Society

Friday

Martin Bright

Norway: The Amy Winehouse Connection

One of the most irritating aspects of modern journalism is the tendency to make spurious connections between unconnected phenomena. The non-existent links between Saddam’s Iraq and al-Qaeda is the most obvious and pernicious of these. Many conspiracy theories originate from making connections where none exist. So when I tell you I am about to connect the death of Amy Winehouse to the massacres carried out by a right-wing anti-Muslim extremist in Norway, I would forgive you for being sceptical. Both stories were running around my head while I was on holiday last week and I can’t stop thinking about them. I run the risk of sounding a combination of pretentious

Peter Hoskin

The markets wax and wane

CoffeeHouser ‘Ben G’ had it right in his comment underneath my earlier post: 24 hour news really does struggle in the face of economic crisis. This morning, all the talk was of a debt-induced apocalypse. Earlier this afternoon, the headlines were about the markets “rallying” after better-than-expected data on the US labour market. And now the BBC website’s main headline is that “turmoil in the stock market persists,” despite those very same labour market figures. Oh yes, it’s difficult to present a consistent front as the money merchants sway and buckle in the breeze. That said, the economic fundamentals remain discouraging. It shouldn’t be forgotten that yesterday’s losses were extraordinary;

Alex Massie Alex Massie

A Gloomy Decade?

Tim Montgomerie is in full-on never waste a crisis mode today. Given the doom plastered across all the front pages (The Sun excepted) this is a good time for wheeling out old favourites: With the world economy facing such a bleak decade this is no time for half measures. We need to be cutting taxes on business and funding them with deeper cuts in the over-sized state. We should be suspending environmental measures that are imposing heavy and futile costs on our manufacturing industry. We shouldn’t be loading new regulations on our banks until the economy is strong again. We need them to be lending. We need reform of competition

Thursday

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

In this week’s Spectator | 4 August 2011

The Spectator this week contains a brilliant piece on the crisis in Somalia by our Kenyan columnist Aidan Hartley. The Daily Telegraph today reports that voters are extremely sceptical about Cameron’s aid policy, wary of shovelling cash overseas when we’re hard-up at home. Aidan’s piece proves the voters absolutely right (no surprise). Not only would the cash be better spent in Britain, but according to Aidan, aid money in Somalia actually makes the situation there much, much worse. He says:  ‘I am haunted by the people I have seen die in Somalia, and by news pictures of the latest famine, but aid agencies are presenting this crisis misleadingly — as

David Blackburn

Barroso behind the times

There were rumours flying around Whitehall this morning that the EU leadership was feeling the strain from yesterday’s rise in Spanish and Italian borrowing costs. Both stand rather too close to 7 per cent for comfort, and the price of insuring against sovereign default in the two countries also soared to its highest level in two weeks. The limited progress made after the Greek deal of 21 July seems to have been undone. In fact, the problems stem from the piecemeal deal to allow Greece to selectively default. As I wrote at the time: ‘The European Central Bank has declared that it is happy to allow this and will continue

Wednesday

The Spectator

The Spectator’s summer reading list

As the headline suggests, what follows is a list of summer reading recommendations from Spectator staff members and writers — with more to come shortly. Although, it must be said, there is one contributor who doesn’t really count as a Spectator staff member or writer… David Cameron: I’ve been reading a book called Skippy Dies by Paul Murray, an Irish writer. I read it when I was in Ibiza and I haven’t managed to finish it, so I’ve picked it up again. What else have I got? I tend to have a pile of books that I dip into. For instance, I’ve got Simon Sebag Montefiore’s Jerusalem. I’ve been reading

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Last of Mr Norris

Mary Robinson was (and is!) a woman and, just as importantly, the first President of the Republic of Ireland whose candidacy was not backed by Fianna Fail. Her successor, Mary McAleese is originally from Northern Ireland and thus, like Robinson, some kind of outsider. Both women expanded the idea of the Irish presidency and, in some small measure, helped refine the notion of what it means to be Irish in a modern european context. So you can see why some felt that David Norris, the independent Senator representing Dublin University in the upper house, would make an excellent candidate to succeed Mrs McAleese. These may be grim economic times but

David Blackburn

Moving slowly towards the future

Yesterday’s leak of Vince Cable’s response to the Hargreaves report into the Digital Economy Act (DEA) set tongues wagging. The headline was as expected: ‘web-blocking’, the practice whereby copyright infringers are barred from internet access, will be dropped because it is unworkable. In line with Hargreaves’ recommendations, Cable also plans to remove restrictions on using copyright material to create parodies, which is excellent news for Downfall enthusiasts. And he will rationalise copyright law to legalise supposedly forbidden practices like copying CDs onto an i-Pod. Finally, Cable has permitted an exception from copyright for data mining for research purposes. The Business Department and the Treasury believe that these reforms will net the economy an extra

Tuesday

Jonathan Jones

An open letter to Will Straw about deficit reduction…

…or why the US cuts are actually faster than, and just as deep as, ours. Dear Will, We hope you don’t mind us writing a letter-form response to your latest post on Left Foot Forward, which argues that the “coalition government’s cuts are deeper and faster than the Tea Party’s”. But, as we see it, there are several problems with your figures which are easier to explain in a conversational format. Here they are, as best as we can express them: i) The first obvious problem comes when you say that Obama set out $83 billion of deficit reduction for 2012 in his March Budget. Actually, he didn’t. The Congressional

Peter Hoskin

The IMF manages to please everyone

A bet-hedging sort of report into the UK’s economy from the IMF today, which largely supports George Osborne’s deficit reduction plan, but will also give some encouragement to his detractors. By way of a summary, here are the parts that might satisfy Osborne himself, as well as Vince Cable, Ed Balls and Mervyn King: The passage that the Chancellor will flash around Westminster comes on the very second page of the IMF document. “Strong fiscal consolidation is under way,” it reads, “and remains essential to achieve a more sustainable budgetary position, thus reducing fiscal risks.” And the endorsements for the Chancellor’s deficit reduction plan continue inside, not least in the

Alex Massie Alex Massie

There is a Government Car Parking Policy? Jesus Wept.

Blimey David, the startling aspect of Eric Pickles’ announcement that central government will loosen the guidelines it issues to local councils concerning the proper provision of car parking spaces is not that this modest proposal has somehow made it through the Whitehall machine but that it was ever thought sensible for Whitehall to tell the Shires how many parkig spaces could be allocated on any given high street or what fees could profitably be levied from them. Not that this is the only example of this kind of mindless interference. There was the great question of the government’s rubbish bin policy recently too. If ever you needed a reminder that

Peter Hoskin

Which department could be replaced with a mathematical equation?

I answer the question in an article for the Times (£) today, in response to Francis Maude’s announcement yesterday. But for those CoffeeHousers who can’t vault the paywall, here’s the relevant passage: “I have been told of an internal report that makes the argument sublimely well. Before last year’s spending review, the Treasury asked a group of outside experts whether plans for a 40 per cent headcount reduction at the Department for Communities and Local Government were too ambitious. Their response? It wasn’t nearly ambitious enough. The staff cut ought to be at least 90 per cent. Responsibilities for fire prevention could be transferred to the Home Office; responsibilities for

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Obama Loses

Hurrah! We have a deal! Financial meltdown has been avoided! Well done Congress! As has to be the case in these circumstances it’s a case of making the best of a rotten and also ridiculous situation. Whether it lasts is a different matter, not least since this Congress cannot bind its successors. In the larger scheme of matters it’s a smaller deal – $900bn in cuts now and, perhaps, $1.5trillion in the future – than most of what has been proposed in recent weeks. That’s not a surprise. Nor is it a great shock to discover that President Obama – and Congressional Democrats – have been forced to accept a

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 1 August – 6 August

Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which — providing your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency — you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no topic, so there’s no need to stay ‘on topic’, which means you’ll be able to debate with each other more freely and extensively. There’s also no constraint on the length of what you write — so, in effect, you can become Coffee House bloggers. Anything’s fair game, from political stories in your local paper, to

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Ian Bell and the Spirit of Cricket

On balance, I agree with Sir Geoffrey: Ian Bell was out and the Indians had nothing for which to feel ashamed. On the contrary, it is England whose reputations are, to my mind, (slightly) diminished by this incident. To recap: batting for England in the second test against India yesterday Ian Bell believed his partner Eoin Morgan had either hit a boundary or that, the players having run three, the umpires had declared the Over finished and announced it was time for tea. At this point Bell was sauntering down the pitch, miles out of his ground, and unaware that a) the ball had not reached the boundary rope, b)

David Blackburn

Bitter Turkish delights

Turkish accession to the EU is apparently no more than a dream of those who desire it at present, but it remains a point of contention across Europe. The British government, for instance, are in favour of enlargement, believing Turkey’s economy to be essential to Europe’s continued economic strength. Accession would also hamper the goal of political integration in the EU, which is expedient to Britain. Not everyone in Britain shares the government’s unqualified enthusiasm for Turkey. The Home Affairs Committee has issued a report this morning, criticising aspects of the government’s policy and insisting on careful management of accession. Specifically, the committee argues that the errors made when EU

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

Balls has the public on his side when it comes to a VAT cut

There are few more useful addendums to Danny Alexander’s comments earlier than YouGov’s poll for the Sunday Times today. It asks people about individual policies for growth, and the results will be disheartening for the Tory leadership and encouraging for Ed Balls. An overwhelming majority supports Balls’s call for a cut in VAT, while few back a reduction in the 50p rate: There’s an almost identical picture when it comes to which polices people think would support growth: Perhaps most tellingly, even Tory supporters are against cutting the 50p rate: And, again, a similar picture emerges with respect to growth: Of course, none of this means that Labour has won

Peter Hoskin

Alexander rallies behind the 50p rate

Danny Alexander is usually the very model of collective responsibility: sober, unfussy and diligent, he sets about the coalition’s work without ever causing a scene. Which is what makes his televised comments about the 50p tax rate earlier all the more striking. When pressed on the subject by interviewer Sophie Rayworth, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury was forceful in response. The government doesn’t necessarily want to cut the rate, he suggested, and those who thought it would are inhabitants of “cloud cuckoo land”. He went on: “We set out in the Coalition agreement, and it’s something that we as Liberal Democrats pushed very hard for, that the Government’s first

Saturday

Melissa Kite

Real life | 30 July 2011

‘I need to ask you something,’ said Steve the sandwich man, looking me up and down suggestively as he buttered my baguette. ‘I need to ask you something,’ said Steve the sandwich man, looking me up and down suggestively as he buttered my baguette. I like Steve. I call at his sandwich hut just off the A3 almost every time I go to the stables to ride my horse. I always order a tuna mayonnaise baguette with salad no onions. And he and I always have a little flirt with each other while he makes it. Steve has spiky peroxide blond hair, a ring through his nose, and lots of

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 30 July 2011

‘If you want to get off and walk or run along the towpath, we’ll meet you at the fourth lock,’ the skipper had told us after breakfast. Breakfast was a croissant and two cups of tachycardia-inducing coffee. The towpath was a six-foot-wide strip of smooth asphalt between two grass verges. It was drizzling. The coffee buzz, the level smoothness of the towpath and the overcast sky were ideal conditions for running a mile or two. I stepped off the gangplank and hit the towpath running. The scenery was French. Burgundian. Sleek and contented Charolais cattle were up to their knees in pasture in every other field. A buzzard circled the