Politics

Matthew d’Ancona says that the Jowell Affair has revealed the loneliness of New Labour’s once-omnipotent Godfather, as the Cameron and Brown families prepare for their own bloody turf war when he is gone One evening at dinner with Tessa Jowell and David Mills, Tony Blair spotted an unsightly paint stain outside their Kentish Town house. The Culture Secretary explained that anti-war protesters had discovered her address, and had poured out the paint to signal their disgust. Mr Blair shook his head. ‘Do people really do things like that?’ he asked. Yes, Prime Minister, they do. But one of the many things he and Ms Jowell have in common is a

Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet secretary, has been obliged to deal with a considerable volume of intricate business in the course of his brilliant Whitehall career. When he was John Major’s press secretary in the mid-1990s Sir Gus was obliged to familiarise himself repeatedly with the private lives of Tory ministers and MPs. As a senior Treasury official under Gordon Brown he was forced to master the yet more perverse and arcane subject of working family tax credits. Yet nothing can have prepared Sir Gus for the complexity of his investigation into David Mills, husband of the Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell. The ministerial code is clear. It states that ministers

Asked what he did in the French Revolution, the Abbé Sieyes explained that he survived it. Against all the odds, this has been the London Stock Exchange’s achievement. It is still there. Its dreary old building looks better as a hole in the ground, but the Exchange has found itself a new perch in Paternoster Square, and remains an independent British entity. You could have bet against it. Not long ago its only choice seemed to be whether to surrender to the Germans or the French: ‘Levez les mains’ or ‘Hande hoch’? Not so long before that it agreed to join up with the Frankfurt exchange, Deutsche Börse, whose Swiss

For two months now the Conservative party has been an unusually tranquil ship. What was once the most mutinous vessel in Westminster has, under David Cameron, changed tack and entered new waters without a whisper of the rebellion for which its crew has become infamous. They may disagree with the direction of travel — but after years in the doldrums, it is hard to argue with such progress, whatever the methods. Cameron has brought the Conservative party its best publicity in a generation, set the political agenda and terrified Labour MPs by moving robustly towards the centre. This has involved asking fellow MPs to abandon policies they have cherished for

Last week David Cameron delivered the best speech on modern Conservatism since Keith Joseph’s lectures in the late 1970s. Read to the Demos think-tank on Monday 30 January, it was a paper of real stature: lucid, original, candid and thoughtful. Journalists do not much care for philosophical stuff unless it contains an ‘announcement’ or ‘throws down a gauntlet’, so this attracted little notice. No matter. This speech dispels doubts as to whether Cameron can bring to his party more than a shrewd grasp of marketing. It marks him as an intellectual leader too. I shall now attack the speech. Too important a piece of thinking to be politely applauded, the

Cyangogu, Rwanda It says something for the change that David Cameron has already wrought in his party that I find myself in Rwanda courtesy of Andrew Mitchell, the Conservatives’ international development spokesman, and Lord Ashcroft (who provided the plane). Aid, trade and conflict resolution provide one of the six policy themes on which the Tories are working, and the hardest of Tory hard men now pursue the subject. Mitchell says that the party’s ‘Victor Meldrew’ dislike of international development is to be banished. Rwanda is a good first stop to study the problems because it was probably the greatest disaster of international intervention ever. In 1994 the ‘international community’ proved

My friends would concur in describing me as someone in whom the precautionary instinct is not as strong as it ought to be. But even I, were I Mark Oaten, would have asked myself whether running for the leadership of my party was a good idea. All over Westminster, all over Fleet Street and all over Britain, the reaction last weekend to the News of the World’s revelations was the same. Why, Mark, why? Not why did he patronise rent boys. Most of my countrymen take a worldly if not approving view of the predilections of other men. There’s no accounting for tastes, we murmur — and who knows what

Almost without exception Tony Blair’s Cabinet reshuffles have been a shambles, sometimes descending into farce. The reshuffle that followed the 2001 general election was a case in point. Decisions were delayed and a major reorganisation of Whitehall put on hold as Blair was locked in his study having a shouting match with Cherie. In the anteroom senior officials hung around listlessly, too embarrassed to barge in, awaiting instructions that failed to arrive. Two years later, matters got worse. The Prime Minister, without consulting officials, abolished the ancient office of Lord Chancellor. The decision had to be embarrassingly rescinded as it emerged that this could not be put into effect without

This column’s theory that, post-devolution, it is harder for Scottish MPs to lead a British political party seems to be taking some time to come true. Sir Menzies Campbell is considered just the ticket. He looks dignified and trustworthy. Rather as Colin Powell said that he benefited because he was ‘not that black’, Sir Ming is not that Scottish. There is only a slight accent, just the reassuring, prudent yet kindly tone of the lowlander who looks after the family money. Friends in Fife North East, where Ming is the Member, tell me that his imitation of the least threatening sort of Tory is brilliant and that his wife, Elspeth,

This is the time of year for virtuous resolutions, so let us resolve on a visit to the Bad Investment Guide, which now has a gilt-edged new entry. In among all the flaky oil-drillers and flats brought off the drawing board for a quick turn, we can note the stately presence of Her Majesty’s Government’s 41/4 per cent Treasury stock, due for redemption in 2055. Proudly launched by the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, last summer, this stock now stands at a small premium, which means that if you were to buy it and sit on it for the next 49 years, you would be guaranteed to lose money. Along the way,