Society

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Davos man thinks sovereign debt is the most likely cause of the next financial crisis 

The markets have traditionally not looked too carefully at sovereign debt. But that seems to be changing. At a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, people were asked to vote what was most likely to cause the next crisis. More than 50 percent of them, 50.7 to be precise, named sovereign debt far ahead of protectionism, 37.3%, and over-regulation, 12%. Another interesting tit-bit from Davos is this quote from Ken Rogoff, a former IMF chief economist who the Tories greatly admire, ‘If you took away the props of the (European Central Bank) and the (International Monetary Fund) half a dozen countries in Europe would fail tomorrow’.    

Alex Massie Alex Massie

SOTU = Same Old Tired Utterances

Barack Obama and George W Bush might not have much in common, but you can certainly argue that their speechwriters do. One of the limitations of set-piece events such as the State of the Union is that, in the end, many of them are pretty similar. Certainly, you can bet that the same ideas will be flagged and flogged every year. Perhaps that’s inevitable in these laundry-list speeches but if so then that’s another argument for a shorter, punchier, thematic address* that at least tries to do something different or be in some way memorable. So, many thanks to Cato’s Tad DeHaven for compiling a list demonstrating how much of

Alex Massie Alex Massie

We’re All Doomed

As President Obama might put it, let me be clear: the Daily Mail is a terrific newspaper and one may admire its professionalism and the talent of its journalists (some of whom are friends, of course) without necessarily agreeing or even sympathising with its worldview. But, if you were to only read the Mail you might be terrified of life given the long list of substances that, according to the paper, may increase your chances of dying a hideous, painful, cancer-riddled death. These include: Artificial Light, Beer, Candle-lit dinners, Deoderant, Electricity, Facebook, Grapefruit, Hair Dye, Left-handedness, Money, Oestregen, Oral Sex, Plastic Bags, American Rice, Shaving, Space Travel, Soy Sauce, Talcum

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Blair’s real crime

As Tony Blair prepares to sit in the dock tomorrow, I suspect he knows he’ll walk it. The focus is on the case for war and how it was spun – which will be his Mastermind specialist subject. Nor will anything new be uncovered. As one of the journalists whose summer holiday was eaten up by the Hutton Inquiry, I have been getting a sense of deja lu throuhout the Chilcot Inquiry – and Hutton was more informative because he exposed emails written at the time. They had more meaning and impact that the hazy recollections we hear now. The real story is one that Chilcot has unearthed almost accidentally:

The Spectator

In this week’s issue<br />

The latest issue of the Specatator is published today. If you are a subscriber you can view it here. If you have not subscribed, but would like to view this week’s content, you can subscribe online here, or purchase a single issue here. For all his talk about devolving power, Mr Cameron has as Tory leader centralised power at every opportunity. It is a long-standing joke that anyone who works as one of Mr Cameron’s aides automatically outranks any shadow Cabinet member. James Forsyth argues that Cameron and Osborne must listen to their backbenchers – or face revolt. It’s a mistake to focus on the dodgy dossier, says Fraser Nelson.

David Blackburn

Is the West rich enough to buy the Taliban?

The Lancaster House conference commences this morning and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has penned a stupefyingly worthy article in the Times, playing the same old tunes about the intention to ‘improve governance, fight corruption and bring Taleban fighters back into society if they are ready to lay down their arms.’ The Afghanistan mission has clarity of purpose in that attempts to build a democracy have been abandoned in favour of establishing lasting Afghan security. The nascent strategy relies too heavily on the Afghan National Army; as Daniel Korski notes, the non-ideological Taliban, those inscrutable soldiers of fortune, will facilitate or undermine stability. Richard Holbrooke is adamant that: “The overwhelming majority of

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Both Sinn Fein and the DUP would rather that the focus is on the talks in Northern Ireland than their respective scandals

The talks on devolving peace and justice in Northern Ireland are in trouble. The Prime Minister has left without a deal being signed, having been there far longer than he intended. But as the talks continue, it is worth remembering that that both DUP and Sinn Fein are benefitting from the focus on this issue. For the DUP, it moves the conversation on from the financial and marital problems of the Robinsons. While Sinn Fein is glad that there isn’t more discussion of the child abuse scandal in the Adams family which as the revelations in The Sunday Tribune show is extremely serious and raises huge questions about Gerry Adams’

Daniel Korski

Negotiate, Negotiate, Negotiate

Whitehall has turned into the lobby of the UN General Assembly, as dignitaries gather to give NATO’s Afghan campaign renewed impetus. Will it all amount to much? It depends. In this piece for the magazine E!Sharp I set out my stall: ‘[if the conference] is to achieve anything more than fill out the evening news, the gathering must have only one aim: to help Hamid Karzai begin reaching out to insurgents and fence-sitters, drawing them into a negotiation that can drain the insurgency of all but the religiously-committed warriors.’ Part of this will involve giving money, jobs and security guarantees to foot-soldiers, as I recommended in a report back in

David Blackburn

Stimulating social mobility will take decades

Another pallid dawn brings more statistics proving that Britain is riven by inequality – ‘from the cradle to the grave’, concludes the Hills report. Unless the offspring of professionals pursue a peculiar urge to be writers or enter Holy Orders, they will bequeath ever greater advantages to their children. For those in converse circumstances, Larkin’s line about inherited misery comes to mind, albeit in a slightly different context. 50 years of unparalleled prosperity, and social mobility has stagnated. Before the wailing and navel gazing begins, it must be asserted that the continued aspirations of the privileged and the fulfilment of their opportunities are not to blame. The root cause of

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Sad Haggis Update

I should have known that the news was too good to be, you know, true. Turns out that all the excitement about the Unted States dropping its disgraceful ban on the importation of proper haggis is somewhat premature. A spokeswoman from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service emails to “clarify” the matter: Recently, several news articles have incorrectly stated that the U.S. will be relaxing or lifting its ban on Scottish haggis  At this time, haggis is still banned in the U.S. The APHIS rule covers all ruminant imports, which includes haggis.  It is currently being reviewed to incorporate the current risk and latest science

Daniel Korski

Kabul needs a big UN beast

The London Afghanistan conference is meant to appoint a civilian NATO coordinator to help align the counter-insurgency effort. The well-respected British ambassador in Kabul, Mark Sedwell, is a front-runner (as, incidentally, was Geoff Hoon until he plotted against Gordon Brown). If the press just publish the news, many questions will go unanswered. That’s not right. For the new post means that a two-year effort to make the UN the main aid coordinator has failed, and the appointee is likely to produce little unless individual NATO allies award him some spending power – a very unlikely scenario. There is nothing easier than to add a job to solve a problem, and

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Royal Family Update

I’m a monarchist- and much more keenly so than I was as a young chap – but the way this Daily Mail story is written is so ghastly and gawd-help-us that it almost makes one doubt the sense of having a non-elected head of state… Prince Philip has been spotted doing his bit for the environment – by clearing up litter at Sandringham. The Duke of Edinburgh prince surprised onlookers by bending down to pick up a discarded coffee cup and its plastic lid after church on the Royal estate in Norfolk. The 88-year-old prince did his good deed while walking back to Sandringham House after the traditional morning service

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tories will contest every seat in Northern Ireland

On the Today Programme this morning, Sarah Montague kept pressing Sammy Wilson of the DUP on whether his party would enter into an electoral alliance in certain seats with the new Conservative and Ulster Unionist grouping. Wilson suggested that the DUP would stand but would welcome it if other unionists stood aside. But that’s not going to happen. The Conservatives are determined to contest every seat in Northern Ireland. They see this as crucial to their attempt to move politics there beyond the sectarian and constitutional issues. They must also surely know that any kind of electoral alliance with the DUP could, given the views of some DUP politicians, cause

David Blackburn

Redwood is right – prison sentencing may need reform out of fiscal necessity

John Redwood is one of the most original thinkers on the right; and tasked with finding solutions to cut expenditure, he has concluded that too many petty thieves and fraudsters are imprisoned. Redwood argues: ‘The first is all those people who commit crimes by taking money or property that does not belong to them, ranging from the common thief to the fraudster. Surely it would be much better to prove to them that crime does not pay. They should be made to pay the costs of the police and judicial system in handling and prosecuting their case. They should make full restitution to any third party affected by their actions,

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face & Welcome to America

At last, real change we can believe in: the Obama administration is lifting the pernicious ban on haggis that for more than 20 years* has deprived Americans the chance to munch the great chieftain o’ the pudden-race. True, during the long, dark years of prohibition some enterprising American butchers stepped into the breach and made versions of the noble creature that attempted to emulate the real thing. While fine as far as they go such enterprises can only go so far. Trying to make haggis without using sheeps’ lungs is, in the end, an insuperable problem. All heart but not enough pluck, you might say. So here at least Obama

Andrew Lilico

Here’s how you raise £100bn through tax hikes

Policy Exchange has repeatedly urged that the country’s fiscal problems should be addressed principally by spending cuts, combined with some tax rises.  We have recommended a ratio of 80 percent spending cuts to 20 percent tax rises. The “structural” deficit in the UK (i.e. the bit of the total deficit that will still be there once the economy has recovered) is estimated by the Treasury at 9 percent of GDP, or about £125 billion.  Not all of that needs to be eliminated quickly, but the vast majority of it does, say £100 billion.  So on a ratio of 80:20 our position equates to £80 billion in cuts in underlying spending

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall 25 January – 31 January

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

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Daud Abdullah is a baddun, but the MCB is moving in the right direction

An interesting piece by the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Stephen Pollard, in the magazine this week on the government apparently backtracking on the issue of the Muslim Council of Britain, and talking to it once again. The MCB was removed from the officially designated category of Good Islam a while back and placed in the ever expanding arena of Bad Islam, along with suicide bombers, Hizb ut Tahrir, women who wear copious veils etc etc. This was at least partly as a consequence of its boss, Daud Abdullah, signing something called The Istanbul Declaration, which demands that all Muslims must regard countries or individuals which “stand alongside” the “Zionist

David Blackburn

Out of recession and into debt

The deficit is in the Tories’ crosshairs this morning. George Osborne pens an article in the Times, castigating Brown’s obsession with continuity: ‘We need a new British economic model that learns from the mistakes of the past. First, that new economic model requires government to live within its means. We entered the recession, after years of growth, with one of the highest deficits in the developed world and we leave the recession with our credit rating under threat. That will have potentially disastrous consequences for international confidence. If Britain starts to pay the sort of risk premiums that Greece is paying, the interest bill on a £150,000 mortgage would go

David Blackburn

When it comes to localism, absolute clarity of aim is essential

How deep is David Cameron’s commitment top empowering local government? His response to the New Local Government Network’s latest report will be an indication. The report argues that elected mayors should raise or cut business rates and council tax, and spend the proceeds on local services. Mayoral coffers will hardly match the riches of the Spanish Main, the Times reports: ‘The authors have calculated that a 4p levy on business rates could raise £30 million for Birmingham, £10 million for Newcastle, £26 million for Leeds and £11 million for Milton Keynes.’ But even with a little more disposable cash, mayors could improve local infrastructure and oversee appointments to local primary