Politics Archives

Saturday

15 Sep 2007

Why John Reid is stepping down

Earlier today, like many people around Westminster, I received a text message from John Reid letting me know that he will be standing down as an MP at the next election. As sorry as I am – John was an invigorating presence on the parliamentary and Whitehall scene, and one of the few ministers who fully grasped how the world changed on 9/11 – the news does not come as an enormous surprise. For a start, he is blissfully happy in his marriage and had always talked wistfully of a time when he would be able to devote himself fully to his wife (‘I’m a happy bastard, me’). But he

The Spectator

How government and the Bank of England exacerbated the credit crunch

The credit crunch is global. So why has there only been a run on the banks in Britain? Alistair Darling suggests Northern Rock is a mere domino in a chain which started in America. But John Redwood’s blog points out that the first domino was knocked over by the clumsy fingers of the Labour government. Only in Britain did the central bank refuse to boost liquidity by lending at a non-penalty rate (unlike the ECB, the Fed, the Norwegians, Swiss, Russians etc). The next bit sounds nerdy, so was the ERM crisis so stay with me. Exacerbated by the BoE’s intransigence, the de facto cost of bank borrowing, three-month

The Spectator

Might Brown’s tea-time stunt backfire?

On Thursday I thought that Gordon Brown had pulled off a masterstroke by inviting Margaret Thatcher to tea at Downing Street, but now I’m not so sure. Marina Hyde’s column is a good guide to the shifting reactions to it and is well worth reading. As Hyde writes, “This piece of gesture politics – even that description flatters – reveals nothing more nor less than a total contempt for the voter. What is the slackjawed electorate supposed to divine from this cynical dumb show? Perhaps that Gordon is above anything so unseemly as ideological difference, or that some sort of tea-based transubstantiation has given him new prime ministerial gravitas, or

The Spectator

Only a Lib Dem could get it this wrong

Sir Menzies Campbell’s call for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU is a desperate bid to preserve party unity on the eve of what may be his last conference as Lib Dem leader. No less than Harold Wilson in 1974-5, he seeks to avert a party split by backing a plebiscite. The trouble is that the question Ming wants to pose – In or Out – is a complete irrelevance (except for Ukip voters). The controversy over the re-heated EU Constitution, now stripped of grandiose language but substantially the same as it was in 2004, has nothing whatsoever to do with membership of Europe. It is about trust

Hywel Williams

The Tories will need more national fear to win

Only national insecurity will swing it for the Conservatives Ten years ago this autumn I started to write a history of Conservative government in the 1990s. Guilty Men was designedly satirical and cynical — qualities which seem Tory to many. Some readers liked the jokes. Others, burdened by conviction, thought it too laconic by half — especially since I had been a Cabinet adviser (to John Redwood). Nonetheless the book had a reasonably serious aim: it wished to demythologise much of the stuff Tories believed about themselves and Britain. Conservatives, I thought, had embraced a myth of their own invincibility. This was not just a question of their personal conceit.

Matthew Dancona

Join us in the great Intelligence2 debate

The Spectator’s new partnership with the debating forum Civilised debate is the essence of The Spectator: it is what animated ‘the little Committee of Politicks’ that Joseph Addison encountered in the St James’s Coffee-house and described in the magazine in March 1711. Three centuries on, it is the desire for a cheerful rhetorical punch-up, in print or in person, that still excites us most at 22 Old Queen Street. Rod Liddle, Jeremy Clarke, Deborah Ross, Taki, Fraser Nelson: these are only some of the verbal pugilists who form the ‘little Committee’ in our own happy, cacophonous republic of letters. So it is with the greatest pleasure that we are launching

James Forsyth

Petraeus’s true message: we must be patient

There was a single, unmistakable message emerging from the testimony of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker in Washington this week: the Iraq war may have started on President George W. Bush’s watch, but it will not end on it. Petraeus was as impressive as you would expect a four-star general with a Princeton PhD to be. But his timetable for the withdrawal of US troops was revealing — consisting merely of a series of question marks after March 2008. Anyone who thinks that the US military will be out of Iraq by 20 January 2009, when the next president takes the oath of office, or even inside the next administration’s

Matthew Parris

The media resented the McCanns muscling in on their private terrain

My former sketchwriting colleague, Simon Hoggart, has a maxim he would cite when any of us parliamentary sketchwriters were tempted to showcase a genuinely and intentionally funny MP. Humorous journalists, Simon would warn, had no business giving a platform to would-be jokers in the world of politics. Humour was our trade not theirs. We should never laugh with them: only at them. In our sketchwriters’ guild it should be a union rule not to encourage competition from unpaid amateurs. ‘We make the jokes around here.’ In an altogether darker and sadder way, I wonder whether, in their relationship with the news media, this is the mistake Kate and Gerry McCann

Fraser Nelson

Sir Menzies Campbell will either be sacked or will end up in the Cabinet

There is just one consolation for Sir Menzies Campbell as he prepares for his second and probably last conference as Liberal Democrat leader: they will not come after him in Brighton. It is too late, now, to knife the leader. Gordon Brown could call an election at any moment, and there is no time for regicide. Sir Menzies has been saved by the sheer desperation of his predicament. So much fun has been had blaming David Cameron for Labour’s lead in the opinion polls that few have looked closely at where Mr Brown’s new voters are really coming from. The Conservatives have, in fact, held on to their voters reasonably

The Spectator

Vote for honesty

The long quest to find a purpose for the Lib Dems is the modern equivalent to the probably apocryphal story about the child asking his mother about Lord Randolph Churchill: ‘What is that man for?’ The long quest to find a purpose for the Lib Dems is the modern equivalent to the probably apocryphal story about the child asking his mother about Lord Randolph Churchill: ‘What is that man for?’ As the third party meets in Brighton for its annual conference, the heart sinks at the prospect of more debates on tedious political marginalia. But Sir Menzies Campbell should abandon his present reservations and heed those of his colleagues now

Friday

14 Sep 2007

Alex Massie

President Micawber speaks!

George W Bush’s speech on Iraq and Petraeus and all the rest of it yesterday had a pretty simple message. Hold tight. Stay patient. Endure. Something extraordinary will turn up. Since the President’s transformation into Mr Micawber seems complete, this passage from David Copperfield seems somewhat troublesomely apposite. If Mr Bush is Mr Micawber; then the American (and Iraqi) people are the other Micawbers: Mr Micawber…then addressed himself to me, and proffered me the satisfaction of “witnessing the re-establishment of mutual confidence between himself and Mrs Micawber”. After which, he invited the company generally to the contemplation of that affecting spectacle. “The veil that has long been interposed between Mrs

Alex Massie

Gordo the Merciless

Gordon’s just a regular bloke, don’t you know. Not like poor old Phoney Tony. That, at least, would seem to be the message of Saatchi & Saatchi’s first advert for Labour: But if we’re talking about Flash Gordon, then, really, a more appropriate slogan would be Kala’s threat: “We’re going to empty your memory as we might empty your pockets.“ Please leave your own suggestions for better captions in the comments section… UPDATE: Commenter Gabriel suggests “No Gekko, Just Gordon” which is quite good but a little too Broon-friendly to be considered ideal. Still, he’s leading the way and putting the rest of you lubbers to shame.

Alex Massie

Of course, Gordon has always admired Maggie…

Neil Harvey-Smith, gingerly returning to blogging after time in the Canadian wilderness, observes the latest example of Gordon Brown’s cynicism. Today’s message: he admires Margaret Thatcher very much. Yesterday’s message: her “doctrinaire prejudice” failed Britain. That’s not, incidentally, a view from 1983 but from a 1989 book he published titled, Where There Is Greed; Margaret Thatcher and the Betrayal of Britain’s Future.

Thursday

13 Sep 2007

The Spectator

Gordon’s new ad message: I’m not Tony

Back in May, the American pollster (and Spectator contributor) Frank Luntz advised Gordon Brown to make a virtue out of his reputation for being boring. The Prime Minister has today taken this advice. The new Labour logo is to be “Not flash, just Gordon”: precisely the right message. But this message will work best in the immediate aftermath of Blair’s departure while people still think “thank God that grinning charlatan has gone”. In the long run, I suspect they will miss the charisma. So if this has indeed been chosen an election logo, it suggests it will be needed sooner rather than later while the “just Gordon” mantra remains a

The Spectator

Brown invites Thatcher into his ever expanding tent

Margaret Thatcher is taking tea with Gordon Brown, Ben Brogan has the scoop. This is just about the last thing that David Cameron needs today as he tries to defuse the Gummer Goldsmith report. He’s now bound to get questions about whether he feels snubbed and if he’ll be inviting her round for a cuppa at CCHQ and if not why not. (Regulars at Lady Thatcher’s parties have long noted Cameron’s conspicuous absence and those close to her are amazed at his failure to court her.) The invitation shows how far Brown is prepared to go to establish himself as a national, not party, figure. He is so confident in

Wednesday

12 Sep 2007

The Spectator

The coming Lib Dem leadership battle

A book has just landed on my desk with Chris Huhne’s beaming, discoloured face on its cover. The LibDem environment spokesman is carrying a placard saying “green taxes now”. So yes, it seems the Liberal Democrat leadership contest has begun. My political column tomorrow is on the LibDem wake/conference next week, and how it will likely descend into a fringe meeting dogfight between Huhne and Nick Clegg. Both feature in this book, which appears to be a leftwing equivalent of the Orange Book (whose market-orientated solutions appalled LibDem membership). This time, it seems leadership hopefuls must demonstrate leftist credentials, which they are doing here. I do feel for Ming. His

Tuesday

11 Sep 2007

Alex Massie

Thompson’s not so shocking brief for terrorists

Chris Orr wonders why Fred Thompson’s work – albeit just a handful of hours – on behalf of the Libyans accused of the Lockerbie bombing is not receiving more attention. Fred Thompson, Terrorist Lawyer! Well, OK. Thompson says his opinion was sought on the venue question, leading Chris to say: Thompson’s mention of “venue” issues, too, is a little misleading. We’re not talking about whether someone is tried in Manhattan or Queens here. As far as I can tell, we’re talking about whether two indicted terrorists would be extradited from Libya to face justice. (It took years, but in 1999 they were finally handed over for trial in the Netherlands.)

The Spectator

RIP Anita Roddick, inspiration for the new Conservatives

Anita Roddick, implausible as it may seem, deserves a footnote in future histories of the Conservative Party as well as the annals of ‘ethical consumerism’ where her place was already secure. Long before Fairtrade coffee, barn-fed eggs in Tesco and organic everything, she had spotted and mapped out the psychological terrain where the ethics of the environmental movement and the culture of the so-called New Age met the arithmetic of high street capitalism. The Body Shop encapsulated in prototypical form the ideas developed in Steve Hilton’s book, Good Business: ideas which have, in turn, infused David Cameron’s emphasis upon the environment, his demand that business conform to the requirements of

The Spectator

Boris’s first full length TV interview of the campaign

Tonight on 18 Doughty Street, Iain Dale has a half an hour interview with The Spectator’s official candidate for Mayor of London. You can watch the entire thing here. One point that Boris makes that is well worth pondering the next time you’re sitting waiting for a tube train that is delayed or stuck in a tunnel for no apparent reason is just how many absurdly well paid people there are working in Livingstone’s transport bureaucracy: “Do you know there are 232 people working for Transport for London who are earning more than £100,000 a year?! Two hundred and thirty two! In the Treasury there are 7 who earn more

Monday

10 Sep 2007

Alex Massie

Which candidate would make the best Secretary of State?

Steve Chapman hears Joe Biden ask a decent question: At each of his four stops today, there was a moment when he got the attention of his audience. It came when he noted, ruefully, that he’s often mentioned as a possible secretary of state in a Democratic administration. “I have a rhetorical question for you,” he said in Algona. “Are you prepared to vote for anybody for president who isn’t capable of being secretary of state?” He went on: “If you’re not capable of being secretary of state, are you capable of being president in 2008?” Now obviously the Secretary of State is, in these post-Kissinger times, somewhat akin to