Simon Heffer's Blog, page 48

Sorry for wrecking your kingdom, Ma’am: Phoney smiles. Ill-fitting suits. And the Queen grinning and bearing it. SIMON HEFFER mischievously imagines the grovelling apologies the four PMs should have made to Her Majesty

The Queen joined David Cameron and three former Prime Ministers in Downing Street on Tuesday to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee. Rivalries and disagreements were put aside as they smiled for the official photo. Here, SIMON HEFFER mischievously imagines how each man might have apologised for the mistakes they made ....

Miliband won't win unless he puts bully-boy Balls in his box

An opinion poll this week gave the Labour Party its biggest lead since 2007. Asked who they would vote for if there was an election tomorrow, 44 per cent of people told Ipsos/Mori they would vote for Labour, and just 31 backed the Conservatives.

We are no longer being governed, just patronised by self-regarding pygmies who play at politics

David Cameron has never been wildly popular with his parliamentary party. However, they have tended to respect him, believing that he would, one day, lead them to the outright electoral victory that has eluded them since 1992.

My mother had to sell her home to pay for care. It stinks that we squander so much on foreign aid and won't help thousands like her

Two years ago, my mother became one of the 24,000 or more elderly Britons annually who have to sell their house to finance residential care.

Judgement is needed to 'provide against preventable evils': Cameron looks like he sorely lacks that vital leadership quality

One of the fundamental requirements of a prime minister is that he should be able to exercise sound judgment. He is not supposed to be a clairvoyant: but he is supposed to have the wit and the experience, as Enoch Powell once put it, ‘to provide against preventable evils’.

Ian Brady's victims weren't allowed to choose if they lived or died. Neither should he

Almost 50 years after the hideous crimes for which he was jailed for life, Ian Brady remains an incarnation of evil. He now seeks the right to starve himself to death behind bars, a fate many will instinctively feel is the least he deserves.

Dare we hope this is just the start of Dave promoting real Tory values?

Sometimes it seems that ministers have given up the serious business of government and are just killing time until the Coalition collapses.

My Plan B? Replace bankrupt Osborne

George Osborne’s announcement on Thursday of a massive new infusion of cheap credit to our banks will, according to him, shore up our economy against a possible disaster in the eurozone. I envy him his certainty.

A prophet yet an outcast

When most people hear the words ‘Enoch Powell’ they think of the phrase ‘rivers of blood’. It was Powell’s misfortune — partly self-inflicted — that his monumental contribution to political ideas should still be eclipsed by a phrase that he never uttered, misquoted from the speech that still defines him...

What the Victorians could teach today’s social workers about helping Mr Pickles’ problem families

Eric Pickles's observation on Sunday that the welfare state’s ‘problem families’ were ‘fluent in social work’ exposed the damage that many social workers do by teaching their clients how to play the system.