. One… Read more

We need to talk about care: one in five hospitals fail the elderly so badly that they are breaking minimum legal standards. We’re talking neglect so horrific, that patients were left to lie in their own faeces, and to die of dehydration. Today, the Patients’ Association and Nursing Standard magazine have launched a campaign – appropriately… Read more

The troubles of Theresa May have moved beyond her ability to survive. Seamlessly, a row about controlling Britain’s borders has shifted to immigration. Frank Field and Nicholas Soames, writing in the Daily Telegraph, point to the e-petition launched by Migrationwatch. The call on government to keep the population below 70 million has now attracted 100,000… Read more

Every time I refresh my browser, Italian bond yields seem to have climbed another percentage point. They breached the 7 per cent level – considered just about sustainable – about an hour ago and have been climbing rapidly ever since. The pension managers, private investors, hedge funds and so on which decide whether or not… Read more

Well, the “resignation” of Silvio Berlusconi didn’t help much, did it? Today, Italy’s bond yields – which is to say, its cost of borrowing – have risen to 7 per cent. That is a record: the highest level since the euro was created in 1999. This is a definitively unsustainable situation: it is now both necessary and… Read more

Last week, I received an email about a problem my company was having with our online shop. I happened to be out of the office, so I pulled out my laptop, plugged in a 3G mobile broadband dongle, and went online to try and fix it – something countless workers and commuters do every day.… Read more

I’m trying to cut down on Facebook. But it’s impossible. First, I rely on Facebook for my entire social life. Second, I visit the website up to 40 times a day, checking it in the same compulsive way I used to smoke. Third, I can’t work out how to leave. Facebook’s settings are beyond baffling.… Read more

Three major polls this week will give a jittery White House cause for concern. The first, from ABC News/Washington Post shows a significant rise in public anger towards the federal government. The second, from The Wall Street Journal/ NBC, shows overwhelming disillusionment with President Obama’s handling of the economy. The third, from Gallup, has conservatives in America… Read more

A rash claim, I know, but there really is something very strange going on at the National Gallery, where the most comprehensive Leonardo show ever opens today. The press show I went to yesterday was the oddest I’ve been to. Already the queues were building up for the tiny number of tickets that haven’t been… Read more