Society

Friday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The next election is lost so Brown might as well take some risks

On the current political trajectory, Labour will go down to a heavy defeat at the next election. For this reason, it would be foolish in the extreme for Brown to carry on with his current approach: the polls show that it clearly isn’t working. Brown should be prepared to try something completely different; it can hardly lead to a worse result. Matthew Taylor, the former Blair aide, has suggested that Brown should declare a ‘unilateral political ceasefire’ and concentrate solely on the economy. The theory being that the country would be impressed by the statesman-like action and give Brown until May 2010 to turn things around. But any effort to

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The tragedy of welfare ghettoes

So, Tom Harris and I had our duel on Radio Scotland this morning. His line of attack was straightforward: that when I said “scummy estates” – a charge for which I’m being denounced in the Scottish Parliament – I could only be referring to the people who lived in those estates. I thought back to the Easterhouse estate I visited a few months back in the Glasgow East by-election (see it for yourself – 2’20 into the YouTube video). There were dead rats in the landing, evidence of drug abuse, children playing around broken vodka bottles in the park, a pub boarded up like a Balkan arms stash to save

Peter Hoskin

Brown shouldn’t expect a Budget bounce

A thought-provoking article from Martin Kettle in today’s Guardian.  He makes the point that the worsening economy, and a heavy defeat for Labour in this year’s European elections, could encourage calls for a national government.  But he also mentions the moments when Team Brown might expect to claw back some ground on the Tories: “The 2009 political calendar offers a few openings for ministers to take charge of the agenda, such as the G20 London summit and, more significantly, the budget, out of which a popular political leader might hope to conjure fresh support.” Here on Coffee House, we’ve already raised a sceptical eyebrow or two at the idea the

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A White House pest problem

The Washington Post reports: “A small band of masked intruders has broken into the secure White House grounds and has evaded capture by agents of the new Obama administration, officials said today. The National Park Service is in pursuit of one very large raccoon and several medium-sized raccoons, who have been spotted roaming the grounds around the Executive Mansion and the West Wing, a spokesman said.” One wonders whether the raccoons have paid all their taxes

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The sky is falling

Good grief. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and House Speaker William J. Howell announced a deal Thursday morning to ban smoking in restaurants and bars in Virginia, a monumental decision in a state built on the profits of cigarette sales that remains the home to the nation’s largest tobacco company. If Virginia falls*, can the Carolinas be far behind? The Outlaw, Michael Heath’s brilliant Spectator cartoon strip about the last remaining smoker, becomes ever more prescient. Not for the first time, one can only mutter O Tempora, O Mores… *The proposed Virginia bill is less draconian than most in as much as it exempts private clubs and permits bars to have

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

We shouldn’t ignore the poverty in our own country

I am in the process of being formally denounced by the Scottish Parliament for remarks I made on CoffeeHouse last week – that Castlehouse and Easterhouse were “beautiful names, but scummy estates”. An MSP named Charlie Gordon has found time in his busy schedule to table a motion against what he read on the blog. So far, it has 11 signatures. It reads as follows: That the Parliament notes that the journalist, Fraser Nelson, in comments on The Spectator magazine’s Coffee House blog on 30 January 2009, referred to Castlemilk and Easterhouse as “… beautiful names, scummy estates”; draws Mr Nelson’s attention to motion S3M-1561, which celebrated the award-winning Castlemilk

Alex Massie Alex Massie

School Choice Q&A

Fraser’s report from Michael Gove’s education reform shindig today is a must-read. I agree with him that this is the key point Gove, Cameron and the Tories need to make: “In your neighbourhood, there will be a new school going out of its way to persuade you to send your children there. It will market itself on being able to generate better results, and it won’t cost you an extra penny.” Commenting on my last post on the matter, David asked these questions: What happens when the school is oversubscribed by parents wanting to exercise their choice? Is this really such a terrible problem? N-one would suggest that people shouldn’t

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Did Bush keep America safe?

Commenting on this post, Juliana raises a talking point one hears quite often. “Bush was not perfect by a long chalk but he kept America safe for his two terms. Now he is gone Obama is handing America to the terrorists and the jihadists and the brainwashed in North Korea on a plate.” Leaving aside the point that it seems unlikely Obama can be “handing” the United States to the jihadists and the North Koreans (does this mean the terrorists and Pyongyang will then have an elimination bout to determine the overall, undisputed champion?) there’s one awkward fact that merits repeating: more Americans were killed by foreign terrorists on George

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The green room is a place of work

One thing that puzzles me about this whole Carol Thatcher golliwog saga is the importance her defenders place on the fact her remarks were not made on air. This seems to be rather missing the point. Surely, the two important questions are whether referring to someone as a “golliwog” is offensive, which to my mind it clearly is, and whether the remark was made in private or not. Carol Thatcher was a reporter on the One Show, the green room is where the One Show entertains its guests. So, when Carol Thatcher made the golliwog remark she was at her place of work: making her behaviour there her employer’s business.

Peter Hoskin

To cap or not to cap?

One of the more perplexing puzzles of the credit crunch is the issue of bankers’ bonuses.  On the one hand, those failing banks that are being propped up by the taxpayer need to hang on to their best staff so they don’t collapse completely.  Awarding bonuses helps them to do that.  But, on the other, the idea of rewarding failure – as today’s Times splash suggests RBS is about to do – is an affront to both free market and taxpayer alike. These contrary pulls make me favour the middle ground of a cap on bankers’ bonuses, like that announced by Obama yesterday.  But that just throws up questions about

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Whither Commerce?

I spent five years in Washington and could not tell you what the Commerce Department really does. Now that i think of it, I doubt I could name any of George W Bush’s Commerce Secretaries. Certainly, none have lodged themselves in the memory. Which is another way of saying that apart from the big three offices of State, Defense and Treasury, most cabinet positions are not terribly important. Yes, it’s embarrassing for President Obama  that Tom Daschle has had to withdraw from being considered for HHS but this is hardly the mortal wound some are suggesting. The identity of Obama’s healthcare supremo is rather less important than the health bill

Peter Hoskin

Will Miliband lose out in the torture row?

As John points out, there are numerous questions over the alleged American threat to withdraw intelligence cooperation should the UK release evidence about the treatment of Binyan Mohamed at Guantanamo Bay.  But whatever the doubts, and however forceful the denials, the situtation is still potentially damaging for the US and UK governments – especially in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s praise for the “special relationship” a couple of days ago.  Much like last year’s rendition row, this latest controversy paints the relationship as a bullying one in which the US holds all the power, and reopens some of the old wounds over trust. I can’t help but wonder whether David

John Stokes

Stopping US-UK intelligence cooperation is impossible

The idea that America threatened to withdraw intelligence cooperation if British courts released evidence of alleged torture as two High Court judges suggested earlier this week has been ridiculed by the spooks on both sides of the Atlantic. The intelligence relationship is so close that it would be simply impossible for cooperation to stop and America would be damaged at least as much as the UK. For example, a whole floor of the National Security Agency’s headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland is staffed by spooks from GCHQ in Cheltenham. At Cheltenham itself, every intercept that goes through GCHQ’s computers is largely shared with the Americans. And both Britain and

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

England vs West Indies

Intriguing. Interesting. Fascinating. All words often used to spruce up slightly dull cricket. But the first days’ play in Kingston has been intriguing. And interesting. And good. A slow outfield may have cramped scoring, but once England had won the toss and elected to bat there’s little doubt Chris Gayle would have been happier than Andrew Strauss had you told the skippers that the visitors would finish the day at 236/5. 350 may well prove a competitive score on this pitch, though there’s also every prospect that it will be flattest, and best for batting on days two and three. Not that it was a minefield today, mind you. Who

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Quote for the Day | 4 February 2009

“One cannot underestimate how widely admired Tom Daschle is in Washington for his integrity.”—David Gergen, advisor to every President since Nebuchadnezzar and, er, the barometer of DC’s Conventional Wisdom. Of course, Gergen also means one cannot “overestimate” the extent of “Washington’s” admiration for Mr Daschle. Verily, greater love hath no man than to lay down the misery of health care reform for the millionaire luxuries of non-lobbying lobbying… [Thanks: Reason]

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The lie goes all the way around the world before the truth gets it boots on

Daniel Finkelstein flags up that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency have now ‘clarified’ that Israeli shells did not hit one of its schools in Gaza. So, one of the supposed ‘facts’ used by those–including the UN Secretary-General (pictured)–who argued that Israel was being careless about the impact its military operation was having on civilians turns out not to be a fact at all. Although, it is, obviously, still tragic that innocent people died regardless of where they were located. As Melanie pointed out when doubts were first raised about this incident, a false version of events—a version that some UNWRA employees must have known was false—was allowed to

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Already twenty million sacked Chinese workers have headed back to the countryside

China’s rapid economic growth has largely kept a lid on the social tensions bubbling away there, underneath the surface. But with the world economy going into recession—which will hit China, with its export-dependant growth, particularly hard—these tensions could boil over. The Chinese government’s recently released figures, which are almost certainly an underestimate, show that already 20 million workers have lost their jobs in the cities and moved back to the countryside. One has to imagine that this is stretching the social fabric rather. Official figures also show that growth in 2008 was the slowest it has been for seven years. The Chinese government is predicting that 2009 will be the

Peter Hoskin

Did Blair want Charles Clarke to succeed him as Labour leader?

Ben Brogan picks up on an interview with Charles Clarke in tomorrow’s New Statesman in which the former Home Secretary claims Tony Blair wanted him to be Labour leader.  Here’ s the key passage from the interview: “[Blair] had a great plan, apparently, that he wanted me to be foreign secretary because he thought that if I had been foreign secretary and home secretary I would be a credible opponent to Gordon, as the leader of the party. And this had been his long-standing strategy, and that was what he had been intending to do, and that’s what he hoped to do.” All immaterial now, I guess.  But an intriguing footnote to the Blair-Brown struggle

Peter Hoskin

Six takes on the wildcat strikes

On top of our poll, we also put the question “Do you support the wildcat strikers?” to various friends of Coffee House. Here are some of their responses: Matthew Parris Businesses importing labour into recession-hit places need tact. An offshore barge filled with foreign workers was not unlawful but it was inflammatory. There’s something to be said for ministers being able to play Soft Cop to organised labour’s Hard Cop: look, you’re within your rights, old chap, but my friend Mr Wildcat-Striker has a nasty temper on him. Couldn’t we find a middle way? Matthew Parris is a columnist for the Times and The Spectator Douglas Murray Yes.  The wildcat strikes are a terrific demonstration of