Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.
After the censored purity of the Campbell diaries, the Blair era memoirs competition finally looks like becoming a race to the bitchy bottom. Jonathan Powell’s autobiography is to have the splendid title “Great Hatred, Little Room”. I’m told it will focus on Northern Ireland rather than No. 11. But from the second greatest Brown hater in No. 10 (Cherie being the first) it has much potential.
In a Guardian interview this morning, Douglas Alexander let something interesting slip. Amidst the usual rubbishing of the opposition, Alexander says this about David Cameron: “Over the past 18 months he raised a lot of expectation by asking a lot of questions that people in Britain are asking, but in the past few weeks he has disappointed by failing to answer those questions with credible policies.” What’s interesting about this is that Alexander is essentially admitting that Labour is vulnerable on various issues. The challenge for the Tories is to come up with the kind of policies that can capitalise on these weaknesses. If they can do that, Labour
Why does Gordon Brown have a ‘big tent’? Why does Gordon Brown have a ‘big tent’? Why, to be pertinent, does he have a ‘tent’ at all? There must have been leaders, throughout world history, who have ruled calmly and inclusively and by consensus. Yet if we were to group these people together on a Venn diagram, in their own little circle, surely this circle would not interlock extensively with the one representing ‘people who ruled from tents’. Genghis Khan ruled from a tent. Sheltering under felt on the harsh Mongol steppes, did he ever worry about reaching out to the other side? ‘We may disagree on minor matters, such as whether
Monday Hooray! Labour no longer the Party of Economic Competence!! It’s all over! Or rather, it’s all back on!! Dave looks like a weight has been lifted. Fifteen different pictures of desperate people queuing at banks spread out on the conference table. We want to frame a few of them, as commemoration of The Day Our Luck Finally Turned, but Jed can’t decide which ones he likes best. It’s just so dramatic. Reminds me of the day they had a ‘buy one get one free’ on sacks of stud and youngstock mix at Wibberley Horse and Rider. Though not quite so hysterical. Meanwhile, the silly feud continues. Thatcher’s office on
It will be, for Gordon Brown, a sweet irony. For years he has longed to address Labour conference as its leader. Now, when it is finally his turn, he can no longer do so — at least not in the way that he had foreseen. His mission is to stand at the podium in Bournemouth as a national leader, a statesman who has transcended tribalism and soars above party political divides. He no longer wants to be simply chieftain of the tribe gathered in front of him but a kind of father figure encompassing Labour, Tory and everyone else. His aim is also to stage the most choreographed party conference
An interview with Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist If Hillary Clinton is sworn in as 44th President of the United States in January 2009, the man sitting opposite me in the bar of the Dorchester will become one of the most powerful people in the world. Mark Penn, pollster extraordinaire, adviser to Tony Blair in the 2005 election, and legendary number-cruncher to Bill Clinton is now chief strategist to the Democrat frontrunner and, it is widely believed, Hillary’s alter ego, the man she calls at 7 a.m. wherever she is in the world. In her memoirs, she calls him ‘brilliant and intense’ and ‘shrewd and insightful’. But it is
It’s Sunday evening, and John Hutton has just come back from one of his regular weekend in Ypres. The Secretary of State for Business and Enterprise is an enthusiastic first world war amateur historian and is currently writing a play based on one of the stories he’s unearthed. It’s about John Elkington, a British colonel who surrendered without permission in the Somme in chaotic circumstances. He was court-marshalled and cashiered, but was so determined to keep fighting he joined the French Foreign Legion. His bravery eventually earned him a royal pardon. It is the type of diehard martial spirit which many of Mr Hutton’s supporters once fancied they saw in
‘If someone in the UK is calling for a referendum, that is not because the text we have in front of us is a Constitution.’ Not my words. They belong to Giuliano Amato, vice chairman of the Convention that drafted the old Constitutional Treaty. Last week in the Spectator the government was accused of being dishonest regarding the European Reform Treaty (‘Vote for honesty’, 15 September). We are not. We did indeed promise a referendum on the old Constitutional Treaty. But the Reform Treaty is not a Constitution. In June, all 27 leaders of the Member States of the European Union took the same view, declaring ‘the Constitutional concept has
From Sunday, Coffee House will have extensive coverage of the Labour Conference. Jon Cruddas, who ran such a strong campaign for the Labour deputy leadership, will be writing a conference diary for us; giving us his thoughts on what’s going on in the hall and on the fringe. We’ll also have reports on all the developments in Bournemouth from Matthew d’Ancona and Fraser Nelson and a review of Gordon’s big speech from Lloyd Evans.
If you’re trying to figure out who should be blamed for the whole Northern Rock debacle, do read Martin Vander Weyer’s column today. As Martin argues, Northern Rock is in large part responsible for the mess it got itself into to while the Financial Services Authority also deserves blame for sitting on its hands after it became aware of the potential problem. But the crisis has also demonstrated that the regulatory system that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling set up in 1997 is not fit for purpose.
Andrew Porter has a must-read story on the chances of an early election in the Telegraph this morning. He reports that Brown will not decide whether to call an early election until after the Labour conference. Interestingly, Labour advisers seem to believe that an election called this year would be a ‘mandate poll’ which would allow Brown to run on his plans for the future. While if Brown delays, he’ll have to fight a verdict campaign that would require him to defend Labour’s record in office since 1997. I’m not sure that the split is this neat but it does seem that the chances of an early election are once
Lloyd Evans watches as Ming Campbell attempts to revive his party and leadership and witnesses a performance which is typically, well, Liberal Democrat. Lloyd Evans The final day of the Lib Dem conference and the leader’s chance to silence the ‘Sling Ming’ plotters. Mr Campbell strode into the hall wearing a dark suit and a lime green tie and shook hands with an Asian in a wheelchair. Beside him his glamorous wife Elspeth sported a white tunic with big Andy Pandy buttons. This sent a nicely judged message: I am clearly the First Lady and therefore the man beside me must be the prime minister-in-waiting (and waiting and waiting). At
Ming Campbell’s speech to conference just now removed any doubt about where the Lib Dems fit on the political spectrum. In a passage criticising Gordon Brown he charged that “New Labour remains Blue Labour” and throughout Campbell sought to place himself to the left of Labour. Overall, the speech was strong with well-delivered jabs at both Brown and Cameron. His joke about Cameron that “Margaret Thatcher would have to concede: He turns if you want him to. The laddie’s all for turning” should get him some good play on the evening news. While his litany of Brown’s failings was powerfully delivered. The section on foreign policy was a crowd pleaser
It was great to see Baroness Thatcher on such good form at the Rudy Giuliani dinner last night and with some choice words about the decision to bail out Northern Rock. I suspect David Cameron is quite pleased she doesn’t do public speaking any more. She told me a few months ago that “you can’t have stability without tax cuts,” a wonderful inversion of the current Tory mantra. Notice how Giuliani (and Fred Thompson) crosses an ocean to be pictured with The Lady an opportunity which Mr Cameron has conspicuously failed to avail himself of. His loss. When I saw Conservative Home’s Tim Montgomerie amongst the dinner guests, I decided
On Wednesday night, The Spectator and Intelligence Square hosted a debate on the motion of whether or not Britain has failed Zimbabwe. You can listen to the whole debate via this link and have your say by voting here. The motion in the hall was carried by 455 votes to 203. The Spectator’s theatre critic Lloyd Evans reviews the debate here.
It has always seemed to me that the controversy over the EU Reform Treaty and the Government’s refusal to hold a referendum was more about honesty and transparency than sovereignty and European integrationism. That was the essence of The Spectator’s call last week for a popular vote, under the headline “Vote for Honesty”. I am amazed that a Government so supposedly committed to restoring trust and building a “new politics” based on consultation, dialogue with the electorate and Citizens’ Juries can be so cavalier about ditching its pledge in the 2005 manifesto to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution. In the new Spectator, Jim Murphy, the up-and-coming Europe Minister,
Daniel Larison as already done yeoman work dismantling elements of David Gelernter’s appalling piece in The Weekly Standard. But more needs to be done and, that being the case, let’s have at it in this and a number of posts to follow. Gelertner’s piece, cheerily headlined “Defeat at Any Price” makes the case, natch, that Democrats and liberals in the United States want to see America defeated in Iraq. Of course, they’re devilishly clever and never actually come out and say this (Gelertner declines to buttress his case with any quotations from Messrs Clinton, Obama, Edwards et al that would support his claim that they believe “America would be better
You can now listen to the inaugural Spectator / Intelligence Squared debate via this link. The motion is ‘Has Britain failed Zimbabwe.’ Update: At the debate the motion was passed by 455 votes to 203. You can vote here.The Spectator’s theatre critic Lloyd Evans reviews the debate here.
Following on from Fraser: if I was Gordon, the news that Cherie is writing her memoirs would be one pre-conference headline I would not be happy about. The Campbell diaries were quite openly and systematically edited to avoid embarrassment to Prime Minister Brown. I would be amazed if Tony Blair’s autobiography is an exercise in score-settling. First, as I wrote in my Sunday Telegraph column at the weekend, the two men are getting on better than they have for many years. The arch-Brownite Ed Balls, once a ferocious critic of the ex-PM, has been telling colleagues that he hopes his new report on the prospective economic regeneration of the Palestinian
You have to hand it to her. Cherie Blair has beaten her husband to it, and signed a book deal. Blair hasn’t event started writing up his memoirs, but there’s cash to be had so the “bolshie scouser” (copyright T. Blair) is wasting no time. Read all about it at The Bookseller. Can any Coffee Housers help her our with possible chapter headings?
