Society

Kelvin MacKenzie reveals in tomorrow’s Spectator that he was interviewed as a potential victim of the News of the World phone hacking scandal. Here’s his story: It was the kind of building George Smiley would have been happy to call home.Anonymous and bleak, it’s the home of Operation Weeting, where 60 officers flog themselves to death every day in the biggest Scotland Yard inquiry in anyone’s memory. I am here by appointment. A charming woman detective has called me a couple of times — when you are a former tabloid editor that’s worrying in itself  — and asked me to drop by ‘at my convenience’ to look at the fact

The dramatic – some would say theatrical – exit of Alexei Kudrin as Russia’s finance minister couldn’t have come at a worst time. The world economy is incredibly fragile and oil prices are in flux. But is Kudrin, highly respected for his fiscal policies and a member of Putin’s inner circle, merely pushing for promotion? With the ruble slumping to a 28-month low yesterday, there are signs the market is worried over the loss of a finance minister who prudently curbed Russia’s budgetary excesses and far-sightedly built up its oil wealth funds. “Kudrin’s resignation will be a big blow for the Russian economy – experts are already forecasting a new wave

In his speech today, Ed Balls proved himself worthy of the “Son of Brown” tag, slipping in more than a few “Brownies”. I thought CoffeeHousers would be interested in some of the figures behind his claims… Balls claimed that “we went into the crisis with lower national debt than we inherited in 1997”. That is flatly untrue. Public sector net debt when Labour took over was £350 billion. In 2006-07 it was £500 billion. Even adjusting for inflation, Brown and Balls had added £62.8 billion in today’s money to the national debt they “inherited” by the time the crisis started: Balls’ defenders will say that he meant “debt ratio” – and, to

I’ve just caught up with Ed Miliband on Marr this morning (transcript here) and his aim seemed to be burying Ed Balls’ complaint about cuts being too fast and too deep. In its place, he called for more growth. Here’s my take on his interview: 1) He doesn’t complain about cuts.  “The basic message is this: we’ve got to cut the deficit, but the best and most important way of doing that is to grow our economy… A year ago there was a contested argument whether the government strategy should work. It’s not working.” You don’t hear him talk about Ed Balls’ “too hard, too fast” cuts, just a reference