Peter Oborne

When Baroness Ashton was appointed European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs four years ago I thought it was a most discouraging appointment. She appeared to the worst kind of Labour Party quangocrat, and filled me with mild horror.

She got her job for what appeared to be the worst possible reason- nobody else wanted to do it. She was Gordon Brown’s fourth choice for the job. Foreign Office people I spoke to made little secret of their contempt. I remember one senior official telling me that she only got the job because it was of no importance.

I rather agreed with Rod Liddle of The Spectator when he sneered that "never elected by anyone, anywhere, totally unqualified for almost every job she has done, she has risen to her current position presumably through a combination of down-the-line Stalinist political… Read More

John Humphrys

I have long regarded John Humphrys of the BBC's Today programme as one of the Britain’s most professional, fearless and impartial interviewers. But I am wondering whether to reconsider this opinion following his interview with Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman Mark Regev at 7.36am this morning.

I have rarely heard such ignorant or biased broadcasting. Mr Humphrys allowed Mark Regev to get away with statements (including one blatant falsehood) that badly needed to be challenged. Mr Humphrys also made errors of his own.

Here are some of his worst mistakes:
1. Mr Humphrys told listeners that "there will be high-level meetings to find ways of Iran giving up its nuclear weapons programme in exchange for sanctions being dropped". Unfortunately for Humphrys, Iran does not have a nuclear weapons programme, and US intelligence knows this even if he doesn't. It… Read More

Ed Miliband made a formidable speech today. He entrenched his position as leader of the Labour Party and made a series of careful policy announcements which are laying the groundwork for a Labour manifesto. Technically this was a virtuoso performance, but what I liked most was the language: Mr Miliband has turned his back on the empty and shallow political discourse of the Blair era, and started to talk in the way that ordinary people do, with long, coherent sentences, and only a handful of soundbites.

More and more he reminds me of Clem Attlee and the civilised approach to politics which he represented. This is being criticised in some quarters as a socialist speech, and it's all the better for that. Mr Miliband is not the leader of some virtual political party, constructed by focus group experts to appeal to the lowest common denominator. He represents a… Read More

Damian McBride (left) with Gordon Brown

Alastair Campbell tweeted the following last night: "Gordon Brown had many many strengths and did some great things. But why he needed people like Damian McBride and Charlie Whelan a mystery."

I was a political reporter throughout the Blair era, and there is no mystery at all why Mr Brown felt that he needed to employ McBride and Whelan.

Gordon Brown employed them because Tony Blair employed Alastair Campbell.

Numerous ministers were targeted by Mr Campbell and his team of Downing Street spin doctors during his time at No 10 from 1997-2003. The viciousness of the briefing – and the willingness to destroy the reputations of decent people who were members of the government –  was utterly shocking.

Mr Campbell’s briefers targeted numerou… Read More

Ukip leader Nigel Farage has been the forgotten man of the conference season so far, but today the Ukip conference gets going in London. I've just interviewed him and put to him the toughest question he has to answer: isn't a vote for Nigel Farage effectively a vote for Ed Miliband?

• Peter Oborne: A vote for Ukip is a vote for a Labour government
• Iain Martin: What the hell can the Tories do about Ukip?
• Graeme Archer: How should the Tories respond to Ukip?

It is impossible to overstate the damage done to the Foreign Office during 13 years of New Labour. The institution came under systematic and malicious attack. Tony Blair sidelined the organisation, setting up his own informal foreign policy apparatus, while handing out ambassadors’ jobs to various cronies.

Diplomats with independence of mind (particularly the Arabists who understand the culture of countries like Iraq and the Yemen) were sidelined. Others collaborated with the new regime, of whom the most noteworthy was the appalling Sir Michael (now Lord) Jay, permanent secretary from 2002-2006, arguably the most disastrous period in the history of the modern foreign office.

In an act of pure barbarism, the foreign office library (described by Gladstone’s foreign secretary Lord Granville as the "pivot on which the whole machinery of the office turned") was closed down and emptied.

The language school… Read More

The most powerful law of politics is the Law of Unintended Consequences. Progressive governments, which believe in the capacity of human reason to effect great and permanent change for the better, are specially susceptible. The Iraq invasion – embarked upon maybe for the best of motives but leading to years of horror and civil war – is one case in point. The abolition of fox hunting was another.

Virtuous motives lay behind this bill. Its Labour Party sponsors genuinely believed that the abolition of fox hunting would eradicate the cruel killing of foxes. In fact the exact opposite has occurred. Farmers have taken to shooting or poisoning foxes instead, causing the unfortunate animals to endure long, lingering and terribly painful deaths.

Driven out of rural areas, the foxes have come to live in towns, where they were warmly welcomed by… Read More

The most interesting domestic event of the weekend was not the increasingly tiresome Lib Dem conference. It was the fascinating poll by Lord Ashcroft showing the state of affairs in those Conservative/Labour marginal seats which will determine the result of the election.

Lord Ashcroft has one piece of quite good news for the Conservatives, and one piece of very bad news.

The good news is that Ed Miliband and Labour have made no headway at all. The bad news concerns Ukip. Nigel Farage has carved up the Conservative vote, meaning that Labour’s lead in marginal seats has risen from nine points to 14 points over the last two years.

"The tripling of Ukip’s vote share in marginal seats since 2010," writes Lord Ashcroft, "threatens to put Ed Miliband in Downing Street in spite of Labour’s lukewarm appeal. The question is what… Read More

Prince George with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (Picture: WARREN ALLOTT)

Now that the Duchess of Cambridge and Baby George are safely at home here’s one thought: would it have been better if the future Queen had given birth to the future King of England on the NHS?

The National Health Service does these things very well, as the Countess of Wessex would agree, having had both of her children at NHS hospitals.

We all understand there is private medicine in this country, and I have used it myself. But it is one of those things which understandably makes people uneasy. The Royal family is going to rule over the whole nation, not just the small fraction of the nation who are lucky enough to be able to afford private health.

I know that Diana used the Lindo… Read More

Andy Murray has become the first British men’s singles winner at The Lawn Tennis Championships for 77 years (Photo: EDDIE)

There are very few occasions when I disagree entirely with a Daily Telegraph leader, but today is one of them.

Andy Murray's victory at Wimbledon cannot be compared, as our leader claims, with England's World Cup victory in 1966 or even Henry Cooper's famous left hook which floored Cassius Clay.

The reason is that tennis is not a national sport. It is a middle-class game which is played by, in statistical terms, a small minority of relatively affluent people. In addition it is to a large extent an elite sport, dominated by private clubs, or by people with expensive courts in back gardens.

Just look at yesterday's crowd, where the tone was set by the home counties: a rich,… Read More