Society

Tuesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

How China’s currency manipulation caused the crisis

One of the most important political and ideological battles of the next few years will be to determine who—and what—gets the blame for the current financial crisis. The public, and public policy, will react heavily against whoever and whatever is perceived to be at fault. All of which makes Sebastian Mallaby’s comments in the Washington Post so important: “Geithner [Obama’s Treasury Secretary] is correct that China manipulates its currency. What’s more, this manipulation is arguably the most important cause of the financial crisis. Starting around the middle of this decade, China’s cheap currency led it to run a massive trade surplus. The earnings from that surplus poured into the United

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The neglected war

Anyone with vaguest interest in the war we’re fighting in Helmand should tune in next Sunday to Ross Kemp’s Return to Afghanistan. I went to a preview on Friday, and was most impressed. We’re told more about the war in Gaza than the one in Afghanistan, and what we do hear from Helmand is normally a staggered narrative of casualties. Kemp’s documentary has something different: it offers a vivid and utterly compelling journey into the lives of the soldiers fighting a fanatical enemy in an environment where the heat can be as deadly as bullets. And Sky has spent the time and money to tell the soldiers’ story. The power

Peter Hoskin

Now Straw’s name comes up in the Lords-for-hire scandal

Just how far-reaching could the Lords-for-hire scandal turn out to be?  Pretty far, if the latest reports are anything to go by.  This morning’s Mail revealed that 1-in-5 Lords act as consultants or advisers to “outside interests”.  And now the Standard discloses that Jack Straw has received money from one of the peers at the centre of the row – in one case, as a “personal gift”.  Of course, we should reserve judgement until after any proper inquiry, but the Straw connection will almost certainly cause a few headaches on Downing Street.  Given Labour’s faltering poll position, they’ll be worried by any indication – however slight or tangential – that the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The problem with the DEC appeal

As someone who thought Israel’s actions in Gaza were justified and that the BBC did not do nearly enough to explain the Israeli position during the conflict, I was fairly cynical about the BBC’s motives in not showing the DEC appeal last night. But having watched it a couple of times, I find myself in increasing sympathy with the BBC and Sky’s position. The appeal emphasises the destruction in Gaza. (The charitable explanation for this is that this is the best way to persuade people to donate, an uncharitable one is that these charities have an anti-Israeli agenda.) This emphasis, and the footage used, carries with it an implicit message

Peter Hoskin

Is the Bank’s independence under threat?

Over at his blog, Robert Peston sees the independence of the Bank of England being eroded as the recession progresses.  Basically, the worry is that once the Bank embarks on quantitative easing the Treasury will have to steer monetary policy in order to safeguard taxpayers’ cash.  Here’s a sizeable excerpt from Peston’s rather more detailed explanation: “Perhaps the important point is that Mervyn King and the chancellor have both made clear that it won’t be long before the Bank of England starts to use money, rather then Treasury bills, to buy corporate debt and other financial assets. At that point, even the governor would call that monetary policy. It would be

Peter Hoskin

Labour starts accepting the “headless chicken” charge

A passage in Rachel Sylvester’s column today quotes two Labour figures – one a Downing St adviser and the other a “normally loyal minister” – effectively accepting the “headless chicken” charge that the Tories aim at Brown & Co: “The long succession of announcements may have diminishing returns,” a Downing Street adviser admits. “We’re burning up money, which can’t go on, and the frenetic activity makes us look like headless chickens.” A normally loyal minister is even franker: “Gordon is behaving like the Leader of the Opposition rather than the Prime Minister. It’s all tactics rather than strategy. He makes an announcement, gets the headline then moves on when what

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Every pollster now has the Tories on course for an overall majority

Today started with a good poll for the Tories and it ends with another. The latest ICM poll for The Guardian has the Tories on 44 percent, up six points on last month. Labour are on 32, down one, and the Lib Dems on 16, down 3. Year on year, the Tories are up seven, Labour down three and the Lib Dems down four. Worryingly for Brown the public have lost confidence in his economic activism. Confidence in Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling has dropped 18 points in two months. Only 31 percent of voters think the Prime Minister’s actions will actually achieve anything positive while David Cameron and George

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Is it the schooling or the eyebrows that is the problem?

One friend joked to me the other day that Prime Ministers should only appoint Chancellors whose eyebrows match their hair colour, pointing out that the last two Chancellors to lead Britain into recession have both had black eyebrows and silver hair. But Alex Massie points out that it might be the schooling not the eyebrows that are at fault: both Norman Lamont and Alistair Darling are products of Lorreto, the prestigious Edinburgh boarding school.

Lisa Hilton

How to look the part on the piste

Milan may be Italy’s richest city, but no-one this weekend was talking about the markets or “Il New Deal di Obama”. The only topic during the Engadine treasure hunt is who is going ‘up” this weekend.  “Up” means St Moritz, where from December until April, Milanese society is to be found every weekend munching apfelstrudel at Hanselman’s, hosting kitschy raclette parties in their houses at Zuoz or Celerina and possibly taking a run down the Trais Fluors or the Corvatsch.   Romans claim the more serious pedigrees, but what the Milanese miss on breeding they make up for in snottiness. Getting it wrong in St Moritz is horribly easy. I’m

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Making the motorcade

The New Yorker has a really fun piece this week about a New Republic journalist who was drafted in to drive a car in the president-elect’s motorcade a couple of days before the inauguration. Here’s the bit where she’s given her instructions: The Secret Service guys told her the drill: it would all happen fast; the Suburbans would pull out, one of them with Obama inside, and she would follow right behind. One of the agents had a Starbucks drink, and he offered Lear a sip: six espresso shots on ice. “He told me he gets it three times a day,” she said. They gave her one piece of driving

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Cannabis Confusion

There’s something cheering about today’s announcement that the government has decided to ignore its own experts and reclassify Cannabis as a Class B, rather than a Class C drug. Not the decision itself which is entirely regrettable, but rather what it tells us about this government. Not for the first time Labour wants to be seen to be “tough”; not for the first time it’s pandering to the baser elements of a reactionary, hysterical press. So there’s some comfort, I suppose, in the fact that even this government doesn’t have the courage of its convictions (if such a term can usefully be applied to Jacqui Smith et al) since possession

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Muslim Council of Britain’s disgusting decision to boycott Holocaust Memorial Day

Today’s Guardian reports that: “The Muslim Council of Britain boycotted yesterday’s national Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration in protest at the Israeli offensive in Gaza this month” The MCB’s decision to vote in December 2007 to end its boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day was regarded by many as proof that the group was moderating and that the government should once more start using it as its first-stop in dealings with the Muslim community. Their decision not to attend yesterday, the fact of which was confirmed to The Spectator by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, shows how wrong-headed that thinking was. The MCB’s reported logic for boycotting (I’ve contacted the MCB asking whether

Peter Hoskin

The Tories’ waste-cutting message matures

Good work from the Tories today, who are finally taking the fight to Labour over Government waste.  Out of fear of the “Tory cuts” attack, they’ve tended to shy away from highlighting just how much taxpayers’ cash this Government flushes down the fiscal plughole.  But no longer.  The report released by George Osborne and Francis Maude today is a clear and unabashed attack on Brown’s spending record – there’s even a “Roll-call of waste” – and it contains some sensible sounding methods for controlling spending under a Tory administration, including greater accountability for wasteful civil servants.  Whether the proposals will translate to government remains to be seen, but the message

Peter Hoskin

Brown’s spending dilemma

And so the wheels fall off.  As the Times discloses this morning, Alastair Darling’s Big Idea to bring forward capital spending projects looks like it just ain’t happening.  The thinking was that £billions of this spending could be funded via the Private Finance Initiative – which Brown’s always liked, because of its “Buy Now, Pay Later” qualities, and because the costs can be swept under the fiscal carpet – but now the banks aren’t willing to lend the necessary cash.  Other sources of funds have also dried up as the credit crunch bites, so now the Government’s left with a stark choice – either cut back on the spending projects, which include

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Brown and out

Today’s ComRes poll in The Independent marks an important turning point. Labour has dropped below 30 percent for the first time since September; this means that Brown has dropped back to where he was before the first bank bailout and the return of Peter Mandelson. Brown has already recovered once when most of the political class had left him for dead but it is almost impossible to see how he can recover again. The brilliantly-constructed illusion that Brown is in control during this crisis has been shattered by events: as repossessions, unemployment and bankruptcies rise, the public will not see Brown as the great helmsman steering them through the crisis.

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 26 January – 1 February

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

Has Obama determined our Budget date?

This article in today’s Guardian gives us a good idea of what to expect in the forthcoming Budget.  Basically, even if Brown ‘n’ Darling don’t reveal the full horror of the situation, things are still going to look decidedly messy – more borrowing to fund a “second emergency package of tax and spending measures”; a lower growth forecast; and, surely, downgraded tax receipt forecasts. Aside from all that, one other detail from the article struck me: “Darling has spent the last few weeks thinking of possible new expansion plans for a budget tentatively scheduled either for early March or after the visit of Obama to the G20 meeting.” Now, counting

Sunday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Oh Caroline!

A very entertaining piece on Caroline Kennedy’s “run” for the vacant Senate seat in New York by Larissa MacFarquhar in this week’s New Yorker. There are moments at which one feels rather sorry for Kennedy, but overall the piece is not, shall we say, flattering. And what to make of this splendidly amusing stuff from her courtiers? Now Caroline Kennedy has had her moment and flubbed it. Paterson has appointed Kirsten Gillibrand, a second-term congresswoman from Hudson, near Albany. “Paterson has no comprehension of upstate New York, absolutely none, and has chosen someone better at representing cows than people,” Lawrence O’Donnell says. “What you have is the daughter of a