Society

Saturday

Phil Collins

Beyond Brown and Blair

Labour has to reinvent itself to fight the next general election, says Phil Collins. The leadership contenders must look to the party’s radical roots So, they were looking in the wrong place all along. For years now the Labour party has been seeking a steely assassin to deal with its unelectable leader. Finally, where James Purnell failed tragically and Geoff Hoon failed farcically, Nick Clegg has succeeded. Gordon Brown has gone and the Labour party is even more leaderless than when he was actually there. Now that Britain has finally settled on a government, the campaigns will start. Or rather, resume. Discreet campaigning has been going on for some time.

Irwin Stelzer

Requiem for a heavyweight

It’s a dirty business. When you’re on top, everyone wants something from you; when you’re not, well, as Billie Holiday says, ‘God bless the child that’s got his own.’ It is a business of sharp elbows, few loyalties, and one in which winning is all that matters. That’s how Rod Serling describes the boxing racket in his Requiem for a Heavyweight. He could just as well have been describing politics. Tony Blair might have been the Labour party’s meal ticket (as Margaret Thatcher was the Tories’) through three general elections, just as Serling’s boxer was the meal ticket for his managers and entourage. But when a boxer, even a champion,

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

The real political fight was Boulton v Campbell

Why can’t Alastair Campbell understand that proper journalists aren’t partisan and malevolent, asks Rod Liddle. Most of them just genuinely want to uncover the truth Who were you rooting for in the real political battle of the week, Adam Boulton of Sky News versus Alastair Campbell? It didn’t quite come to a ruck, which is an enormous shame, but Adam did pursue Campbell in the manner of one of those inexplicably angry men you sometimes meet in a kebab shop at two in the morning, driven by a splenetic fury and a sense of implacable self-righteousness and with sputum dribbling down the front of his nursery-coloured acrylic leisurewear. You can

Ferdinand Mount

Raise a glass to Alan Watkins

Ferdinand Mount mourns the passing of his friend and colleague — and a former Spectator columnist — whose wit, humour and clarity of expression remain unrivalled As Alan Watkins lay dying last Saturday, his younger grandson Harry recited to him the passage from Macbeth he had just learnt at school. It was an apt send-off for the most enchanting political commentator of his day, as meanwhile in Downing Street Birnam Wood was inching closer to Dunsinane (though to be fair to Macbeth he did not claim that he was merely ‘securing a progressive coalition’). To those who professed to be shocked by the shenanigans of the past few days, Alan

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Yes, Scotland skewed the election result — but that shouldn’t make us anti-union

You never really hear much from unionists, do you? I don’t mean the Irish ones, with their leery hate and wannabe milf wives and surnames which you always assume are going to be Paisley. You never really hear much from unionists, do you? I don’t mean the Irish ones, with their leery hate and wannabe milf wives and surnames which you always assume are going to be Paisley. I mean the original ones. Act of Union unionists. The Scottish ones. Haven’t they let things slip, a bit? I’m a unionist, I think. Only, let’s be honest, a fat lot of good I’m going to do. You want meandering musings, perhaps

Dan Llywelyn-Hall

Figuring it out

Being a figurative painter today is probably no more challenging or rewarding than it has ever been. When immersed in the business of putting paint on a surface you are faced with the same problems: colour scheme, composition, gesture and the task of communicating the idea. Although it can help in finding the right audience for my work, I am slightly uncomfortable with being typecast as a figurative painter — i.e., someone who makes paintings with obvious references to the real world — principally because of the connotations: the idea that figuration means accurate photographic representation. I don’t hold with that reverence for accuracy; there has to be room for

Deborah Ross

Into the woods

Robin Hood 12A, Nationwide Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood is ‘the untold story of the man behind the legend’, and if it had remained untold I do not think it would have been a tragedy. At nearly two and a half hours it is horribly long. (If they ever ask me to give a talk at a film school, the first thing I would say to the students is: kids, if you can’t tell a story in 90 minutes, go open a kebab shop.) The dialogue is often mumbled and unfathomable, which may be in its favour, but how would I know? It is serious to a fault. Russell Crowe, as

Taki

The lying game

As I write, the political situation in Britain has many of her citizens bewildered. Despite the staggering deficits and economic shocks, the good people of Britain voted with their hearts, rather than their heads. Not being a medium, I will not try to predict what will happen. My advice to loyal Spectator readers is to go to Fitzdares and place some bets. (I sold my shares in Fitzdares with profit last year.) What I do know for certain is that Britain will soon be in the same boat as my birthplace if the three stooges don’t put the nation’s future ahead of their personal ambitions. Fat chance. So here’s a

Aidan Hartley

White-knuckle ride

Rainy Season on the Cattle Stock Route From the side of the track, a Samburu youth waved me down. I stopped the vehicle. He was gorgeously dressed for market day: all feathers, beads, disks of aluminium, with ochre on his head and bare shoulders. He wore in his beaded belt a stabbing sword in a leather scabbard. In his left hand he carried a herding stick and metal-headed knobkerrie. In his right was a long spear with a teardrop blade at the point, and this he hid in the branches of a wait-a-bit thorn tree for safekeeping until his return. He loped towards me, spat in his palm and shook

Lucy Vickery

Competition | 15 May 2010

In Competition 2646 you were invited to submit a poem that might have been included in T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Dogs. Many of you followed Eliot’s lead and used long lines, so space is limited. I will pause only briefly, then, to commend this week’s stellar runners-up — Frank Osen, Brian Murdoch, George Simmers, Martin Elster and Shirley Curran —  before handing you over to the worthy winners, printed below. They get £30 each; Bill Greenwell nabs the bonus fiver. Barker is a guard-dog, and a hard dog,     watching prowlers, And some suppose his eyes are closed, and that     he’s deep in slumber, But though

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Beautiful Bayern

The last Wednesday in May will never be the same. What always used to be an annual highlight, the European Cup, now Champions League Final, has been brought forward to the weekend before — on the say-so of ever-tinkering Uefa chief Michel Platini so that more children, who won’t have to go to school the next day, can watch it. Whoever said sports bureaucrats didn’t have a heart? So at the end of next week (22 May) we can feast on a match of stupendous European pedigree, Louis van Gaal’s Bayern Munich against Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan in Madrid. And though the head says pragmatic, brilliantly drilled, defensive Inter should

Friday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron’s surprise honeymoon 

Before the election, the received wisdom was that the new government would not have much of a honeymoon. The thinking went that the anti-politics mood was so strong and the cuts required so deep, that there’d be no May ’97 style moment. But the coalition has changed all that. One poll shows a 60 percent approval rating for it. The coalition is also getting a positive response from the international commentariat. Most of today’s New York Times op-ed page is given over to praising it. David Brooks says that the coalition might become a ‘model for all the other countries in the same desperate straits.’ Praise in the foreign press

David Blackburn

Stephen Timms MP stabbed

The Sun is reporting that former finance minister Stephen Timms has been stabbed during a surgery at his constituency office in East Ham. A 21 year-old woman is being detained. Timms has been taken to hospital. His condition is not thought to be life-threatening. More to follow.       

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Tweeting the Second World War

  It’s good to talk about something other than the election and its aftermath. So let me recommend this: the National Archives are tweeting the Second World War. Day by day and several times a day and with a 140 character limit they bring you the news as it was in 1940. It’s a strangely effective ploy. Consider these tweets from [sic] May 13th 1940: War Cabinet to meet at 1830 BST. New Prime Minister Winston Churchill to make statement to House of Commons at around 1400 BST. Germans advancing in Holland, Belgium. RAF has lost 76 aircraft in 48 hours. UK forces continuing to retreat in Norway Members of

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Two areas where the coalition will be radical

Two junior ministerial appointments today suggest areas where the coalition government intends to be radical. First, Nick Herbert has been made minister for police reform. In opposition, Herbert was key to the elected police commissioners agenda and this appointment suggests that the coalition will follow through on this idea in government. The police establishment will attempt to stop elected police commissioners from happening. It’s crucial that Cameron doesn’t blink when they do. Elected police commissioners will ensure that the police concentrate on the crimes that really worry the public. They will do a huge amount tom reduce fear of crime. The other significant appointment is Greg Clark as minister for

Peter Hoskin

The emergency Budget will be the true measure of this coalition

So who agrees with the economists forecasting that VAT will rise – perhaps to 20 percent – this year? I’m not normally one for making predictions but, as far as I can tell, this one seems pretty likely. Various politicos have been leaning towards this measure over the past year. And the new government will need quick ways to plug the fiscal gap while spending cuts filter slowly through the system. Problem is, it might make Vince Cable’s silly attacks during the election look even sillier in retrospect. Oh well. This opens up the wider question of how the coalition will rebalance our public finances. The Lib Dems have said

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tories who missed out on the Cabinet

Downing Street has just blasted out the full list of Cabinet ministers and those ministers entitled to attend Cabinet. The biggest casualty from the old shadow Cabinet is Chris Grayling who goes from being shadow Home Secretary to a minister of state at DWP. Grayling’s demotion has been much predicted in recent weeks. Tellingly, Grayling was the only shadow Cabinet member to argue against offering the Lib Dems a referendum on AV at the shadow Cabinet meeting on Monday. However, I expect he’ll make a good fist of the welfare brief—it is territory he knows well having shadowed DWP in opposition. The next most noticeable Tory absentees are Greg Clark,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Danny Alexander takes on a tough job

Danny Alexander is a brave man to take on the job of Scottish Secretary in this government. I did a slot on Radio Scotland last night and Labour and the SNP were tearing into the Lib Dems for going into coalition with the Tories, accusing them of selling out the 85 percent of Scots who had voted against the Tories. As a unionist, I found the whole conversation extremely disturbing. Even on the Labour side, there seemed to be no recognition that this was a UK election and what mattered was the UK distribution of seats. When you combine this with the fact that Tory MPs are acutely conscious that

Peter Hoskin

Sense reigns, as the Tories redefine their health spending pledge

Here’s another sensible development for the day: the Tories have diluted their pledge to keep on increasing health spending.  As the FT’s Alex Barker reports, the Lib-Con political settlement is going to contain these words: ‘We will increase NHS spending in every year of the parliament.’ So what’s the difference?  Well, the previous pledge was to increase health spending in real terms each year – whereas this new formulation suggests that cash spending will increase, but that there will be cuts once you account for inflation.  Sure, it doesn’t smash the ringfence down completely.  But it’s still progress so far as the fiscal crisis is concerned.  Score one up for