Society

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Whither the Drug War?

Mike Crowley asks whether Barack Obama will offer any “substantial” change to America’s drug policy. There’s an easy, short answer to that: No. At least, during the campaign Obama offered little reason to hope that he’d adopt a saner drugs policy. Now, true, that was just the campaign, but his website suggested that there’d be little fresh thinking on, say, Plan Colombia and, of course, Joe Biden was the inspiration for the first “Drugs Tsar” in the first place. More to the point, ending the “War on Drugs” would use up valuable political capital that Obama most probably has better, more urgent uses for. Still, to be fair, he hasn’t

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A mighty expensive stimulus

The latest estimate for the cost of the stimulus package that Obama will ask Congress to approve is $850 billion. That is, as Playbook points out keying off a Washington Post story: “ more than the inflation-adjusted cost of the Vietnam War ($698 billion), the Iraq war ($597 billion), the Korean War ($454 billion), the initial 42,700 miles of the Interstate highway system ($425 billion), the race to the moon ($237 billion), the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s ($153 billion), the Louisiana Purchase ($217 billion), the Marshall Plan ($115.3 billion) or the Works Project Administration of 1939 ($100 billion).” Now, obviously the US economy is now far lager—making the stimulus

Peter Hoskin

A Quick exit?

This from Ben Brogan: “The expectations from the Yard tonight are that Mr Quick is finished and will be quietly moved.” And rightly so, I’d say.  As I suggested earlier, the key now for the Tories – at least in the short term – is to wash their hands of this Bob Quick furore / the whole issue of police politicisation.  If Quick is moved, then the Tories’ position will be vindicated enough as it is.

Peter Hoskin

New Year’s honours omissions

Michael Gove makes a striking point in his Times column today: “I am delighted Bruce Forsyth will be getting his knighthood shortly. But why, still, no K for Christopher Lee? I don’t begrudge McKellen or Gambon their honours, but Lee is quite simply our greatest living screen star. He is 87 next year. A career in which he has played Counts, from Dracula to Dooku, cannot continue with him still a commoner.” To be honest, I’ve been going through the past few years assuming that Lee’s been knighted already.  He certainly deserves it for bringing us the greatest screen incarnation of Dracula, among many other achievements.  Are there any other

Peter Hoskin

The Tories should leave it at that

Further to Fraser’s post, it’s worth noting that Dominic Grieve (along with David Davis) has accepted Bob Quick’s apology; adding that “This does not itself in my view cast doubt on his abilities as a senior officer to do counter terrorism work.”  Yes, what Quick said was both foolish and vindictive, and it reflects worryingly on the politics of the Met, but Grieve’s right to draw so elegant a line under it.  There’s a sense that the Tories dwelt too long and too loudly on the Damian Green affair – to the detriment of their reponse to the Pre-Budget Report – and they shouldn’t want a repeat this time around.

Peter Hoskin

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 22 December – 28 December

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 backtracking begins in earnest

After visiting Downing Street, Kevin Maguire beats the drum for Brown in today’s Mirror.  To spare CoffeeHousers the details about how our PM is “brimming with ideas” and how he puts in “Herculean” 12-hour days, here’s the key passage from towards the end of the article: “[Brown] hinted that a Treasury forecast of recovery in the second half of 2009 may prove optimistic after the cheating Dickensian Mr Merdles’ of modern finance crashed the economy.” The growth forecasts in the Pre-Budget Report have been widely condemned as fanciful, and the expectation is that they’ll be sharply downgraded in the next Budget.  Of course, the words above are Maguire’s, but they

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Too Quick on the draw

One would imagine that a prerequisite of heading the Met’s counter-terrorism branch would be having good judgement. This is something that Bob Quick, who signed off on the Damian Green arrest, seems to lack. This morning a story in the Mail on Sunday reported that his wife runs a wedding car hire service from their home. Quick responded by accusing the Tories of smearing him because of the Damian Green arrest. The bizarre statement alleged that, “The Tory machinery and their press friends are mobilised against this investigation in a wholly corrupt way, and I feel very disappointed in the country I am living in.” The Tories replied with a

Peter Hoskin

Is the cat slowly creeping out of the bag?

I know, I know; all the election speculation’s starting to get tiresome – if it wasn’t already tiresome weeks ago.  But it’s still worth noting the comments of one of Brown’s closest allies, Charlie Whelan, who’s suggested that June 2009 will be an “ideal opportunity” for the PM to hold an election. His thinking is that Brown will be boosted by the world economic summit being held in London in May, and which will be attended by one President Obama. Photo-ops galore, I guess.  Whelan’s proximity to Brown – he’s rumoured to have been attending pre-election meetings with the Brownite inner circle, as well as having coffee with Mandy –

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Marginal unemployment

General elections are decided in the marginals; it was polling from them that led Brown to call off the election in 2007. The economic conditions in these seats are going to have a disproportionate impact on the election result. The Independent reports today that unemployment is rising faster in Labour-held marginals than in the country as a whole: “Some 59 out of Labour’s 115 most marginal seats witnessed increases of more than 418 claimants, the average for the country. In total, 225 Labour seats, 64 per cent of the party’s Westminster total, had above-average unemployment rises, compared with 21 per cent of Conservative and 22 per cent of Liberal Democrats.

Saturday

Alex James

Slow life | 20 December 2008

It’s underrated, winter. I love it all the way to spring, but Christmas is absolutely my favourite time of the year. It was an utterly immaculate morning this morning: festive with the startling glamour of a snap frost, a brittle dawn. Pale clear skies screaming forever over a frozen landscape, the horizon a curtain of lilac far beyond the deep frozen lawns and calm pristine parallels of box, yew and dry-stone walls. Warm light spilling from painted wooden windows. All across the petrified valley it was toy-like. There was nothing that wasn’t pretty. Pylons like sculptures. Even shrink-wrapped one tonne hay bales — normally the ugliest things on display in

Melissa Kite

Real life | 20 December 2008

Paying off your credit cards is an odd way to end the year. It just doesn’t feel very seasonal for a God-fearing Christian who ought to be marking the time of Our Lord’s birth by loading up their debts at Marks & Spencer in the traditional way. But I think I’m going to make it my new Yuletide tradition. It wasn’t as instantly enjoyable as panic shopping and took a while to get an endorphin rush out of. But once I got into the swing it was quite the rollercoaster ride of pure adrenalin. First, I had to negotiate the confusion at the other end of the phone when I

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 20 December 2008

My boy, and almost all the members of his family on his mother’s side, are dedicated smokers. Cigarettes are the joy and consolation of their lives. Whenever I go abroad, they take up a collection and I am handed a wad of money to buy and bring back as many tax-free fags as possible. When I went to Egypt recently, I was given money for cigarettes by his mum, his Aunty Pat, his gran, his mum’s next-door neighbours, by Tom and Glenda at number 47, and by Betty, a lady my boy works with, who really shouldn’t be smoking as her circulation is so bad she can hardly walk. Because

Taki

High life | 20 December 2008

Yes, Virginia, Charles Dickens did invent Christmas, at least the Christmas spirit of giving to the poor as well as the presumption and posturing of the rich. As everyone knows, it was 1843 and Dickens had spent his hard-earned cash like an oil-rich camel driver. He was only 31, but he had a large family to feed and felt he was slowly sliding toward oblivion. So he walked the Manchester streets and decided to stop browbeating his readers and return to plain story telling. That’s when A Christmas Carol took shape, and he continued developing it in his mind once back in London. In six weeks he had 30,000 words,

Toby Young Toby Young

Status anxiety | 20 December 2008

It is the closest I have ever come to dying. It was 22 December 1995 and I had flown to Chicago from New York to spend the weekend with my friend Matias before returning to London for Christmas. The day started well: Matias was having a fancy-dress party and in the course of helping him shop for canapés I fell into conversation with a sexy, mischievous girl who worked in the local delicatessen. Her name tag said ‘Kelly’. Afterwards, I mentioned this girl to Matias — ‘Do you know her?’ — and he urged me to invite her to the party. ‘But won’t it look a bit desperate, going back to the

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 20 December 2008

Once again Mary has invited some of her favoured persons of distinction to submit Christmas queries. From Sir Tim Rice Q. I have recently employed a full-time driver. A friend (a well-known art dealer and social gadabout) has informed me and many of my close circle that it is considered common to sit in the back of a car when being driven. This has caused me some distress. I am painfully aware that among the highly competitive brotherhood of drivers I may be harming my new employee’s standing by not sitting in the front with him. Of course, it would be foolish to take this issue to the extremes of

Peter Jones

Ancient and Modern – 20 December 2008

The Today programme would call her iconic, but since she is a 16.1cm gold and ivory (‘chrys-elephantine’) statuette, it would not be saying much. She stands there, erect, shoulders back, thrusting forward impressive bare breasts (one nipple the tip of a golden nail), both hands holding snakes that, twined round her arms, stretch outwards from her, tongues flickering. The best-known of all the ancient Cretan snake goddesses, she has graced the covers of, and been reproduced in, a thousand books. It is her face that has caught the imagination. With her pouting lips and deep-set eyes, she has been hailed as ‘charmingly serene’, ‘radiant’, ‘demure’, ‘expressive of individuality’ and ‘arresting’.

The Spectator

Letters | 20 December 2008

Why did Gatland resign? Sir: The uproar over the strange case of Maria Gatland McGuire seems almost incomprehensible from a Belfast perspective. At the beginning of December she was compelled to resign as the cabinet member for education on Croydon council when it was revealed that she was also Maria McGuire, who famously was involved with the IRA leadership in 1971–72. Maria McGuire is the author of an interesting book, To Take Arms — A Year in the Provisional IRA, published in 1973. The book makes clear that she has made a radical break with the IRA’s violent campaign. It seems that the final straw came on 21 July 1972,

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 20 December 2008

John Milton is 400 years old this month, and there is justified lamentation that nobody reads him for pleasure. Although Milton is renowned for his learning and complexity, he was also the master of simplicity. Almost my earliest memory of poetry of any kind is singing Milton’s version of Psalm 136 at my kindergarten. ‘Let us with a gladsome mind/ Praise the Lord, for he is kind’, it begins. I liked it, aged four or five, because of its depiction of nature — the ‘golden-tressèd sun’, ‘the hornèd moon that shines by night,/Mid her spangled sisters bright’. (I only wish the hymnal version had included some of the exciting other