Politics

Gordon Brown’s new team at Number Ten have received rave reviews. Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer today points out how cabinet ministers who were in despair before Christmas have been given hope by the new Downing Street operation while Fraser has—in these pages—warned the Conservatives not to underestimate the new Brown machine. But this new Brown team can only work if it can come to an accommodation with the old Brown crew; something which Gaby Hinsliff’s masterful piece in today’s Observer suggests is some way off. If any of Brown’s new hires walk away before the election it will be seen as a sign that Brown is done for. As

 The reaction from the liberal-left to David Mamet’s confession that he is no longer a “brain-dead liberal” has been strangely muted — and often hilariously ludicrous. The most priceless piece of bien pensant thinking comes, naturally, from Michael Billington, the Guardian’s tedious, right-on theatre critic.   “I am depressed to read that David Mamet has swung to the right,” says the poor dear. “What worries me is the effect on his talent of locking himself into a rigid ideological position.”   Let’s just unravel the massive self-regarding hypocrisy behind that statement. As long as Mamet was writing plays from Billington’s liberal-left perspective, he was a beacon of free-thinking insight and

The Spectator recently ran a letter from Lord Adonis saying the Swedish schools revolution which I said David Cameron would bring to Britain was in fact being delivered under Labour. Huh, I thought, keep telling yourself that – if it makes this whole Brown thing better for you. But today I picked up my local newspaper to find a striking splash: two City Academies run by Kunskapsskolan, the Swedish company I interviewed for my cover piece, are coming to my borough.   Things move quickly. Just last month Per Ledin, the head of Kunskapsskolan, was in his office asking me: “City Academies? What kind of a beast are those?” Now

The issue of party funding is going to run and run with the parties still nowhere near an agreement on it. In an interview with the Telegraph today, Francis Maude makes an astonishing charge about the opaqueness of trade union funding for Labour: “It’s a racket, there are two unions which declare more members paying the political levy than they have members.” If Maude is right, then this is a huge scandal. The Tories, however, will never be on firm political ground on party funding while Lord Ashcroft’s tax status remains unclear. Maude tells the Telegraph he has “no idea” whether Ashcroft does pay tax in the UK and that

There’s a fun but revealing story in the FT today about a row within the Cabinet about what kind of cars they should all be driven round in. The split is between those who favour Ministers travelling in the eco-friendly Toyota Prius and those who think it is important that they use a car made in Britain. John Hutton, the business secretary, is in the British camp along with two of Gordon’s closest allies, Ed Balls and Jack Straw. While on the green side of the fence are Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, David Miliband and Hilary Benn—the past and present environment secretaries.  On the one hand, this can be

Iain Martin highlights it over at Three Line Whip, and rightly so – Jeff Randall’s hatchet job on Alan Greenspan is essential reading.  Not only does it flag up Greenspan’s role in our current financial difficulties, but it also contains this great quote from Michael Bloomberg: “The economic uncertainty our two countries [America and Britain] face today is beginning to feel similar to the economic downturn we experienced six years ago… …But this time the stakes are higher because more people owe more debt and so do our governments. It’s time for us all to get our houses in order because the sun is rising on our borrowing bacchanalia.” I still can’t believe that

4 months overdue, Gordon Brown today outlined a new national security strategy. Was it worth the wait? Not particularly. It’s little more than a collection of proposals that we knew about already, combined with some loose “direction of travel”-type thinking (e.g. that Britain will “seek agreement on tougher controls aimed at reducing weapons and preventing proliferation”). All-in-all, the Tory criticism is pretty-much spot-on: it’s more a “list than a strategy”. And one component of that list is particularly underwhelming. Brown talks about maintaining “strong, balanced, flexible and deployable armed forces”. But what are his new ideas for doing so? In answer: “There will be increased commitment bonuses of up to