Was that Policy Exchange report so wrong after all?

For obvious political reasons, David Cameron had to run a mile from Policy Exchange’s report on northern cities. But as John Rentoul argues in an excellent column in The Independent on Sunday, the report was actually right about certain things: 

the striking thing about the Policy Exchange report is that its analysis is broadly correct. It specifically said that Liverpool, Rochdale, Bradford and Sunderland were not "doomed". (This was reported by The Independent under the headline "Cities in North doomed, says favourite Tory think tank".) The report went on, however: "We cannot

Continue reading...

Email to a friend  |   Permalink  |   Comments (8)

Why Obama shouldn't pick a foreign policy expert as his running mate

Barack Obama is widely expected to name his running mate in the next few days. He is now back from vacation and presumably will want to make the announcement before the Democratic convention which begins a week on Monday.

The buzz is that Obama is going to go for someone with foreign policy credentials. Obama’s running mate will address the convention on Wednesday, a night billed as a Tribute to Veterans, Active Duty Military & Military Families. National security will dominate that day and it would be odd to...

Continue reading...

Email to a friend  |   Permalink  |   Comments (12)

Who Putin is

David Remnick, The New York editor who was the Washington Post’s Moscow correspondent during the collapse of the Soviet Union, has written a smart piece about Putin for the latest New Yorker. He concludes:

“Putin is not Hitler or Stalin; he is not even Leonid Brezhnev. He is what he is, and that is bad enough. In the 2008 election, he made a joke of democratic procedure and, in effect, engineered for himself an anti-constitutional third term. The press, the parliament, the judiciary, the business élite are all in his pocket—and

Continue reading...

Email to a friend  |   Permalink  |   Comments (40)

That was quick

I’m not normally particularly keen on athletics, but Usain Bolt’s performance in the 100 metres final was awesome. (If you missed it, you can watch it here.) You don’t expect to see anyone coasting across the line to win the gold in the 100 metres let alone to break the world record. 

Email to a friend  |   Permalink  |   Comments (4)

Report: Labour to re-brand in the autumn, thinking about dumping New Labour label

A friend of Coffee House flags up an interesting post on Labour Matters which reports that as part of its autumn re-launch Labour might drop its “new Labour for Britain” slogan and replace it with “Your Labour, Your Britain”. The thinking is that this would emphasise the ‘on your side’ fairness agenda that will underpin Brown’s attempt at an autumn fight-back. It also suggests that Labour is planning a more populist strategy in an attempt to try and stoke up its base which as recent elections have shown is thoroughly disillusioned...

Continue reading...

Email to a friend  |   Permalink  |   Comments (34)