Society

Thursday

22 Jan 2009

You can bank on the shadow Cabinet’s second jobs causing problems for the Tories

It has long been clear that the shadow Cabinet’s second jobs are a vulnerability just waiting to be exploited. Today’s Evening Standard brings an example of this: “THE TORY shadow cabinet has been raking in thousands of pounds in cash and perks from failing banks. Three prominent shadow cabinet members–William Hague, Ken Clarke and Francis Maude–who have supported criticism of ‘irresponsible’ bankers, were paid large sums in the past year by institutions that have lost taxpayers billions of pounds.” Now, we can get into a long argument about the value of outside experience and all that. But there’s no denying that in PR terms there are huge risks associated with

Alex Massie

Obamamania Reaches the Borders

Seriously. You cannot escape Mr Obama. The splash in this week’s edition of The Southern Reporter, out today, is headlined “Hope and fear as Parker and Moore welcome Obama”. That’s David Parker, leader of Scottish Borders Council and Michael Moore MP. For good measure, the new president claims the main picture on the front page too. That said, Mr Parker has sensible things to say on trade: “A range of trade unions and economic experts in the US are advising Obama and his team to be more protectionist and there is a danger that this could happen – the Clinton administration previously had protectionist policies which did impact on the

Peter Hoskin

The Pickles approach

Over at ConservativeHome, Tim Montgomerie has an intriguing post on what Eric Pickles hopes to bring to the role of Tory party chairman. Here’s a snippet: “An aide to the new Party Chairman tells me that this visit communicates two of the big themes that Eric Pickles wants to characterise his tenure at CCHQ: graft (he promises to match the sacrifice of volunteers) and a focus on the LibDems. With opinion polls pointing towards a perhaps decisive increase in the Tory lead some party strategists are recommending a significant shift of battleground resources into unseating Liberal Democrat MPs. Eric Pickles is a big advocate of the lovebombing tactic.” Tim goes onto describe

Peter Hoskin

Basket case Britain

An article in today’s New York Times captures the mounting fear and loathing with which the UK economy is regarded. Here’s how it begins: “LONDON — An island nation that bulked up on debt and lived beyond its means. A plunging currency. And a financial system edging toward nationalization. With the pound at a multidecade low and British banks requiring ever-larger injections of taxpayer cash, it is no wonder that observers have started to refer to London as ‘Reykjavik-on-Thames.’ While that judgment seems exaggerated, there are uncomfortable parallels between Iceland’s recent financial downfall and Britain’s trajectory. Equally important, news that widening bank losses in Britain have necessitated another round of

James Forsyth

Another American Century

Walter Russell Mead, whose book Special Providence is one of the best works on American foreign policy, has a fascinating essay in The New Republic arguing that the current financial crisis will actually strengthen and sustain American power. Mead writes: “Cataloguing the early losses from the financial crisis, it’s hard not to conclude that the central capitalist nations will weather the storm far better than those not so central. Emerging markets have been hit harder by the financial crisis than developed ones as investors around the world seek the safe haven provided by U.S. Treasury bills, and commodity-producing economies have suffered extraordinary shocks as commodity prices crashed from their record,

James Forsyth

Ratting on a conspiracy to keep the truth from the public is no bad thing

The more comes out, the more it seems that the Tories did go back on a deal on expenses that had been hashed out between the parties. Iain Martin writes this morning that, My understanding from a senior shadow cabinet member is that Cameron over-ruled his whips. “The chief is absolutely furious”, he tells me. “It’s the old guard. David wants total transparency but there is a generation of our MPs who think it an impudent imposition. He’s winning but it’s a slog.” If the Whips and the backbench committees had cooked up a deal and Cameron unilaterally overruled it then good for him: the stitch-up was morally indefensible. The

Fraser Nelson

Responding to LabourList

Although it hasn’t been going long, LabourList is already brightening up the blogosphere. They seem up for a genuine scrap, as opposed to the hysteria and name calling that the left often succumb to. It has challenged me to explain Alan Duncan’s claim that Obama is in a better position to launch a debt-fuelled stimulus than Britain – suggesting I would be as rude to the Tories’ new Shadow Leader of the House as I would be to Mr Brown. I’m not going to be. Duncan was right: America as a country owes about a quarter of what Britain does. And why do I say so? Here’s the maths. 1)

Wednesday

21 Jan 2009

James Forsyth

Obama will be more hawkish than Europe expects

Barack Obama is the first Democrat to be Commander in Chief in the post 9/11 era. The election of a Democrat was a necessary requirement for the emergence of a new, settled American foreign policy for this time. You can’t have a bi-partisan foreign policy consensus when only one party knows the foreign policy challenges from the inside. Certainly the Bush administration made mistakes on foreign policy. It over-reacted in certain areas and implemented good ideas badly in others. But I suspect that there will be a more continuity between the two administrations than most people expect. The threats facing America have not changed with the departure of George W.

Peter Hoskin

A gentlemen’s agreement?

Read Sam Coates’s latest blog post and despair. Turns out, certain Tory backbenchers had bashed out a “gentlemen’s agreement” over expenses with the Government. The idea was that they were going to vote with Brown to block the publication of MPs’ expenses on a “receipt by receipt” basis. But thanks to David Cameron whipping his MPs against the Government’s proposals – and thanks also to Brown’s panicked climbdown over the vote – their plans have been scuppered. Good. Sometimes it’s just plain astonishing how quickly MPs will jettison their duty to the public, and their loyalty to the party, when the issue of expenses comes up. Thing is, they’re often

Lisa Hilton

An affront to faith and thought

Many of us may no longer believe in God, but it appears we still miss Him. The nineteenth century’s anguished howl of loss as the tide of faith receded across the sands of Dover beach had diminished to barely a whimper before the atheist buses zoomed along to jolly up the argument. Catholic bishops in Genoa have succeeded in banning the Italian version of the campaign whilst bus driver Ron Heather has declared his intention to boycott any bus carrying the slogan “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life”. Perhaps Mr Heather is objecting to a certain lack of rigour in the statement; “probably” inclines to

James Forsyth

The statistics which bring home the need for welfare reform

This week’s shadow Cabinet reshuffle was designed to make it campaign not government-ready. But the Tories do need to prepare for government as they are going to confront a huge set of problems. Policy Exchange have produced a pamphlet with ‘100 Reasons why Britain needs to change’ and, even leaving aside the country’s ever worsening position, it makes for depressing reading. The desperate need for welfare reform is brought home by these statistics: “In 1997 Tony Blair said that ‘By the end of a 5-year term of a Labour Government, I vow that we will have reduced the proportion we spend on the welfare bills of social failure…This is my

Peter Hoskin

Brown backs down over expenses

As Iain Dale pointed out earlier, one of the more mystifying aspects of PMQs was Brown’s claim that his MPs would have a free vote on expenses measures, despite strong reports to the contrary. To clear things up, Number Ten has since revealed that the vote has been abandoned. It remains to be seen what this means for the full publication of MPs expenses, but it’s got to be regarded as a positive development – the measures that Brown was trying to force through were anything but transparent. The big winner from all this should be the Tories. Not only has Brown been forced into an embarrassing climbdown, but there remains plenty of room

Alex Massie

Expenses: Brown Gets out of Gaol

Disappointing to see that the government has retreated from its plans to exempt the disclosure of MPs expenses from being ocvered by the Freedom of Information Act. Yes, yes, everyone is supposed to hail this as a victory for transparency and, perhaps, as Iain Dale says, for online activism and lobbying too. I fear we protest too much on this issue. Not because MPs expenses should be kept secret (of course they shouldn’t) but because a vote on the matter, with Labour MPs subjected to a three-line whip no less, would have a) been a monumental, and thus pleasing, embarrassment for the government and b) could easily have been repealed

Alex Massie

Gut Instinct

Mark McKinnon, Bush’s advertising man who left the McCain campaign because he didn’t want to work against Obama, reports from the plane taking the Bushes back to Texas yesterday: And while I’m reluctant to quote the president directly from private conversations, I think I can fairly report that he feels a genuine warmth for President Obama. He admires his sense of family, his relaxed and easygoing nature, and his character. He has gotten to know him during this transition period and he has a pretty good gut for people. His gut tells him Obama has what it takes to be a successful leader. Not yet tested. Not yet proved he

Alex Massie

Bush’s Limited Idea of Compassionate Conservatism

George W Bush has earned praise for the manner in which he has left office: dignified and quiet. Fair enough. And at least unlike his predecessor he didn’t cry tears of self-pity. Nor, by and large, did Bush disgrace the Presidency by handing out a bundle of pardons to friends and cronies. With one exception that is. Throwing one last bone to the GOP base, Bush commuted the sentences of Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, a pair of Border Patrol officers convicted of shooting an unarmed Mexican (who was subsequently proved to be a drug smuggler* – though the agents did not know that at the time) and then

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 21 January 2009

Welcome to Coffee House’s live blog of PMQs today. As always, things will kick off at 1200, so stay tuned from then. 1204: Here’s the Dear Leader. After condolences, he gives a welcome to President Obama: “The stress that President Obama places on action…” First question from Douglas Carswell, and it’s an important one: “Why is the PM whipping his MPs when it comes to revealing details of MPs’ expenses.” Brown claims that the Government wants to introduce more transparency – or trans-pair-ancy, as he puts it. 1207: Brown: Holocaust Memorial Day will be commemorated by a debate in the House next Thursday. 1208: Cameron’s up now. Echoes Brown’s good wishes for Obama.

Alex Massie

Everyone Needs an Obama

I also enjoyed the Alice Miles article Peter links to at the mother-blog, not least because I’ve never bought the notion that Gordon Brown was anything other than a long-term liability to this government. This, however, made me laugh: But does Labour have a Barack Obama of its own? The most hotly tipped contender is Chuka Umunna, the charismatic Labour candidate for Streatham – although that may be partly because Mr Umunna is black. And he is only 30 and not yet an MP, which is obviously a problem. Yeah, I guess it is. Still, this has the makings of some great sport: Where-oh-where is the Liberal Democrat Obama? How

Alex Massie

Inauguration TV

One of the advantages of the satellite TV revolution is being able to compare the way different countries view historic events. Russia Today, the Kremlin’s English-language outreach channel, for instance, was extremely revealing, if sometimes unintentionally, during the Russo-Georgian mini-war last summer. Yesterday it didn’t bother with live coverage of Barack Obama’s inauguration, featuring instead a talking heads panel featuring a number of grumpy Russian analysts. Still, that was better than China’s propaganda vehicle, CCTV (yes, really), which, as far as I could see, hopping between stations, just ignored it altogether. On the other hand, ignoring the celebrations might have been preferable to watching the inaugration on any of the

Peter Hoskin

The bounce gives way to despair

Two striking passages from Alice Miles’ article in the Times today, demonstrating the rising pessimism in Labour ranks: “Clarke’s return kills ‘toffs’ and it kills ‘novice’,” said one adviser this week. “You look at that team now and you think, ‘yes’.” And that was an adviser to Mr Brown speaking. And, “I don’t know why anyone thought that people were going to be grateful for the fact that the economy is going down the spout,” conceded one Labour strategist this week. He added that he thought that if the polls got worse month after month and end in wipeout in the local and European elections on June 4, Mr Brown

Peter Hoskin

Now’s the time for “new politics” again, Dave

Remember how promising things sounded in the wake of the Derek Conway affair last year? All the party leaders had basically the same message – This Can’t Happen Again – but it was Cameron who refined it into something of a driving philosophy, with his talk of a “new politics” which stands against the political class. Sadly, that talk faded as the year progressed, and it became more and more likely that we’d never see the full publication of MPs expenses. With the discovery today that Gordon Brown has – disgracefully – imposed a three line whip on Labour MPs to vote for a block on the full publication of expenses, it’s

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