Society

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The cost of Brown’s meddling

Gordon Brown claims not to know what he should say sorry for. Well, he could start with apologising for his role in Lloyds’ takeover of HBOS. Iain Martin puts it perfectly in today’s Telegraph: “The catastrophe at Lloyds-HBOS is the ultimate New Labour scandal. It has the lot: cronyism, back-scratching, destructive micromanaging by Gordon Brown and an unimaginably large loss of public money. Consider what has just happened. At the height of the financial crisis in September, Sir Victor Blank, the chairman of a perfectly healthy Lloyds, connived in buying a stricken rival bank with the help of a desperate Prime Minister. The weight of toxic assets on HBOS’s books

Peter Hoskin

Will the loyalists prevent an escalation?

In today’s Independent, David McKittrick highlights one of the most important questions surrounding the recent killings in Northern Ireland: Will loyalists seek bloody revenge?  It’s encouraging that the leader of the largest loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association, answers in the negative in the Times.  Here’s what Jackie McDonald tells the paper, in of the most resonant quotes of the past few days: “There is no danger of retaliation. I have to send my deepest sympathies to the families of the soldiers and the policeman. People came to me saying, ‘Please don’t go back to this, don’t let us go back’.” Coupled with yesterday’s emotional peace rallies, this kind

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Reformers vs Traditionalists

Here’s how Ramesh Ponnuru frames the debate: The traditionalists push for upper-income tax cuts. The reformers want to cut the payroll taxes paid by the middle class. Traditionalists often deny that global warming is real. Reformers just want to make sure that our answer to it is cost-effective. The traditionalists want to hold the line on government spending. The reformers think that it’s more important for Republicans to advocate market-friendly solutions to problems such as rising health-care costs and traffic congestion. Since Ponnuru’s argument ends up by siding with Limbaugh and the traditionalists, it’s curious that he should define the argument in a way that does such damage to his

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Douthat of the Times!

Good news for the New York Times; bad news for the Atlantic. Ross Douthat is going to be Bill Kristol’s replacement on the op-ed page. Even better, in addition to his columns, Ross will be blogging at the NYT. This is splendid news and it’s hard to think how the NYT could have made a better choice. It’s also a bold one since Ross hasn’t spent 20 years “earning” his spot on the op-ed page. This is a generational shift and thus, surprising. But welcome! I heartily recommend Ross’s book – written in partnership with his co-conspirator and sometime Spectator contributor Reihan Salam – Grand New Party which contains lots

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Usefulness of Anonymous Sources

Glenn Greenwald is, as Julian Sanchez says, back on the warpath. This time he’s blasting the continued use of anyonymous sources and what he sees as their corrupting impact upon journalism. Greenwald makes some perfectly good points but I doubt that the situation will change anytime soon, even at papers that claim to disdain the usue of anonymous sources (that would be all of them) yet know they cannot kick the habit either (that too would be all of them). One thing Greenwald doesn’t point out, however, is how useful anonymous sources are to journalists. That anonymity is good for the source is a given, but it works for the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A Chamber full of millionaires votes to dash the life-chances of 1,800 poor children

Washington DC’s public schools are some of the worst in America despite having the third highest per pupil spending levels, $14,400 per pupil, in the Union. A small, experimental voucher programme has been running since 2004 which gives around 1,800 pupils from low-income families up to $7,500 a year to go to private schools. The pupils on the scholarship scheme out perform their peers and there are four applications for every place. But Senate Democrats, out of fealty to the teaching unions—the enemies of meaningful education reform in America, have voted down funding for the programme. President Obama has talked a good game on education reform. But now he needs

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Caribbean Lessons

In the grander scheme of matters, a West Indian series victory which left England thinking they should really have won the series 2-1 was not a bad result. England can argue that they were the better side for most the series and  only just failed to turn their superiority into victory. For the West Indies, the importance of a first series victory in five years cannot be over-stated. Caribbean cricket desperately needed this and so what if they remain just half a team and should, by rights, have been beaten by a pretty ordinary England team. In other circumstances the West Indians’ decision not to even try and win the

Peter Hoskin

Is the Tory poll lead really all that soft?

One of the most frequent claims made about the Tory poll lead is that it’s “soft”; that it’s only due to protest votes against the Government.  Yet an intriguing survey by the essential Politics Home suggests that may not be the case after all.  They asked over a 1,000 people who they intend to vote for at the next election, and then followed it up with the question, “How enthusiastic are you about this prediction?”  Here are the results:   Con Lab Lib Very enthusiastic 47%  34% 24% Quite enthusiastic 32% 31% 42% Not very enthusiastic 12% 23% 19% Not enthusiastic 2% 6% 3% Actively depressed but I cannot foresee

Peter Hoskin

Labour MPs told to prepare for a local drubbing

One of the main reasons why Brown needs a successful G20 summit and Budget, in April, is that there are so few subsequent events which could conceivably go well for him.  Take the local elections in June – according to today’s FT, the Labour party is briefing its own MPs to expect a drubbing: “Labour strategists believe the party could lose control of all of Britain’s county councils at the local elections this summer for the first time since 1977. MPs were warned by senior ministers on Monday night to expect a dismal showing in June with the possible loss of all four county councils held by the party. Harriet

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Going down the Tube again

From today’s Standard: “Transport chiefs shut Bank’s Central line platforms for 90 minutes last night after complaints that decibel levels from screeching rails were too high. The closure left thousands of commuters facing severe delays just after 5.30pm. They described the decision as “madness”. Transport for London admitted the problem, caused by a lack of lubrication on the tracks, could have been prevented but could not say how loud the screeching was. A noticeboard at the station told passengers Central line trains would not be stopping because of “technical difficulties”. Transport sources told the Evening Standard that London Underground staff had refused to work on the platforms because of the

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Decline of the Dublin Pub

The Long Hall: photo by Flickr user inaki_naiz. Used under a Creative Commons License. An important article in the New York Times on the decline of the traditional Irish pub. This is a serious matter and one that merits pondering. If there’s any upside to present economic difficulty it lies in the hope – faint but real – that it may do in property developers and hucksters before it gets the rest of us. That is, that it may reduce the number of once-great pubs vandalised by ill-considered refits designed to attract a wealthier class of punter. The sort that drinks wine. And cocktails. Temple Bar in Dublin was once

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Luton protest

It is hard not to feel rage when one sees soldiers returning home from serving their country being abused by protestors as they were in Luton yesterday. There are those who are making a free speech argument in defence of the police allowing these Islamists to picket the homecoming parade. But the problem is that there appears to be a double-standard when it comes to free speech. These protests are allowed to go ahead but Geert Wilders, who is a bore but also a member of the legislature of one of our closest allies, is banned from the UK for the fear of the offence he might cause. The protests

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 11 March 2009

Stay tuned for live coverage of PMQs from 1200. 1200: Brown stands up, and offers his condolences to the soldiers and policeman murdered in Northern Ireland over the past few days.  He commemorates the peace marches in NI today, calling them “unity against violence”. 1201: First question from Andrew Miller: “When will the banks get their act together to stimulate demand for, not just vehicles, but for other manufactured goods?”  Gives Brown an opportunity to talk about his “international settlement” for banking. 1202: Cameron gets a big cheer.  He thanks the Speaker and PM for what they said a fortnight ago, on the occasion of the death of his son,

Peter Hoskin

Is this how a Labour Opposition would attack a Tory Government?

An incisive column from Daniel Finkelstein this morning, which perfectly sets out how difficult managing the public finances will be for the next government.  This passage on public service reform is worth pulling out: “The Tories will aim, of course, to make services more efficient and to get government out of wasteful projects altogether. Yet even this will prove hard. Reform costs money. Making people redundant, moving offices, sending out circulars full of new instructions, keeping interest groups happy while making controversial changes – it all costs money. And (here’s a point I may not have mentioned) there is no money.” It’s something which Team Cameron should bear in mind. 

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The odds are loaded in the terrorists’ favour

Media coverage of the dissident Republican groups has focused on the question of how much support they have. But, as Martyn Frampton pointed out on The Today Programme this morning, a terrorist organisation doesn’t actually need that many people to cause serious disruption because the odds are loaded in their favour. As the IRA, who did not have that much support in the 1980s, said after the Brighton bomb, “Today we were unlucky, but we remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always.” The dissidents might be in small number but there have carried out a hundred plus incidents—bombs, foiled attacks and shootings—since

Peter Hoskin

No.10 belatedly starts the G20 expectations management

Today’s Times has a great double-page spread on the forthcoming G20 meeting; concentrating on how much the summit will cost, and the dim prospects for any meaningful agreement being reached.  Nestled among the coverage is this quote from a “government source”: “We are by no means talking it down but I do not think anyone is suggesting the world’s problems can be solved in a single day,” If this is expectations management, it’s all too little, too late.  We’ve already had Brown calling for a global “grand bargain”; we’ve already had the Downing Street-fuelled idea that this is Brown’s Big Chance to save his premiership; and these memes have had

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Downing Street can only reach the US answering machine

Earlier today, Ben Brogan reported a telling comment from the Cabinet secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, that, when it comes to discussing the G20 summit with Washington, “There is nobody there … You cannot believe how difficult it is.”  The remarks have since been withdrawn, and expunged from civil service websites.  But, in spite of the revisionism, the sentiment has cropped up elsewhere.  A couple of weeks back, the Times quoted an anonymous “British official” saying the following: “The new US regime is like an echo chamber. We are struggling to get people even to return our calls. They are totally focused on domestic issues and have not lifted their heads to

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Cool Black Guy and the White Nerd

That’s how Jon Stewart described Barack Obama and Gordon Brown. Actually, Brown comes out of it fine as Giftgate receives an airing on the Daily Show. Bonus: there’s chuckling at Hillary Clinton’s expense too. A trifecta then.   The Daily Show With Jon StewartM – Th 11p / 10c Brown in the USA Daily Show Full Episodes Important Things With Demetri Martin Political Humor Economic Crisis    

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Obama administration: Only 5 percent of the Taliban is incorrigible

Chuck Todd at First Read flags up some fascinating comments from Vice-President Biden on his visit to Nato: “5 percent of the Taliban is incorrigible, not susceptible to anything other than being defeated.  Another 25 percent or so are not quite sure, in my view, the intensity of their commitment to the insurgency.  And roughly 70 percent are involved because of the money, because of them being — getting paid.” Biden goes onto say that the “idea of what concessions would be made is well beyond the scope of my being able to answer, except to say that whatever is initiated will have to be ultimately initiated by the Afghan