Society

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 18 March 2009

Stay tuned for live coverage of PMQs from 1200 onwards. 1204: Here’s Brown now.  First question from Jim Sheridan – “Today’s unemployment figures are extremely disappointing … will [the PM] reassure us that he will deal with this?”  An opportunity for Brown to talk about “investment” in skills and training. 1206: Cameron now.  Leads on unemployment and the rise in the claimant count.  “Doesn’t this mean that the PM’s claim that Britain was best-placed to weather the recession was nonsense?” 1208: Brown repsonds that the Government are spending £1.3 billion on the problem.  He adds, predictably, that the Tories would “do nothing”. 1209: Good blunt attack from Cameron: “There’s a gulf

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tories are in the same poll position as New Labour was nine months before the 1997 landslide

The latest set of polls has created some grumblings among Tories, and CoffeeHousers, about the party not being further ahead. Personally, I’m highly sceptical of polls at the moment. British politics has, for obvious reasons, been too unusual in the past few weeks to make a snapshot of opinion that useful. But it is worth pointing that the Tories are ahead by the exactly the same amount in the ICM poll – whose numbers are comparable – as Labour were in August 1996. The similarities don’t end there: The Guardian also presented its August 1996 poll as good news for the government that was 12 points behind. Here are extracts from its report

Peter Hoskin

Will Brown get a Recovery Boost?

So would an economic recovery give Labour a slim chance of winning the next election?  That’s the question mooted by the Guardian this morning, as their ICM poll discovers that some people planning to vote Tory or Lib Dem would consider switching to Labour if there are “clear signs of a recovery” by May 2010.  That’s 9 percent of current Tory “voters” and 22 percent of Lib Dem “voters”, to be precise. To my mind, there are two major impediments to a significant Recovery Boost for Labour.  The first is, simply, that there may not be a recovery.  After all, leaked IMF figures yesterday have downgraded UK growth for this

Peter Craven

A stoical Nevin charts the evolution of grief

It’s not hard to see why Robyn Nevin should have made such a beeline for Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, or why the Melbourne Theatre Company should be hosting this production. This one-hander about the evolution of grief had been done with remarkable success in New York by Vanessa Redgrave, and it was clearly a star turn for an older actress. Joan Didion, that supremely imaginative chronicler of modern America, had seen her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, die before her eyes. But seeing was not, in the deeper sense of emotional credibility, believing. And so the distinguished journalist and bracingly sceptical intellect set about consoling herself

Tuesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

From Greenspan to Brown, policymakers were too keen to believe in their own supposed genius

Virginia Postrel’s column in The Atlantic this month makes for fascinating reading. In it, she highlight academic research that shows that the so-called ‘great moderation’ was not down purely to central banks or government policies, as central bankers and politicians wanted to think, but “changes in business practices that occurred for competitive reasons having nothing to do with macroeconomic goals.” As Postrel puts it, “The Great Moderation looks a lot like the staid 1950s, with better inventory management and more-flexible employment contracts.” The Federal Reserve then became a huge part of the problem with its aggressive cutting of interest rates in 2001. Postrel points to research from John B, Taylor,

Peter Hoskin

Happy St Patrick’s Day

As it’s St Patrick’s Day, here’s a clip of the great Irish comedian Dave Allen to round off the afternoon: I’d also recommend you check out this (sadly, unembeddable) clip of Allen’s 1993 routine on banks – I reckon he may have spotted the signs of the credit crunch before anyone else…

Peter Hoskin

Consensus building

Labour have come out fighting on welfare reform today – with James Purnell stressing the Government’s commitment to the agenda in an interview with the FT, and Tony McNulty doing likewise in an article for the Guardian.  Although neither go beyond anything we’ve heard before – in spite of the the fact that the reform proposals could do with a redraft for the recession era – I’m pleased by the general thrust of their comments.  Here’s why: when even the Brown Government – headed by a man who’s obsessed about creating dividing lines with the Tories – can talk welfare reform during the economic crisis, then it shows just how strong the

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Corporate hari-kiri

Things could be worse for RBS executives. They could be AIG executives receiving advice from Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa): “The first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards them is if they would follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I’m sorry and then either do one of two things: resign or commit suicide.” Grassley added, “In the case of the Japanese, they usually commit suicide before they make any apology.” Happily, “An aide later explained he does not actually want executives to kill themselves.” Well, that’s ok then!

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Advantage of Being a Confederate

Henrick Hertzberg writes: Most of Europe’s individual “states” have governments that are not just democratic but also energetic and powerful. Hence the “European socialism”—i.e., universal health care, greater economic equality, low crime rates, fast trains, good road signage, excellent broadband—that American conservatives are so scared of. But Europe’s federal government—the European Union—is like the post-independence U.S. government under the Articles of Confederation: it’s weak, it’s atomized, it has feeble powers of taxation, and it can’t act without unanimity or something close to it among its several states. It’s as if South Carolina were a sovereign country within a loose confederation, and Barack Obama and Congress needed Mark Sanford’s permission to

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Horrors of St Patrick’s Day

Eammon Forde doesn’t much care for St Patrick’s Day: It says everything about what it means to be Irish these days that the biggest parades take place hundreds of miles from Irish soil where a once-proud diaspora’s celebration of its past has been hijacked by anyone who has seen The Quiet Man and wants to get noisily bladdered. They may as well wear their heart on their sleeves and pay a gaggle of pale-faced colleens with pigs under their arms to spray the streets with whiskey and potatoes.In Alan Partridge’s phrase, “de big oidea” behind St Patrick’s Day today is to amplify every cultural cliché to the point where it

Peter Hoskin

Labour close the gap | 17 March 2009

This month’s Ipsos-MORI figures have been released and Labour appears to have eaten a hefty chunk out of the Tory lead: Conservatives — 42 percent (down 6 percentage points) Labour — 32 percent (up 4) Lib Dems — 14 percent (down 3) As Anthony Wells points out, though, the last Ipsos-MORI poll had a considerably bigger lead for the Tories than other pollsters were showing, and this puts them back in a similar range.  Either way, I think Downing Street will be more pleased than not with this.  Throw in the YouGov poll from the weekend (which had also had a reduced gap of 10 points between the Tories and Labour), and

Peter Hoskin

Myners ducks and weaves – but to little effect

I didn’t actually tune into Paul Myners’ appearance before the Treasury Select Committee (did any CoffeeHousers?), but it sounds as though he took “It’s not my fault, guv” to a whole new level.  Take Myners’ explanation of why he didn’t know that Fred the Shred’s pension settlement was discretionary: “Nothing was said that at [a] meeting by either [former RBS chairman] Sir Tom McKillop or [former head of RBS’s remuneration committee] Mr Scott along the lines of ‘Well actually Minister what we are minded to do is be rather generous to Fred because he’s served us well and we would like to double the value of his pension as a result of

Peter Hoskin

Cambridge University’s decision makes the case for school reform

In some sense, the critics of Cambridge University’s decision to call for an A* grade from its applicants have a point – it will, most likely, make it disproportionately more difficult for students from state schools to get into the university.  After all, despite educating only seven per cent of pupils, independent schools produce more students with three A grade A-levels than all the country’s comprehensives put together – a shocking statistic, among countless others, which James highlighted last week.  But those same critics are directing their anger at the wrong target.  That the performance gap between British state and British private schools is the largest in the world is

Peter Hoskin

More of the same from Brown

So here it is.  After Cameron’s apology last week, Brown has used his interview in today’s Guardian to hit back with an apology of his own.  Or maybe not.  Truth is, the Prime Minister says he accepts “full responsibility” for his actions, but – as usual – follows it up with a caveat which passes the buck: “I take full responsibility for all my actions, but I think we’re dealing with a bigger problem that is global in nature, as well as national. Perhaps 10 years ago after the Asian crisis when other countries thought these problems would go away, we should have been tougher … keeping and forcing these

Monday

Mark Wallace

Taxpayers’ money must not be used to fund hateful propaganda

Last week, James rightly argued that, as a nation, we must be watchful of Islamists active in Britain, to make sure they are not providing logistical or financial succour to the enemy in Afghanistan or Iraq. As well as being alert to the ideological and military threat of Islamism, though, we need to make sure that we are not inadvertently supporting the growth of that movement. For example, it has long been clear than many Islamist extremists in this country are happy to fund their lifestyles through the welfare state, paid for by the British citizens whom they so despise. It is increasingly clear that British taxpayers’ money is fuelling

Peter Hoskin

Clever politics – but not something to really loosen the fiscal squeeze

The take-home point from Cameron’s press conference seems to be his announcement that the Tories would freeze the 2 percent rise in the BBC licence fee pencilled in for this year – Jeremy Hunt also discussed this earlier on ConservativeHome.  My quick take on it is that it’s clever politics, but deeply unambitious.  The clever politics first: after the recent scandals that the Beeb’s been embroiled in, there’s less public goodwill towards the corporation, and more reluctance surrounding the licence fee.  The Tory proposal keys into that, as well as giving them a platform to talk about saving money for households, ordinary families and the like.  To some extent, any

Peter Hoskin

Crunched households

The research by PricewaterhouseCoopers in today’s Independent delivers some more figures for the credit crunch scrapbook: “The total value of shares and homes owned by British households has fallen from £6.8trn in 2007 to £4.9trn now – a decline of £1.9trn, or 28 per cent, the PwC figures show. During the credit crunch, houses have lost 20 per cent of their value (or £800bn) and equities 40 per cent (or £1.1trn). Thus, each adult Briton has lost on average £17,000 from the property slump and a further £23,000 in the value of shares, held either directly or indirectly though pension plans. The losses are likely to rise, and there could

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 16 March – 22 March

Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which – provided your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency – you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no topic, so there’s no need to stay ‘on topic’ – which means you’ll be able to debate with each other more freely and extensively. There’s also no constraint on the length of what you write – so, in effect, you can become Coffee House bloggers. Anything’s fair game – from political stories in your local

Peter Hoskin

The tension over BJ4BW continues

In the wake of the Lindsey oil refinery strikes, there’s evidence that Gordon Brown’s deeply misguided ‘British jobs for British workers’ soundbite has provoked some dangerous trends.  Take the Harris poll in this morning’s FT.  It finds that 78 percent of British adults think immigrants should be made to leave the country if they don’t have a job (with around 50 percent strongly supporting this idea).  And that 54 percent of British adults oppose citizens of other EU countries getting a job here.  Compared to the other countries polled – France, Germany, Italy and Spain – Britain displays the highest levels of hostility to migrant labour. The hope now has

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Going back to where we were will just lead to an even bigger crash

The Washington Post has an interesting interview with Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the author of the black swan thesis. In it, he’s very dismissive of economists and makes some sensible comments about bonuses. But what struck me as most interesting was his final answer: “My rosy scenario is that a better economic environment will develop, a low-debt, robust growth world, in which whatever is fragile will be allowed to break early and not late. My nightmare scenario is that the government saves Citibank once again, as well as the other banks, and business resumes as usual. Then, the next time the system breaks, it breaks much, much bigger.” One of the