Monday, 7th March 2011

Cameron is wrong to target the Quilliam Foundation

3:49pm

A few weeks ago, the Prime Minister promised a muscular liberalism that would take on the Islamist extremist groups Jack Straw, Ken Livingstone, John Denham and other frightened or simply ugly and unprincipled Labour politicians had funded.

"Let's properly judge these organisations: Do they believe in universal human rights - including for women and people of other faiths? Do they believe in equality of all before the law? Do they believe in democracy and the right of people to elect their own government? Do they encourage integration or separatism?"

Little...

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Friday, 4th March 2011

The Hunt becomes the Hunted

10:47am

Writing yesterday my esteemed colleague James Forsyth said that for want of a better alternative Jeremy Hunt was the Tory Party's coming man. I hate disagree with James, but I would put more money on Colonel Gaddafi making it through the next 12 months than the Conservatives' “rising star”.

Every newspaper group with the exception of News International, along with the BBC, formally opposed Rupert Murdoch's takeover of Sky. The editors of every newspaper, television channel and radio station, with the exception of editors at News International, will be telling...

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Thursday, 3rd March 2011

Why Howard Davies had to resign

9:50pm

The London School of Economics once had a global reputation. The Libyan revolution wiped it away as easily as if it was mist on a window.

I cannot find precedent for the collapse in liberal and academic standards Howard Davies, the LSE’s director, presided over. The Cambridge spies met at Cambridge University, as their name suggests. They did not, however, work for Stalin with the blessing of the university’s chancellor, vice chancellor, senate and masters of its colleges.

The LSE’s hierarchy sold itself to a tyrant for a handful of silver....

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Monday, 28th February 2011

The Future of the BBC

9:29am

I’ve a piece in Standpoint about The Killing, one of the most interesting dramas on television. It’s not British, alas, and provides another reason for the controllers of British television to stop patting themselves on the back and saying “we make the best television in the world”. But nor, like so much of the best television drama, is it American. The Killing is from Denmark, and I suggest that a reason why Scandinavian thrillers are so popular is that they come from countries where the sight of women in positions of power...

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Friday, 25th February 2011

Mandy on Milly

7:05pm

Peter Mandelson’s publishers have sent me extracts from the updated paperback edition of his memoirs, The Third Man, which is out on 3 March. Here are his thoughts on Ed Miliband’s victory over David.

'It was a photo finish [and] I felt terrible for David. I felt even more worried for the party. This was not because I doubted Ed’s ability to become a strong or effective leader: he is a highly intelligent and thoughtful individual. It was because of the campaign message on which he had built his victory. It

...

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Saturday, 19th February 2011

On not understanding Tories

9:50am

I don’t understand you, really I don’t. The immediate cause of my bewilderment was a piece on this site, yesterday by Matthew Hancock MP, attacking Ed Balls. In normal circumstances, I would have offered to hold his coat, but Hancock wrote: