LATEST POSTS Could this be the flag of an independent Scotland? The unbelievable results from Scotland have put the break-up of the United Kingdom back on the political agenda. That is a tragedy for those of us who love the Union, but one has to acknowledge what a brilliant politician Alex Salmond has turned out to be. He is now on course to fight a referendum on Scottish independence with no one plausible to front the No campaign. Labour is certainly in no position to save the Union. Thanks to this extraordinary SNP landslide, Ed Miliband must now be worrying that the Scottish Labour Party is going the way of the Scottish Tories, and could soon be a negligible force north of the border. David Cameron, meanwhile, is paying a heavy price today for hi… Read More Pakistani men stand looking at Osama bin Laden's compound (Photo: AP) Islamabad, Pakistan An elderly man of distinguished appearance approached me soon after I arrived in Abbottabad on the day of Osama bin Laden’s death. He spoke good English and said he was a lawyer. “Bin Laden will be remembered as good,” he told me, “and his message was an inspiration.” Many Pakistanis, as well as hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world, wholeheartedly concur. We in the West very rarely ask why this should be. We just assume that admirers of bin Laden are ignorant or demented fanatics. I don’t believe this is always true. More than that, I am certain that portraying bin Laden as some kind of one-dimensional monster is stupid. He wasn’t a power-hungry madman, still le… Read More The groom and the best man arrive at Westminster Abbey (Photo: AFP) For the last few days I have been travelling through Pakistan, and everywhere I have gone I have been asked about the royal wedding. Indeed at a dinner party given by a Karachi doctor on Wednesday night, a great part of the evening was spent discussing the marriage and what it meant. This discussion shows how easy it is for the British to forget that today’s marriage in a global event. The compulsive American obsession with the royal family is often tacky and can perhaps be readily dismissed. But for Pakistan and other members of the British Commonwealth, they too have links to the royal family every bit as profound and historic as our own. The Queen’s father was the last… Read More The era of transparency is yet to arrive (Photo: Paul Grover) It is a well-established fact that the larger and more self-important an institution becomes, the less meaningful it really is. The Cabinet is a good example. It used to be a compact, businesslike body. Clem Attlee ended up with a Cabinet of 17, for example, which he considered too many. Now it is a sprawling affair, with press officers and other riff-raff present. Its formal membership stretches to almost 30 members, once “ministers with a right to attend Cabinet” (a Blairite trend which David Cameron has regrettably failed to correct) are taken into account. Meanwhile, real power is moving elsewhere. The Cabinet may be starting to go the way of the Privy Council, a once formidable body which now… Read MorePeter Oborne
Peter Oborne is the Daily Telegraph's chief political commentator.
Scotland could be heading towards independence – and David Cameron is partly to blame
Osama bin Laden killing: Dismissing our enemies as lunatics will get us nowhere
The eyes of the entire Commonwealth are on London today
Can we really trust this sorry bunch to clean up Parliament?
Sunday, 8 May 2011
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