Politics

A poll in today’s FT finds that the public are – by and large – blaming Brown and his government for the current state of the economy.  Over three-quarters of respondents thought that the government “bore at least some of the blame” for the current downturn, whilst 56 percent thought that ministers had “a lot, or complete, responsibility”. Of course, the finding’s a blow for Brown, ahead of the launch of his economic recovery plan.  But it could also add a dash of extra piquancy to the Tory spending cuts debate.  The more the public turn against Brown and his tax ‘ n spend economics, the less risk there is attached to Cameron & Co. offering an

In the U.S, after a slow start by a media suffering from post-9/11 stress, a great debate about Iraq is going on. Every administration initiative is evaluated, wonks have made careers out of tracking Iraq policy and the press are full of analysis.  The future of Iraq’s leader is a source of constant editorialising. Every month, politicians and analysts are flown to Baghdad by the U.S government for briefings. In fact, the surge was not even invented by the White House, but by the American Enterprise Institute, an independent, albeit government-affiliated think tank.   The contrast to Britain could not be starker. Here there is little debate and what exists is decidedly

One of Churchill’s mistakes in the 1945 election campaign was to argue that no socialist system could be established in Britain without a form of political police, a British Gestapo. He should never have used the g-word: it struck the electorate as excessive. But reading the Sunday Times this morning, I could see what the old man was getting at. The enemy Britain was fighting was not just Germany, but the way of life that National Socialism in Germany represented. Britain had stood apart from the big government sweeping first Russia, then Italy then Germany. The British way of life was different: respect for liberty and freedom. The nightmares about

After the news that the UK economy is most likely already in recession, the hare and tortoise debate of a few months ago looks set to return to Tory politics with a vengeance.  In today’s Telegraph, Lord Forsyth and John Redwood say that the Tories need to think about an alternative to “sharing the proceeds of growth”, and that that alternative should be based around spending cuts.  Here are the relevant passages: “Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and John Redwood, who chaired Mr Cameron’s policy commissions on the economy, suggested it was no longer adequate for the party to promise to ‘share the proceeds of growth’ between public services and tax cuts now that

Bill Jamieson says calls for a Rooseveltian New Deal to stave off US recession are misinformed; it was FDR’s much-maligned predecessor who set the course for recovery A year into the credit crunch and the world’s leading economies seem locked in a macabre race to be first over the recession line. America, a few months ago firm favourite, has lost the lead to Germany. Or is it France? Or Spain? Is Japan already over the line? In truth, who ‘wins’ is secondary to the direction in which the global economy is heading and the sense of apprehension over further shocks to come in the banking system. Little wonder that in