Society

Saturday

14 Feb 2009

Burns scolds Brown’s regulatory system

Tucked away on page six of The Guardian is a hugely important story that somehow everyone seems to have missed. Patrick Wintour writes that Terry Burns, the Perm Sec at the Treasury when Brown arrived, gave evidence this week to the Economic Affairs committee of the House of Lords and made clear that the flaws in the tripartite regulatory structure that Brown introduced had led to problems in the banking sector not being spotted. Wintour writes: “Burns said the tripartite structure covering the Bank of England, the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority, had not properly overlapped – with the result that failed business models in British banking were not

James Forsyth

Labour is heading back to the dark days of August

James Kirkup and Andrew Porter’s guide to the moods of Gordon Brown, the Cabinet and Labour MPs is absolutely essential reading. They write that Labour MPs are increasingly convinced that the next election is lost, cabinet is becoming increasingly fractious and that Brown is heading back to his dark place, he has apparently had to give up exercising on a treadmill because of the strain it puts on his knees. The apology debate is still raging according to Kirkup and Porter: “The truth is, nobody saw this coming and we all got it wrong, Gordon included,” says one minister close to Downing Street. “He’s going to have to level with people

Matthew Dancona

How we got here

My first journalistic job was at the free speech and human rights magazine, Index on Censorship (which, many years later, I still warmly recommend to Coffee Housers who care about fundamental liberties). My months at its offices on Highbury Fields had a profound effect on me, and stirred in me a sense that something unexpected and of deep cultural significance was happening in the towns and cities of this country. Index had been founded as a bastion of free speech during the Cold War, a vehicle to unite liberals and conservatives in the common fight against totalitarianism. But, by 1991, two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it

David Blackburn

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Intelligence Squared debate report – ‘The era of American dominance is over’

There were few facts and plenty of fictions last night as Intelligence Squared debated whether the era of American dominance is over. Oliver Kamm, journalist and author, proposed the motion. He strode about the stage Cameron-style, with the sound bites to match. “America was on the wane because Americans had lost the appetite to lead.” US dominance rested on guaranteeing “public goods: international trade, currency reserves and collective security.” His vision of American decline owed nothing to the “tendentious deterministic theories of the milieu of anti-American Oxbridge educated Europhiles, such as Michael Moore and Harold Pinter”, (neither of who went to Oxbridge). Rather, Kamm’s vision was “rooted in indisputable facts”. The

Fraser Nelson

Extended web version: ‘We need to be ready for two years of recession’

Opposite Alan Johnson’s desk is a plaque from the Chinese health ministry — a gift that must, at times, seem like a taunt. The Health Secretary controls 1.3 million staff, more than anyone bar the commander of the Red Army. His £120 billion budget is greater than any government department in Beijing. The Chinese economy and the NHS were both subjected to limited market-based reform — yet there the similarities end. Deng Xiaoping succeeded. Tony Blair was ousted. And now Mr Johnson stands in charge of the largest bureaucracy on the planet. We have heard strikingly little about health since he took over, which he regards as a success. The

Rory Sutherland

The Wiki Man | 14 February 2009

Two years ago my father decided to try selling books on the internet. Since he had spent much of my childhood expatiating his theory that computers involved more work than they saved, this was something of a U-turn. But he quickly opened a seller’s account on Amazon where he listed for sale the 1,500 of his books he was least likely to miss before sitting back and waiting for the orders to come in. Rather to the surprise of his sceptical sons, orders did come in — and have kept on coming. Two years on, along with a few neighbours who are eBay sellers, he has turned the village post

Lucy Vickery

Competition | 14 February 2009

In Competition No. 2582 you were invited to submit proverbs for the 21st century. Reading the entry brought to mind the magnificently mangled proverbs of Patrick O’Brian’s Captain Jack Aubrey (‘There’s a great deal to be said for making hay while the iron is hot’; ‘A bird in the hand waits for no man’). Your nuggets of contemporary folk wisdom made rather more sense, though. It was a large postbag bristling with wit and cynicism. That scourge of the television schedules, the celebrity chef, was a popular target. Brian Murdoch sums it up neatly: ‘Too many cooks. Period’. An equally hot topic was the credit crunch and its related horrors.

The Spectator

Bonus points

Not all bankers are bad people. Not all banks are surviving only with the support of the billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Not all bankers’ bonuses are rewards for failure. It is important to state these things, obvious though they may be, because Downing Street has undoubtedly poured petrol on the bonfire of rage about bankers’ bonuses as a tactic to deflect public discontent over Gordon Brown’s handling of the economic crisis — a strategy that backfired when it emerged that a former Brown adviser, Sir James Crosby, had allegedly sacked someone for warning about the risks HBOS was taking. This week’s Treasury select committee show trial — like

Ross Clark

Insolvency

The Insolvency Service has sent me a questionnaire seeking my views on bankruptcy. At first, I was enthused by this chance to say what I think about Gordon Brown’s reforms which have led to an explosion in personal bankruptcies — a record 200 of them per day in the last quarter of 2008 — and the growth of a culture in which the feckless walk away from their debts. Unfortunately, the more I worked my way through the multiple-choice questions, the more I realised it was not going to allow me to state what I really think. In fact, it was clearly designed to help the government work out how

Matthew Parris

Another Voice | 14 February 2009

Like skaters on a lake’s frozen surface, we are sometimes reminded how thin is the crust of philosophical confidence on which our systems of political economy rest. Two years ago we were mostly agreed that free market economics had won the ancient argument between capitalism and the planned economy. Two years ago the case for a single market for goods and labour within the European Union was widely thought unanswerable. Yet everywhere we turn today, wise heads mutter that the global free market has failed. And (after some placard-waving at the Total refinery and beyond) we heard Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, declare on the Andrew Marr programme on BBC

Catherine Blyth

All the stalkers you see are desperate marketing men

I have a stalker. In fact, I have hundreds. So do you. What, do you mean you haven’t noticed? I became aware of my admirers after Christmas. First it was letters, then emails. Could I spare a mo to rate my broadband installation? What about the insurer’s customer service? The building society was sorry I’d closed my account, but would love to hear how well they closed it. The questionnaire shouldn’t take a minute. Then came the calls. ‘How did I find the helpline?’ asked my bank. Barclays (not my bank) rang several times to invite me to participate in a survey. This was not, repeat not, a sales call.

Sarah Standing

Standing Room | 14 February 2009

It’s not just politically incorrect toys that need to be hidden in the attic; certain words also need to be junked. It’s not just politically incorrect toys that need to be hidden in the attic; certain words also need to be junked. ‘Sorry’ has lost its mojo for me, it’s gone mainstream. It’s one of those words that began life as a covetable Chanel handbag only to end up as a worthless fake flogged on eBay. Saying sorry has become the must-have ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card and is being used with all the insouciance of a patient suffering from the Coprolalia strain of Tourette’s. Everyone’s at it, especially the bankers, and therefore

Kate Chisholm

Nature’s consolation

Stuck in a traffic jam on an icy road I caught most of Midweek (Radio Four, Wednesdays), and was forced by the complete standstill and the sense of white stillness beyond the car window to really listen to what was being said. Libby Purves’s guests included David Attenborough, who will shortly be donning the mantle of Alistair Cooke to take on the Friday-evening monologue. He’ll not be reporting on the state of America, but rather on the condition of the natural world, and judging from his conversation with Libby Purves it will be vintage radio. She was impelled to ask him, after looking back on the archive footage of his

Friday

13 Feb 2009

Alex Massie

Geert Wilders is Not a Hero

Several readers take me to task for not substantiating the suggestion that Geert Wilders is, as I put it, a “boor and a bigot”. This, apparently, is a “shoddy tactic” and absent any substantiating evidence I should “withdraw the comment” and, asks Francis, is Wilders “really worse than your average Socialist”? Wilhelm, meanwhile, wonders if I’m taking my cues from what I saw on “the lefty BBC and Channel 4 news?” This last notion would, I think, surprise long-time readers. The answer is that Wilders is not a poster-boy for free speech, largely because he would seek to deny that right – not privilege, right – to those whom he

Daniel Korski

Learning the Basra lesson

With a heavy heart, it may be time to acknowledge that the challenge in Helmand seems too hard for the British to carry alone. The UK might have great soldier there led by a fine commander, Brigadier Gordon Messenger, and as someone who worked out there I have huge respect for those deployed in the Helmand PRT, they are my friends, and former employees. But the UK does not seem to have the resources, will power, ministerial expertise, and bureaucratic arrangements for running an effective counter-insurgency. Britain should see the US surge as a strategic opportunity to place the UK military and civilian presence under the US command. Britain should

The Spectator

The week that was | 13 February 2009

Fraser Nelson launches the Spectator Inquiry into the causes of the recession, and reveals where British jobs are going. James Forsyth remembers when Cameron faced down Paxman, and thinks the bankers should learn from Profumo. Peter Hoskin gives his take on the Geert Wilders controversy, and reports on white collar jobs for white collar workers. Toby Young reveals the school of his dreams. Susan Hill writes on praying for patients. Daniel Korski asks: who knows what Afghans think? Martin Bright says that Gordon Brown may be preparing to apologise. Clive Davis watches some car crash television. Alex Massie marks the limits of Presidential power. Melanie Phillips observes Britain capitulate to

James Forsyth

Balls’ ambition

Everyone in Westminster expects that when there is a Labour leadership election, Ed Balls will stand. It is tempting to see Balls as a bit of a joke: he’s bad on TV, has been comprehensively out manoeuvred in his brief by Michael Gove and has had a fair few photo-op disasters, the short shorts snap still causes much amusement in the village. But as John Rentoul points out in his profile of Balls, his positioning has been astute—he is always slightly to the left of the New Labour consensus. Although, the economic disaster has, to put it mildly, rather soured Ball’s pitch for the leadership Rentoul’s profile is worth reading

James Forsyth

Jacqui Smith: why didn’t we think it was a bigger story?

When I read the scoop about Jacqui Smith’s housing arrangements in The Mail on Sunday my first reaction wasn’t shock or outrage, but a general feeling of there’s another one. Several other stories struck me—and other Coffee House contributors—as more interesting. As the day went on without any comment on it from us, commenters started asking why we hadn’t blogged on it. That afternoon, I added this PS to a post on the News of the World’s scoop about unemployment being expected to hit 3.5 million: “Some Coffee Housers have asked why we haven’t blogged on Jacqui Smith’s housing arrangements. Frankly, I don’t have much to say except that it

Peter Hoskin

The ‘apology DVD’ story keeps on rolling

Just to flag up Martin’s latest blog post, in which he details Downing Street’s reponse to his ‘apology DVD’ scoop. Well worth reading, particularly as it features a (typically) less-than-charming text message from Damian McBride…

Alex Massie

Antiguan Debacle

Just in case you had any doubts that cricket is the worst-run sport in the world, further proof comes from today’s farce in Antigua. Even by cricket’s lofty standards this is a disgraceful shambles. England were embarrassed in Jamaica; the entire sport is embarrassed by this nonsense. Ian Botham has just recommended moving the game to the Recreation Ground, arguing, quite correctly, that “you can’t ignore the paying public”. Except of course, ignoring the paying public is the game’s administrators’ standard operating procedure. UPDATE: As ToryLion says, if the pitch is unsafe it’s unsafe. Fair enough. But they have had weeks, if not months to sort this out. And it’s