Politics

It may be unpopular to say, but there is reason to be charitable to Tony Blair and his latest warnings about Islamist extremism. The former Prime Minister gave afascinating interview to Charles Moore in yesterday’s Telegraph where, inter alia, he talks about the challenge of militant Islam. ‘The West is asleep on this issue,’ he tells Moore. Blair has been more vocal and unequivocal on the issue than almost any other politician in recent years. He notes that the success of his Africa Governance Initiative faces ‘this threat above all others’. Failed states in the Horn of Africa have accentuated this, while one of the unintended consequences of the Libyan revolution

The approach of eurozone leaders to the crisis in their region has so far been a piecemeal, sticking plaster approach. But this morning, calls are growing for big and effective bandages to bind up the wounds before it is too late. Late last night, ratings agency Moody’s warned that the size of those bandages was so big that containing the shock of a Greek exit from the euro would come ‘at a very high cost’, and that ‘greater collective support’ for Spain and Italy would place a heavy burden on those eurozone members with higher credit ratings. Hence the downgrades from the agency for Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, while

Westminster’s favourite shaggy-haired do-gooder Andrew Mitchell has been spilling his heart out to Total Politics about Maggie: ‘To me, she was a goddess. When she walked down the  corridors, I used to stand stiffly to attention and hope she would pass by.’ Far too much information from the International Development Secretary, who is known to keep a bowl of condoms in on his ministerial desk, as part of a worldwide health campaign, of course.

The report published this week by Louise Casey, the Government’s ‘Troubled Families’ Tsar, has attracted a fair amount of criticism, but what it does illustrate is the chaotic lives these families lead – and the implausibility of thinking that their problems can be solved by the kind of flagship social policies traditionally favoured by either Conservatives or Labour. As Isabel put it, Conservative ‘reform of the welfare system will pass many of the families by. In these stories there is no calculated decision to opt out of the labour market because of generous benefits, more an endless failure to cope with life and the way it has worked out’. Likewise,

David Cameron’s decision to convene an inner Cabinet of seven Tories to advise him is a sensible move. As I say in the Mail on Sunday, calling this group together shows that Cameron knows he needs help handling his party. I understand that it meets regularly with a particular emphasis on the Conservative party side of coalition management. One Cabinet minister told me recently that the Prime Minister spends more time on coalition management than any other subject. To date, this has too often been at the expense of party management. Inevitably, if you spend most of the time thinking about what the Liberal Democrats will accept you begin to

‘Unfortunately, it’s not enough.’ That is, broadly, the conclusion of John Longworth, the director of the British Chamber of Commerce, who has penned a visceral critique of the government’s economic policy in the Observer. Nothing, it seems, is sufficient: half-hearted infrastructure investment, non-existent aviation policy, lethargic borrowing to business, and regulatory reform that leaves businesses ‘mired in a thicket of red tape’. Longworth laments economic policy being determined by ‘political short-termism, electoral calculation and presentation’. This swipe at George Osborne adds to the sense that professional and international bodies are turning on the chancellor, after the IMF’s warning last week (rather callous of it, considering that Osborne has been following