Society

Friday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Obama needs to staff up his Treasury—and fast

There’s a rumour doing the rounds in Washington, which I mention in the magazine this week, that the reason Gordon Brown was invited to address a Joint Session of Congress is that the Obama administration isn’t yet ready to have a detailed conversation about the agenda for the G20. This is largely because the Treasury Department is absurdly under-staffed. The only confirmed official there is the Secretary, Tim Geithner. All the deputy and assistant and under secretary jobs are empty. Just to compound this problem, Annette Nazareth, who was expected to be the Deputy Secretary has dropped out and Caroline Atkinson, who as undersecretary of international affairs would have been

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why talk of a Cruddas Purnell ticket isn’t Balls

With Gordon Brown appearing doomed the level of chatter about the Labour leadership contest that will follow the next election is increasing, Fraser did his political column on it this week.One of the more intriguing ideas out there, which Allegra Stratton floated on Tuesday, is that Cruddas and Purnell might team up on a ‘Stop Balls’ ticket. The idea would be that the presence of Cruddas on the ticket would make Purnell acceptable to the Unions and the soft-left while Purnell’s presence would allay fears that Cruddas wanted to take Labour back to the pre-Blair era. (To be accurate, Cruddas is a Blairite but an early stage one—1994 to 2000—not

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Ending the Drug War. Now.

Although there are encouraging noises coming from Latin America, much of the western world remains deaf to common sense. Still, let’s hear it for the Economist which this week repeats its call for legalisation: Next week ministers from around the world gather in Vienna to set international drug policy for the next decade. Like first-world-war generals, many will claim that all that is needed is more of the same. In fact the war on drugs has been a disaster, creating failed states in the developing world even as addiction has flourished in the rich world. By any sensible measure, this 100-year struggle has been illiberal, murderous and pointless. That is

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A question of identity

There is a crisis in Britishness right now. Much of it has been brought about by the doctrine of multi-culturalism, you can’t have both mass immigration and multi-culturalism, so it was good to see Dominic Grieve setting out his opposition to it this week. Grieve’s views on community cohesion issues have been a cause of concern to many in the Tory party. But judging by this speech he is moving in the right direction, even if he is not fully comfortable with his new position yet. One very smart journalist friend of mine summed it up rather well when he said that the speech reads like “an other-worldly Matrix Chambers

Alex Massie Alex Massie

When philosophers attack…

Australian foreign minister Steven Smith sees trouble ahead: “This was very much an existentialist threat to Pakistan itself,” he said. Quite so. Readers are invited to pair schools of philosophy with the countries they threaten… [Hat-tip: James Joyner.]

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The police no longer have the public’s confidence

The British Crime Survey shows that most people do not have confidence in the ability of the police and their local council to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour. Only 46 percent of people in England and Wales do, according to the survey. In a way this is not surprising, you see the police on the street less than you used to and the police do not seem concerned with many of the crimes that worry the public most. Jacqui Smith, The Daily Mail reports, is now going to scrap all other targets and instead require all police forces to reach a 60 percent level of confidence by 2012. But if

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Clegg can bank on this policy going down well

Nick Clegg returns to the political fray today with an interview with The Times. What’s making news from it is this proposal: On the eve of the Liberal Democrats’ conference in Harrogate, Mr Clegg told The Times that these directors had shown that they were not fit to oversee companies.” This strikes me as very clever politics. There is a phenomenal amount of anger, much of it justified, at the fallen masters of the universe who seem to have paid no price for their actions. Politicians of all parties have been trying to tap into this but few of their ideas have cut through. Clegg’s proposal is eye-catching enough to

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Jon Stewart Pops CNBC’s Bubble

As Clive has noted, the financial press did not exactly cover itself in glory in the run-up to the present economic difficulties. No-one ws a bigger cheerleader of heroic capitalism than CNBC. As Jon Stewart so ably demonstrates here. Added bonus: Allen Stanford gets a mention towards the end:   The Daily Show With Jon StewartM – Th 11p / 10c CNBC Gives Financial Advice Daily Show Full Episodes Important Things With Demetri Martin Political Humor Joke of the Day    

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Blair did God a lot more and a lot earlier than the press realised

Stan Greenberg, who polled for both Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, spoke at the RSA earlier this week. In his talk, he revealed that during the 1997 campaign Blair had a separate team of faith advisors whose role it was to check that his politics were in line with his religious beliefs:  Here is what Greenberg said, it is 39 minutes in if you want to listen to it for yourself: ‘He had a separate religious group that met weekly during the campaign, the’97 campaign, which he met with weekly. He said that he would talk to them and make sure, kinda check he wasn’t going too far in his

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Free Roxana Sabieri

Those of us who report from Westminster, Washington or any other liberal democracy can sometime forget how lucky we are. We can write what we like and not fear that we will be arrested for it. Those journalists who report from authoritarian countries like Iran do not have this freedom. Take the case of Roxana Sabieri. She’s an American journalist who has been arrested in Iran for, the Iranian Foreign Ministry says, “gathering news illegally”. The case of Sabieri, a Cambridge graduate, is a small but telling reminder of the nature of the Iranian state.  

Alex Massie Alex Massie

David Frum vs Talk Radio

David Frum called in to Mark Levin’s radio show the other day to respond to, inter alia, “debate” the suggestion that Rush Limbaugh does not represent a profitable future for the Republican party. It’s a remarkable exchange, even if it also demonstrates the folly of trying to engage in any sensible, coherent, interesting or adult fashion with the frothing lunatics who dominate the airwaves. You can listen to it here. Writing about the experience, Frum says: As I hung up, I wondered what it would be like to be a new listener, a nonpolitical person, tuning in to Mark Levin’s show for the first time. The ferocious hatred and anger –

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The Bank can’t print a way out

Today’s latest move from the Bank of England is straight from the Dale Winton school of economics: the team (ie, the Monetary Policy Committee) has been given £75 billion to spend in just three months. How will they manage? Time starts… now! Although plenty predicted today’s announcement that Quantitative Easing will now be started few predicted the scale – £150 billion “maximum”. The MPC’s decision to spend half of it in 90 days makes the whole exercise into some kind of fiscal Supermarket Sweep. “It is likely that the majority of the overall purchases by value over the next three months will be of gilts” says the Bank of England

James Forsyth James Forsyth

There is one group of people who will miss this government

Has there ever been a better Cabinet for headline-writers than the current one? As Prime Minister there is Brown with all the obvious gags. Then, as Chancellor we have A Darling—those headlines pretty much write themselves. The Schools Secretary, who has a tendency to verbiage, is called Balls. The most Machievllian member of the Cabinet who is named Straw and the deputy leader and PC enforcer is a woman called Harman.  It is hard to see how you can’t get much better than this from a headline writers’ perspective. PS This post is a good excuse to pass on a story from Fraser that is too good to check. Apparently, there

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

House prices have a lot further to fall

If you own property, look away now because what follows is ugly reading. Those green shoots Margaret Beckett thought she saw in the property market were illusory, and the 2.0 percent upswing in house prices that Halifax recorded for January has been more than offset with a 2.3 percent fall last month. So far they are down 20 percent from their peak, and it won’t get any better. Sure, mortgage rates are falling – but banks are wisely demanding huge deposits now. So the actual cost of getting into the market – ie, he deposit required as a share of average income – is the highest since data began 35

Peter Hoskin

Introducing the revamped Spectator Book Club

Just to flag-up the The Spectator’s revamped, online Book Club – which you can access here.  Plenty of stuff there that bibliophilic CoffeeHousers may find interesting – including Book of the Month recommendations (this month: Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones); a massive, well-sorted review archive; and a discussion board.  Would be great to see some of you over there.   To mark the launch, The Spectator’s holding a short story competition.  There are full details in the latest issue of the mag – but, in case any of you want to enter, I reproduce the terms here:  To celebrate the launch of the Spectator Book Club, The Spectator is giving

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Would you take this bet?

Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize winning economist, and Greg Mankiw, chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under George W. Bush, are probably the most influential public intellectual economists in America from the left and the right respectively. The two take different-sides on the question of how effective the Obama stimulus will be and Mankiw is now challenging Krugman to put his money where his mouth is: “Team Obama says that real GDP in 2013 will be 15.6 percent above real GDP in 2008. (That number comes from compounding their predicted growth rates for these five years.) So, Paul, are you willing to wager that the economy will meet or exceed

Helen Thomas

The Bank needs to put us at ease about its strategy

Today ‘s Bank of England meeting should herald the start of the somewhat mystical practice known as “Quantitative Easing”. This prospect of printing money has prompted panicked headlines about Zimbabwean- style inflation.  But the process itself does not necessarily spell disaster. Normally the Bank manages inflation and activity indirectly, through interest rates.  Lower rates encourage more spending and less saving, and higher inflation. But in the current environment, even near zero interest rates are not enough to fight deflation, so unorthodox measures are needed.  The Bank of England is going to try and increase the supply of credit directly, by buying up corporate bonds from financial institutions.  To cut a

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Buckley and Limbaugh: Contrasting Conservatisms

Ross Douthat is obviously (well, it’s obvious to me) right to think that Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer and not someone who ought to be considered a spokesman for the Republican party. Too bad El Rushbo doesn’t see himself that way. In a piece for the (splendid) Daily Beast, Christopher Buckley observes that Limbaugh took the occasion of William F Buckley’s death as a cue to annoint himself WFB’s successor: A few days later, as I was planning WFB’s memorial service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, I was approached by an intermediary, a big player in the vast right-wing conspiracy, with the suggestion (“Wouldn’t it be appropriate….”) that Rush should give