Society Archives

Wednesday

8 Apr 2009

Ian Tomlinson

The appalling thing – apart from his death, of course – about the death of Ian Tomlinson after he was assaulted by the Metropolitan Police during the G20 protests last week is that if it weren’t for the fact that Tomlinson collapsed from a fatal heart attack moments after he was attacked by the police, there’d be very little fuss about the incident. It would just be another example of heavy-handed police thuggery and, consequently, of no news value whatsoever. (incidentally, it also shows why it is important that the public be allowed to take photographs of the police.) The policeman who attacked Tomlinson who was, as the video footage

Peter Hoskin

Brown’s post-G20 rhetoric sounds a lot like his pre-G20 rhetoric

Yesterday brought plenty of insights into Labour’s pre-election strategy – rumours of poster campaigns; a series of attacks on the Tories; and talk of how the Government would use the G20 to refine its domestic message. But perhaps the most striking aspect of it all was how, fundametally, the approach remains the same. The emphasis is still on those infamous dividing lines: “investment vs cuts”, “nice vs nasty” etc. And, while there are efforts to wrap a post-G20 bow around some of this, the content is wearily familiar. Gordon Brown’s interview with the Independent today does little more than confirm this. Here’s the most substantive passage: “Rehearsing his election

Peter Hoskin

Put your questions to Eric Pickles | 8 April 2009

We ran a Q&A with Eric Pickles back in August. But as he’s had an eventful few months since then – what with being made chairman of the Tory party, as well as his appearance on Question Time a couple of weeks ago – Eric has kindly agreed to another Q&A with CoffeeHousers now. Same drill as usual: just put your questions for Eric in the comments section below; we’ll pick out the best 5 or so on Sunday, and put them to the Tory chairman; and he’ll get back to us with answers early next week.

James Forsyth

Another blow to public confidence in the police

It is hard not to be shocked by this video of the police and Ian Tomlinson last week in London. The footage (after the jump) strongly indicates that Tomlinson was no threat to anyone or anything. He was just someone slowly going about their business. This incident will be yet another blow to public confidence in the police. There were clearly people demonstrating that day whose main intention was to start a violent confrontation with the police but, judging by this footage, there is no possible way that a reasonable person could think that Tomlinson’s behaviour suggested he was one of them. Regardless of whether the police’s actions played any

Peter Hoskin

Empty seats in Parliament

So here’s a new controversy for politicians to get mired in: select committee absenteeism. Today’s Times has a double-page spread naming and shaming some of those politicians who “routinely skip” the meetings of committees they belong to. Last year, for instance, Nadine Dorries went to just 2 percent of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills meetings (UPDATE: Dorries offers an explanation on her blog); Bob Spink likewise. You can find a more detailed roll call here. Now, I’m not going to comment on individual cases. MPs, including those mentioned above, may well have solid reasons for not attending (cf, Nadine Dorries: “This committee is chaired by someone not fit”).

Alex Massie

As Iowa and Vermont go, so goes the United States?

This week the Iowa Supreme Court has upheld same-sex marriage and the Vermont legislature has overturned a gubernatorial veto and recognised gay marriage. Meanwhile, the District of Columbia’s city council voted unanimously to reognise gay marriages in DC, regardless of the state in which the ceremony took place. Commenting on this Rod Dreher writes: Gay marriage supporters will get it democratically if they can, but if they can’t, they’ll have it imposed on unwilling polities by the judiciary. It is increasingly obvious that the US Supreme Court is going to have to rule on this matter soon. It is an untenable situation for a same-sex couple to be married in

Tuesday

7 Apr 2009

James Forsyth

Yet another Balls up | 7 April 2009

Nearly everyone would accept that education is the key to advancement in the globalised, knowledge economy and that now is the worst time in almost a generation to look for a job. So, it is a huge error for the government to now be telling sixth-form and colleges that there is a £60 million shortfall in funding. In the days before we became inured to governmental incompetence, this kind of mistake would have led to calls for ministerial resignations. Michael Gove, Balls’s opposite number, points out what the consequences of this cock-up by Balls’ department are: ‘The Education Secretary is now in the deeply uncomfortable position of telling thousands of

James Forsyth

Pakistan, a problem without a solution?

The New York Times Magazine profile of Asif Ali Zardari, the president of Pakistan who is known by the nickname of Mr 10 percent, is a depressing reading. It leaves you with little doubt that Zadari is not the kind of effective leader that Pakistan needs now. Then, in its final paragraphs, it turns its attention to the most likely alternative to Zadari: ‘American officials, increasingly convinced both that Zardari is not the interlocutor they had hoped for and that his days in power may be numbered, have begun to pay more attention to Sharif, long considered dangerously close to Islamist forces. Leading PML-N officials say they have learned from

Alex Massie

New Government Ploy: Fat Tests for Pensioners

Can this really be happening? Everyone aged between 40 and 74 will be called in to their GP for a ‘fat test’ and prescribed weight management and exercise if they are found to be overweight, under a new Government drive on obesity. Why, god help us, yes it can. And is. How, er, fatuous. The whole piece merits reading for its head-in-hands ghastliness. All thisbeing the case, though, isn’t it obvious that this government programme doesn’t go far enough? Why wait until people are 40? It’s too late then, innit? And why are lardy 75 year olds getting off, er, lightly? Surely they should be “prescribed weight management and exercise”

Alex Massie

Headline of the Day | 7 April 2009

Courtesy of the Scotsman: Boycott rigged poll, says Al-Qaeda chief This would surely come as no surprise to many of the great man’s former team-mates, but still, what can this mean? Has Sir Geoffrey been stuffing ballot boxes in some Greatest Yorkshireman contest or something? And why should Al-Qaeda care about that? Has Boycott offended them too? Alas, no, seems it’s something to do with the Algerian elections. More important, perhaps, but less mysterious or intriguing.

James Forsyth

Three faltering steps

Steve Richards sets out Brown’s three-step strategy for the coming weeks in his Independent column: ‘The first is to link the G20 decisions to those that are made in Britain. Instead of suggesting that he is moving on to British politics as if it was a separate entity, he will seek to show that there is a direct connection. The attempt began yesterday with the meeting between Brown, Alistair Darling and senior figures from the Financial Services Authority to begin implementing some of the regulatory changes in Britain agreed by world leaders last week. Next, Brown knows that he needs to find a language that makes more sense of a

Peter Hoskin

To avoid or to confront?

Give Brown’s government half a chance and they’ll bang on about “Tory cuts” and “Same old Tories” like it’s going out of fashion. So, predictably, Labour figures have been making merry over three stories from the past couple of days: George Osborne’s attack on “inflexible” public sector pay deals; Dan Hannan’s remarks about the NHS; and, now, Edward Garnier’s suggestion that the hunting ban should be repealed. According to Liam Byrne, the “mask has slipped” from those nasty, old Tories. All this keys into an issue that the Cameroons will have to face up to over the next few days, weeks and months. Should they go out of their

James Forsyth

The hubristic science

There is a great piece by Harvey Mansfield in The Weekly Standard about economists and their role in the current crisis. It is hard not to agree with Mansfield’s contention that economists became far too confident about what they could achieve. As Mansfield writes: “The economists I know are generally, as individuals, sober and cautious, the most respectable of all professors and in their honesty and reliability representing the best in bourgeois virtue. But when they get together as economists, they give way to boyish irrational exuberance over the accomplishments and prospects of economics as a science.” Mansfield’s conclusion is a spirited attack on the idea of homo economicus: “it

James Forsyth

A shock to Stanford’s system

Allen Stanford, the Texan millionaire who English cricket leapt into bed with but is now expected to be indicted, has given a quite remarkable interview to ABC News. In it, he emotionally denies that he was running a ponzi scheme or laundering money for drug cartels. But it is this comment that caught my eye: ‘He was forced to fly on a commercial plane for the first time in almost two decades after the government seized his fleet of six private jets. “They make you take your shoes off and everything, it’s terrible,” he complained about the airport security that apparently came as a surprise to him.’ One really

Peter Hoskin

Why the “Tory toff” attack will struggle come election time

The Whip column in today’s Sun suggests that Labour may reheat the “Tory toffs” attack come election time: “LABOUR’S ‘below-the-belt’ propaganda department is already planning its main attack for the General Election. They aim to paint Tory leader David Cameron and Shadow Chancellor George (formerly Gideon) Osborne as rich toffs who haven’t a clue how ordinary voters live. The campaign will make huge posters of those cringe-making student photos of the two men in Oxford University’s drunken, bar-trashing Bullingdon Club and ask: ‘Do you want these men to run Britain?’ Trouble is that the famous snap with Dave in his ghastly white-lapelled dinner suit has been removed from public gaze

Rod Liddle

The C of E has forgotten its purpose. Why, exactly, does it exist?

What did you give up for Lent? I gave up chives again. Forty-five days of deprivation. According to the ecclesiastical calendar I am allowed my first chive on Saturday — but do you know what? I’m going to say no. My willpower has become a marvel to myself; I’m saying no to chives all the way through to May. I might have one then, and then again, I might not. The power of my faith enables me to crush utterly any bodily craving for chives. I am on a spiritual plane beyond such temptations, although this does not stretch to other members of the alliaceae family, i.e. onions. I have had

Alexandra Starr

In New York, pregnancy is a form of tyranny

Even Sylvia Plath (though usually pretty downbeat about life) viewed pregnancy as an exalted state. In her diary she characterised gestation as ‘the Great Experience a [woman’s] body is formed to partake of, to nourish’, while in her poem ‘Morning Song’ she celebrated feeling ‘cow heavy and floral’. Bringing children into the world clearly fulfilled a profound need for Plath. But I suspect that even she would have felt differently about the joys of maternity had she experienced it not in London in the early 1960s, but in Manhattan circa 2009. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. My husband and I spent most of last year in London,

George Osborne

Lincoln’s legacy

Every so often American Presidents let people know that they are reading a book. When George W. Bush was seen clutching a copy of Andrew Roberts’s History of the English Speaking People, acres of newsprint appeared on this elegant apologia for neo-conservatism. Now his successor in the White House wants us to know that he has a well-thumbed copy of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals; and just in case you missed that, the publishers have helpfully emblazoned the front of the UK paperback edition with the headline ‘The Book that Inspired Barack Obama’. He could have done much worse. For Team of Rivals is one of the best biographical

Monday

6 Apr 2009

James Forsyth

No G20 bounce for Brown in Populus poll

A Populus poll out tonight suggests that Labour has not had any kind of sustained bounce from the G20. It has Labour steady at 30, the Tories up one to 43 and the Lib Dems down one to 18. This is, obviously, only one poll but, as Anthony Wells notes, it combined with the mild three point bounce in the YouGov poll it does suggest the G20 was not a game-changer. Interestingly, voters do give credit to the Prime Minister for how he handled the summit. 26 percent say they feel more positively towards him because of it and 11 percent say the opposite with the rest unchanged. What I

Peter Hoskin

The Tories still need some catchier phrases

Bruce Anderson has some straightforward, but crucial, advice for the Tories in his Indy column today: “Needless to say, [providing an analysis of the downturn] is not enough. It never is, in politics. The Tories must also come up with some catchy ‘phrases: their equivalent of “boom and bust”. William Hague has made a start. “Gordon Brown promised to abolish boom and bust. He has kept half his promise.’ Having invented the phrases, it is vital to go on repeating them. Often, it is only when the politicians are sick of repeating themselves that the voters at last begin to notice.” In October last year, I said that the Tories