Politics

The masters of Durham University have reacted with Olympian swiftness to the hysteria which greeted Rod Liddle’s dinner speech at South College on Friday night. Students professed themselves to be ‘literally shaking’ at The Spectator columnist’s comments on sex and gender issues — poor darlings. The adults in and around campus, meanwhile, were equally eager to vent their sense of horror. The local Labour society insisted that ‘Our university doesn’t owe hate a platform’ and the Students’ Union demanding the resignation of the College Principal Tim Luckhurst. And the Durham dons are at pains to show such concerns are taken seriously, issuing thumping public statements disassociating the university from such dreadful

It’s a difficult time for liberty lovers in the cabinet. The country is £400 billion in debt, the risk of Covid restrictions linger on and there’s a Prime Minister addicted to spending. Luckily though, while the convention of collective responsibility binds our ministers tightly, it cannot entirely gag them.  Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the House of Commons, took to the stand tonight as the guest of honour at the IEA think tank. In a sly pop at Downing Street’s current difficulties over whether a lockdown-breaking party was held last December, Rees-Mogg told the fervently Thatcherite crowd: I see we’re all here obeying the regulations aren’t we? I mean this party

Dominic Raab – Abused children like Labinjo-Hughes need ‘maximum protection’ The Justice Secretary undertook the government’s media round this morning. On Sky, Trevor Phillips began the interview by asking Raab about the tragic case of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, who was tortured and murdered by his father and stepmother last year.  Raab told Phillips that there would be a review as a result of the incident, amid the revelation that the safeguarding authorities in Solihull had not reported any concerns about Labinjo-Hughes’s situation. He also confirmed that there would also be a review into the sentences handed to Thomas Hughes and Emma Tustin, to ensure that they were not too lenient:

‘We are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich’, once drawled Peter Mandelson, ‘as long as they pay their taxes.’ And it seems the socialist Svengali is practising what he preached, with his latest appointment at a new British bank. William Hague famously mocked the New Labour spin doctor for his many honorifics during the dying days of Gordon Brown’s government – ‘it would be no surprise to wake up in the morning and find that he had become an Archbishop’ – and now Mandelson has a new title to add to his collection. For the Baron Mandelson of Foy in the county of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the county