Society

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Poll-wise, it’s starting to look like summer 2008 again

A poll to delight the Tories in today’s Times.  The Populus effort has them on 42 percent (down 1 percentage point on last month); Labour on 28 percent (down 5); and the Lib Dems on 19 percent (up 3).  That matches Labour’s total in two other recent polls, and suggests they’re starting to plumb similar depths to last summer.  Cameron now also leads on the question of which leader is best to deal with the recession, by 41-32 over Brown.  And he’s ahead, as normal, on taking Britain forward after the recession. Perhaps the most eyecatching finding, though, is the rise in support for the ‘Other’ parties such as UKIP

Monday

Peter Hoskin

The Balls forecast

Remember the general hoo-haa when Gordon Brown accidentally referred to a “global depression” in PMQs last week?  Well, now Ed Balls has surpassed His Master’s Slip-up, and by some distance.  Here’s what the Schools Minister told Labour’s Yorkshire conference at the weekend: “The economy is going to define our politics in Britain in the next year, the next five years, the next 10 and even the next 15 years. These are seismic events that are going to change the political landscape. I think that this is a financial crisis more extreme and more serious than that of the 1930s and we all remember how the politics of that era were

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Ecstasy and the Agony that is Jacqui Smith

So the government is going to reject advice that Ecstasy be reclassified as a Class B drug. No surprise there. Got to adopt a tough stance on these matters, you know. Not that the penalties for possession of a Class B drug are anything other than absurdly draconian themselves: you can still be locked away for five years or, for the crime of selling a drug to your friends, receive as many as 14 years imprisonment. This does not seem a lenient approach to me. Meanwhile, a government expert makes the obviously true point that more people are killed horse-riding each year than as a result of taking Ecstasy and

Martin Bright

We are not a number … We are a free man

Portmeirion is a surreal place at the best of times. But it gets even stranger when you see Clarence Mitchell, the spokesman for the McCanns taking a stroll through this pink and green mini-utopia, shortly before bumping into Yasmin Alibhai-Brown from the Independent, the historian Simon Schama and Julia Hobsbawn, the mad genius behind this crazy trip. This bizarre fantasy village on the north Wales coast is best-known as the set for the sixties sci-fi series, The Prisoner. What’s happening here is weirder than that. Two coach loads of journalists, PR folk and business people pitched up here yesterday evening to discuss… well what exactly? How to save capitalism from

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Playing politics with injured veterans

Derek Draper has just posted a remarkably crass item on LabourList. Headlined ‘A challenge to Dave: Get your councillors to help Joe Townsend NOW’, he demands that Cameron get the Tory controlled Wealden District Council to reverse their decision and allow planning permission for a bungalow to be built for Joe Townsend, a Marine who lost both legs serving his country in Afghanistan. I think we can all agree that permission should be granted for this bungalow, it is the least that can be done for someone who has sacrificed so much for us. Indeed, both David Cameron and Gordon Brown have already called on the council to change tack. Draper

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Obama Still Extremely, Inconveniently Popular

Melanie may think that the United States made a monumental blunder when it elected Barack Obama, but right now, it must be said, the Americans themselves seem pretty happy with their new President. For the last week newspapers and cable TV have been hyping every perceived blunder and doing everything bar declaring the Obama presidency a failure. Already. The voters seem more sanguine. And sober. According to the latest Gallup poll, two thirds of the electorate approve of the manner in which Obama has handled the debate over the economic stimulus plan. Just 25% disapprove of the way he’s approached matters. In other words, there are plenty of people who

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Going down the tube

Those of us who have to travel by Tube every morning are wearingly familiar with the announcement that lists the bits of the tube that aren’t working—this morning, it was that the Circle Line was suspended because of a signal failure at South Ken—and ends with the self-congratulatory announcement that ‘a good service is operating on all other lines’, some days one is left wondering what other lines are there. What makes the poor state of the Tube all the more galling is the crazy sums that the bureaucrats of Transport for London are paid. As Andrew Gilligan writes in the Standard today: “One hundred and twenty-three top TfL managers,

Peter Hoskin

Dodging the split story

Do take the time to read through the Independent’s Q&A with Ken Clarke today.  Beyond his classic answer to the question “What was your biggest mistake as Chancellor of the Exchequer?” (clue: it involves malt whisky), the most noteworthy thing is how ably he dodges the numerous, inevitable, “split” questions.  There’s the stock reponse of “I have no intention to change or challenge the party’s policy on x”, but he mixes in a few tongue-in-cheek curveballs, which do a great job of defusing the situation.  This has to be one of them: In December you came out against supporting marriage through the tax system. David Cameron feels differently. Have you changed your mind? JENNIFER BURT,

Alex Massie Alex Massie

51 All Out

Apologies for the radio silence. I’m still struggling to comes to terms with England’s Jamaican debacle. Matters were scarcely improved by an ill-considered trip to Murrayfield yesterday. Back to the drawing board then. Still, while there was a certain grimness to Scotland’s sluggish performance against Wales, at least it didn’t plumb the depths of England’s cricketing fiasco against the West Indies. When the tourists stumbled to 15/3 I suggested, jokingly, that they might lose by an innings. But I didn’t actually expect them to go ahead and do it. Right now the Ashes look as though they will be contested by two pretty mediocre sides (though Australia should, alas, still

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The politics of the surge

Tom Ricks’ series on the surge in The Washington Post continues with a riveting account of how David Petraeus beat back both a chief of Central Commander who wanted to return to the pre-surge tactics that had failed and Congressional Democrats who wanted to admit defeat. Ricks’ account shows Petraeus and his team to be almost as skilled at the art of politics as they are at counter-insurgency. When you consider that Admiral Fallon, the head of Central Command, wanted to halve the number of US combat forces in Iraq and downgrade the importance of security as a goal, you realise that the man above Petraeus in the chain of

Martin Bright

Talent spotting | 9 February 2009

I hope to bring on new talent through this blog, so here’s Tara Hamilton-Miller’s drawing of the panel on social entrepreneurship: From left to right: Robert Phillips CEO of Edelman, Suzanne Moore, David Aaronovich, Professor James Woudhuysen, Oli Barrett, Louise Casey.

Peter Hoskin

Just what we need – another committee

Forgive me for being exasperated, but Team Dave’s latest Big Announcement is just plain exasperating.  An Economic Recovery Committee to – and I quote the press release – “review and analyse the economic situation”; “discuss immediate policy proposals to deal with the current crisis”; and “coordinate strategy for the long term reconstruction of Britain’s economy”?  Now, it all sounds well and good – and something may come out of it.  But it’s little more than slapping a name on something that the Tories should – and will – be doing already, and packaging it as something new.  It was cynical enough when Brown did it, with his National Economic Council, but

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 9 February – 15 February

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 – provided 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

Martin Bright

A note from Portmeirion

I’m posting from the We are Names not Numbers symposium in North Wales and wondering what the founder-builder of Portmeirion, Clough Williams-Ellis, would make of this discussion of individualism in the consumer society. His motto was Cherish the Past, Adorn the Present, Construct for the Future, which could come straight from an American mangement guru. I’ll report back later today but, so far, only one panelist has mentioned the imminent collapse of capitalism…

James Forsyth James Forsyth

When Cameron faced down Paxman

Reading Decca Aitkenhead’s profile of Jeremy Paxman in The Guardian today, I was reminded of David Cameron’s Newsnight interview back in November 2005. Cameron’s electrifying conference speech and his victory in the MP’s ballot had made him the prohibitive favourite to win the leadership. The Paxman interview, though, was widely regarded as the time when we would see if Cameron could take a heavyweight punch. Cameron turned in a superb performance (you can watch it here), one that sealed the leadership for him and established him as a heavyweight on the scene. He threw Paxman onto the defensive, telling him, “This is the trouble with these interviews, Jeremy. You come

Peter Hoskin

No credit where it’s due

However hard he tries, and however much taxpayers’ cash he throws at the problem, Gordon Brown just can’t seem to get credit flowing to UK businesses.  Here are details of two surveys, released today, from today’s FT: Conferederation of British Industry survey: “While 63 per cent of businesses who had sought new credit said its availability had worsened in the past three months, 59 per cent said they expected it to be harder to access in the next three months.” Federation of Small Businesses survey: “Many small businesses told the trade association that banks had turned down their applications for government-guaranteed credit. Others complained that public sector bodies were ignoring

Sunday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Martin Bright joins Spectator.co.uk

We have a new signing to reveal today: my old counterpart at the New Statesman, Martin Bright. We have long admired his writing here at Coffee House, and we’re delighted that The Bright Stuff will be joining Melanie Phillips, Clive Davis and Alex Massie under the heterodox, multicoloured Spectator e-umbrella. It’s not just the sharpness of his analysis and strength of his contacts that makes Martin a must-read. From a left wing perspective, he has investigated what he calls “Whitehall’s love affair with radical Islam” as well as pretty much hounding Ken Livingstone out of office. So is he finally coming over to our side then? If only. He remains

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

Golliwog, Totem and Taboo

Commentary on the Carol Thatcher business has been predictably superficial and self-righteous. Its real meaning is that racial correctness can only be understood in relation to religion. Bear with me. Did she commit a serious offence? She referred to someone as a golliwog, obviously knowing that it was a taboo word, capable of causing great offence to black people, and of producing a frisson of disapproval among the white people who were actually present. It was, perhaps, a momentary lapse of judgment, a brief failure of self-censorship – there is no evidence that she holds racist views. For this lapse she has been dropped from a television show, and her

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The government expects unemployment to hit record levels next year

Sophy Ridge has a good scoop in The News of the World today: the government is operating on the assumption that the number of unemployed will peak at 3.5 million in October 2010. This would be the largest number of people unemployed in modern British history. Indeed when you add in the people on other out of work benefits, it would suggest that the real figure for unemployment will be around 6 million. That unemployment will not reach its peak until October 2010—after the next election—suggests that the economy will not start growing again in the third quarter of this year as Brown and Darling predicted in the PBR.  It