Society

Saturday

Deborah Ross

Poetic evocation

Sleep Furiously U, Key Cities Fireflies in the Garden 15, Key Cities Sleep Furiously is a film (obviously) which, by rights, should make you Sleep Soundly (very) as there is no narrative, almost no dialogue to speak of, and no regular characters beyond the driver of a mobile library who at least takes hair-pin bends at 80mph with his eyes closed. Only joking; I don’t think he ever gets out of first gear. Maybe, on his birthday, he does shift up to second, but I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure. Directed by Gideon Koppel, it’s about the tiny Welsh farming community of Trefeurig, which is where his parents

Aidan Hartley

Wild Life | 30 May 2009

Zimbabwe ‘Ah, and no cake to offer you!’ Mrs H— said. ‘I would have baked one if only I’d known you were coming.’ It was teatime in Zimbabwe. A golden afternoon sunlight streamed across the shrivelled garden lawn and the mopani woodland beyond. Mr H— chipped in, ‘But of course the telephone is cut off, so you could not have called.’ We all made polite noises but one thing was clear. This elderly couple had no cakes to bake. I looked into their faces and saw they were starving. A neighbour had encouraged me to visit the couple to boost their spirits. He had said, ‘I’m very worried about them.

Friday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Tory Cuts and British Defence Policy

More riffing on Nelson! Fraser, that is. His Telegraph article and subsequent Coffee House post on future spending cuts argue that the Tories are, defensively, planning to leave the NHS budget untouched (and international development!) and that doing so will require 10% cuts across every other department. Including defence. Since most people would, I think, accept that the armed forces are under-funded and over-stretched as it is, imposing further cuts surely and necessarily demands a reappraisal of current commitments and future capabilities. But do we hear anything of that from the Tories? I’m not sure we do. Indeed, Liam Fox’s speech to the Scottish Tory conference suggested, as I wrote

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Prepare for Brown’s green shoot optimism

Why should Labour keep Gordon Brown as their leader? If Labour come third behind the LibDems at the Euro elections, this question is certain to be raised in public by someone. I hear that the Dear Leader has prepared an answer: green shoots. Seriously. Look, he will say, the economy is on the turn. And when those green shoots come, people will thank him for leading us through the storm. No Brown, no gratitude. So why chuck him out, just when things are on the turn?   This is why today’s house price data from Nationwide has political significance: it will buttress Brown’s claim that he should stay to take

The Spectator

The week that was | 29 May 2009

Here are some of the posts made over the past week on Spectator.co.uk: Fraser Nelson highlights the numbers which undermine the Budget deceit, and sets out the choice David Cameron faces now that we’re over the cliff. James Forsyth outlines the grim international situation, and wonders whether Labour will dump Gordon Brown. Peter Hoskin gives his take on Julie Kirkbride and Margaret Moran standing down, and says that politicians must ensure that voters don’t get left behind. The Skimmer raises a quizzical eyebrow at the Daily Mail’s latest book serialisation. Clemency Burton-Hill reports from the Hay Festival. Clive Davis warns against an evening in Bath. Alex Massie picks up on

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Who will sing for Labour?

The Independent’s gossip column reports that Labour is having some trouble recruiting celebrity talent to us annual fundraising dinner: “Party press officers insist that they have a “surprise singing performer” to compound [Eddie Izard’s] credentials. Who could it be? The usual cast of characters (Mick Hucknall, the Bee Gees, Heather Small) refuse to respond to Pandora’s advances. Leona Lewis replies (her manager Simon is a good friend of the PM) but only to issue a denial.” So, who would be the most suitable musical act? I’m thinking Roxette singing ‘It’s over now’. But I’m sure Coffee Housers can come up with a better suggestion. A bottle of the usual champagne

Peter Hoskin

Coffee House poll: the elections and Brown’s future

As it’s Friday, and with the elections coming next week, here’s a poll triple-header (after the jump) for CoffeeHousers.  The three questions are very much interrelated, and are certainly doing the rounds here in sunny Westminster.  We’ll keep them running until 1230 next Monday. Online Surveys & Market Research Online Surveys & Market Research Online Surveys & Market Research

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A gross error of judgement<br />

This story in The Sun today does make you wonder what on earth is going on: “One adult in 12 convicted of the most serious sex assaults on kids walks free from court. The maximum punishment for rape or attempted rape of a child under 13 is life. But new figures show ten people were let off with a suspended or community sentence in the two years to December 2007. And that does not include those who received a police caution so didn’t even appear in court.” I’m not someone who instinctively believes that longer sentences are better in all cases. But it seems absurd and dangerous that there are

Peter Hoskin

Staring defeat in the face<br />

This snippet from today’s Guardian tells you everything you need to know about Labour morale at the moment: “Gordon Brown is facing an escalating crisis of confidence inside the parliamentary Labour party as record numbers of his MPs apply to sit in the House of Lords after the next general election. In the clearest indication to date that increasing numbers of Labour figures believe the party is heading for a heavy defeat at the hands of David Cameron, the Guardian has learned that at least 52 MPs have formally approached Downing Street to be given places in the upper house. The MPs include current chairs of select committees as well

Peter Hoskin

Is Blunkett on a mission to take out Johnson?

Now that Damien McBride’s out of the picture, just who will Brown use to take out his political opponents?  Well, David Blunkett seems like he could do a thorough job.  He’s got an article in the Guardian which takes the fight to the AV+ voting system proposed by the Man Who Would be King, Alan Johnson, earlier this week.  Here’s the key passage “I could wear the alternative vote­ system if I had to, but couple voter disempowerment with the AV-plus system of ‘topping up’ the Commons from a party list and you have a dual disaster: the inability to get rid of placemen with no constituency accountability, and the

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Lance Armstrong and the Giro: Part 2

I’ll give Lance Armstrong’s fans this: they know how to count to seven. Beyond that, however, they’re rather like members of a cult who refuse to accept that there could even be such a thing as another way of looking at matters, let alone the idea that there might be some merit to that alternative view. For daring to suggest that there could be a different view, it turns out that I’m “an absolute loser” who should, since I apparently think it so easy, try winning the Tour de France myself. This, of course, is the school of opinion that must demand that if you can’t write music like Mozart

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

His master’s voice: Balls and the “investment” Brownie

I have the dubious honour of being cited by Ed Balls in a press conference as proof that the Tories are hiding a cuts agenda. I say in the Daily Telegraph that the Tories’ plan is for a 10% cut across defence, education, transport and the Home Office. In typical word-twisting fashion, Balls said it “could see 45,000 teachers laid off,” and spoke as if I had uncovered a secret plan in Philip Hammond’s desk. In fact, it is a basic conclusion that can be made by anyone with a calculator and a copy of the Budget. These are not Tory cuts, but Labour cuts. Revealed not by me in

James Forsyth James Forsyth

What are the chances of Labour dumping Brown?

Three MPs have announced they are standing down at the next election today; proof that the expenses scandal is getting more deadly for MPs as it goes on. But, in the background, the conversation about whether Brown can survive what Anne McEloy has dubbed the Ides of June is getting louder. Over at the always excellent Comment Central, Daniel Finkelstein and Philip Collins try and work out what the percentage chances of Brown being removed are. Danny’s calculations lead him to conclude that there’s “only a 12% chance that [Brown] goes”. I suspect, although this is based more on a hunch than mathematics, that the number is higher than this.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Where the Sisters Have No Mercy and the Brothers No Christianity

Carol Sarler may be correct to argue, as she does in this week’s edition of the magazine, that we have an unhealthy fascination with sex crimes that is both prurient and puritanical. But I’d suggest that, whatever the merits of her wider argument, she doesn’t know very much about Ireland: In Ireland, some 2,000 adults who gave evidence of assault at the hands of Roman Catholic priests and nuns are, probably correctly, spitting tacks. The inquiry into their treatment when in children’s institutions has ruled that, although they did indeed suffer, no charges may be brought, no names shamed and, for what it’s worth, no bank balances swollen by damages

Clemency Burtonhill

The public arts

At a press conference at the Hay Festival this week, broadcaster-comedienne Sandi Toksvig began with a wistful reminiscence of what arts broadcasting used to be like when she started out. ‘You could have an idea, go and see your editor, and they’d say okay, let’s do it’ she explained. ‘Now, you go to, ahem, certain broadcasters, and they say, okay Sandi, good news, we can have your idea up and running in three years.’ Three years? The alternative to this is – well, what, exactly? The BBC may be dutifully putting out quality arts programmes on their hinterland digital channels (you can pretty much forget going to BBC2 for the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

This time the postman is ready to deliver

The game is afoot. When you talked to Labour people about an attempt to remove Gordon Brown they always used to use say ‘if’. Now they say ‘when’. The view is that June 4th will be grim for all the major parties, but particularly grim for Labour. Oddly, the worse the Tories do, the worse it is for Brown. A poor Tory performance will show Labour MPs that the Tories haven’t sealed the deal, that they could still save themselves. The fact the European votes won’t be counted until Sunday will make the elections a double-blow to Brown. Early the following week we can, as I say in the politics

Alex Massie Alex Massie

More Drug Law Madness

It is the very ordinariness of this case that makes it worth mentioning. From this week’s edition of our local paper, the Southern Reporter: Unhappy with conventional treatments, Jean Sherlow turned to cannabis in a bid to relieve her pain, Selkirk Sheriff Court heard on Tuesday. The 59-year-old decided to cultivate her own supply at her home, where police found eight plants with an estimated value of £150 each, along with 56gm of the illegal drug, worth £300… “It is not contested by the Crown that she suffers from glaucoma and Crohn’s disease, and it would appear that through her dissatisfaction with conventional treatments, she began to cultivate cannabis at

Peter Hoskin

Two approaches, same result

It’s typical, isn’t it?  Coffee House decides to stop working for a couple of hours and, in the meantime, two MPs confirm that they’re going to stand down.  You’ve probably caught the news elsewhere on the good ol’ blogosphere but – yes – Margaret Moran and Julie Kirkbride won’t be running for Parliament in the next election.  Hardly surprising, really. With these two delayed resignations coming at the same time, the contrast between the Labour and Conservative approaches is even more striking.  We’ve barely heard a squeak from Moran over the past couple of weeks, as Labour MPs are subjected to behind-closed-door meetings with the “star chamber”.  Whereas Cameron is

Peter Hoskin

The end of a premiership?

Will the elections on 4 June finish off Gordon Brown?  The theory that an embarrassing result for Labour – finishing behind the Lib Dems and/or UKIP – could trigger a leadership challenge gets frequent hearings in Westminster.  And now Guido blogs that plans are afoot, with David Miliband and Alan Johnson readying their “campaign teams”. Of course, the usual caveats apply.  Will anyone be brave enough to knife Gordon?  Will any candidate be able to gain enough support across the party?  Even so, you still feel that Brown’s nine lives are near expired.

Peter Hoskin

Clegg’s hundred day plan

You’ve got to love Nick Clegg’s declaration that “warm words, rhetoric and consideration are not enough,” in an article for today’s Guardian, and hot on the heels of some, er, “warm words” in the Independent yesterday.  Although, in seriousness, I imagine that one of Clegg’s proposals will be fairly popular: no more holiday time for MPs until they’ve fixed the mess in Parliament.  The political class shouldn’t despair, though: the Lib Dem leader is setting out an “action plan” to get it all sorted within a hundred days. I do sympathise with Clegg’s claim that MPs should just “get on” with the cleaning job at hand.  After all, one of