Politics

I remember a colleague’s leaving party a couple of years ago. He slagged off virtually the whole newspaper in his speech, but he didn’t mention me. ‘I’m really sorry,’ he said, afterwards, taking me fondly by the arm. ‘You were in the first draft. I was going to stick you in the nepotism bit, just after Giles Coren.’ Don’t worry, I sighed, putting a brave face on it. It’s the thought that counts. It’s always good to get a mention. When Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei gave his big ‘save the regime’ speech last Friday, I didn’t really expect him to bother with us. Obviously he was going to diss the big

Here’s a disturbing report from one of the great institutions of the land: They cannot be assimilated and absorbed into the British race. They remain a people by themselves, segregated by reason of their race, their customs, their traditions and above all by their loyalty to their religion, and are gradually and inevitable dividing Britain, racially, socially and ecclesiastically… Already there is a bitter feeling among the British working classes against the muslim intruders. As the latter increases, and the British people realise the seriousness of the menace to their racial supremacy in their native land, this bitterness will develop into a race antagonism which will have disastrous consequences for

Although I’ve long felt that the Unionist parties would have been well-advised to call Alex Salmond’s bluff and have an independence referendum as soon as possible (like, er, this year), the notion that Gordon Brown might decide to hold a referendum on Scottish independence the same day as a general election strikes me as a typically Broonian too-clever-by-half wheeze that, upon closer inspection, turns out to be utterly daft. In other words, James Macintyre’s story in the New Statesman is sufficiently silly that one cannot immediately discount it. Here’s what Macintyre writes: Meanwhile, a separate idea, bold if controversial, is quietly being considered for the same election day: a referendum

Kitty Ussher’s article in today’s Evening Standard made me think again about the consequences of the MPs’ expenses scandal. Kitty will be leaving us at the next election because she wants to put her family first (a reworking of the old “more time with my family” formula). Her question is a fair one: “Am I alone in wanting to see my young family in that crucial gap between school ending and lights out?” It is right that she resigned as a minister, but I do wonder about the scale of this shock to parliament. The combination of almost certain electoral oblivion and expenses revelations means that we will lose two

Iain Dale, however, thinks Cameron passed with flying colours. I suppose it was merely a matter of time before the “Why Won’t Obama Come to the Aid of the Protestors?” meme spread to this side of the Atlantic and now, courtesy of the good* Mr Dale, it has. And apparently Gordon Brown and David Milliband havel also failed to help the Iranian regime by offering sufficiently forceful denunciations of their behaviour. That’s not what Iain wants, but it’s what would have happened if the President, Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary had followed his advice. Iain’s post is headlined “What Would Thatcher & Reagan Have Done About Iran?” which is itself

It seems some readers of this blog are such fundamentalist economic liberals that they even disapprove of Thatcher-style state encouragement of entrepreneurs. Check out some of the reaction to my last post for some examples of this tendency. I was really trying to alert readers to the words of Sir David Trippier, but never mind. But if my last post wound you up, I wonder what you’ll make of my latest news. I have been outed by David Lister of the Independent in a very generous column as “thinker in residence” at the Southbank Centre. Helpfully, David, has outlined some serious problems I have to consider: “How do you disport yourself?

It’s hardly breaking news that the British [sic] National Party are a bunch of racist goons. But it’s a little unsettling to see a Tory MP such as Eric Pickles* suggest that “They are going to be a very serious force in British politics and the mainstream political parties have got to get their act together and start confronting them.” On that latter point, we can agree. But, again, the suggestion that the BNP are going to become a force, let alone a serious one, in British politics gives these clowns much more credit than they merit and does a grave disservice to the collective wisdom and decency of the

So now Kitty Ussher has gone too. This really is becoming a significant clearout as hopes for the next generation of Labour politicians fall away. I always rather liked Kitty, who seemed decent enough and even spoke out against Tony Blair’s failure to speak out about the Lebanon war. But it’s difficult to see how she could stay in the government. An old colleague has just tweeted me that I shouldn’t be too soppy about her as she was “a Blairite SPAD who was parachuted into safe seat of which she knew nothing”, which is a little unfair, but not completely off the money.  His comments remind me that she was