Society

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Obama’s Momentum

James fears that Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms may be in trouble if he can’t win enough Republican support to convince centrist voters. In other words, he’ll be too much beholden to the left-wing of the Democratic party. Well, perhaps. But centrist voters in 2009 are rather to the left of where they were in 1993, the last time major health care reform was tried. Also: Obama is a better salesman than early-90s Hillary Clinton. Remember too, Obama won with more than half the vote; Clinton was elected merely by a plurality of punters. Now it may be that the GOP’s near-universal refusal to meet the new President half-way on the

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

If Obama can’t get Republican votes in Congress, he’ll be forced further left than he wants to–or should–go

Barack Obama likes to portray himself as a post-partisan politician, someone who reaches beyond party. So, it was a blow to him to have to pass the stimulus without a single Republican vote in the House and only three Republican votes in the Senate. His cabinet doesn’t look particularly bi-partisan either. Robert Gates is a hold-over from the Bush administration but he is not even a registered Republican meaning that the only Republican in the Cabinet is the Transportation Secretary Ray La Hood: Bush also chose transportation for the one member of the other party in his Cabinet, Norm Mineta. In the New Yorker, though, Hendrik Hertzberg argues that as

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Herbert will be the countryside’s voice in the Shadow Cabinet

When Nick Herbert was moved from Justice to Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs, which is essentially the old Ministry of Agriculture Food and Fisheries, in the Tory reshuffle there was disappointment among reformers who felt that his talents could have been better used elsewhere, most notably the Department of Communities and Local Government. But Herbert is bringing some much needed policy innovation and energy to this brief; his predecessor Peter Ainsworth was far too anonymous. Today’s policy proposal on food labeling strikes the right balance between informing the consumer of where their food has come from and avoiding crass food nationalism. Combined with last week’s proposal to create

James Forsyth James Forsyth

You couldn’t make it up: Blair wins a million bucks while Brown struggles desperately on

The contrasting fortunes of Blair and Brown over the last few years are like something out of a childhood morality tale. Impatient Gordon hurries Tony out of office before he wanted to go. The result: Blair escapes the blame for the financial crisis, leaves office with impressive approval ratings and secures a string of impressive international jobs. Also, by getting out before the crunch hits, Blair makes a small fortune on the international speaking circuit and raises enough money to get several charities growing. Meanwhile, Gordon inherits the crown at pretty much the worst possible time and now finds the Labour party almost certain to go down to a massive

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Will the downturn break the eurozone?

There has been some speculation that the financial crisis will force Britain to join the euro. But I think it is far more likely that the crisis will break the eurozone. Consider this from the FT’s Wolfgang Münchau, who could hardly be called a euro-sceptic: “The right course would be to solve the underlying problem – to shift at least some of the stimulus spending to EU or eurozone level and, ideally, drop those toxic national schemes altogether and to adopt a joint strategy for the financial sector, at least for the 45 cross-border European banks. But this is not going to happen. It did not happen in October, and

Peter Hoskin

The Tories should release the second Freud Review

Now the Tories have nabbed David Freud from the Government, they have the perfect opportunity to recast the welfare debate for the recession years.  As Alex Barker pointed out in an excellent blog post for the FT yesterday, they certainly need to.  After all, recent findings suggest that the Freud-prescribed workfare measures aren’t working quite as well as many hoped they would as the downturn takes hold.  Now, that’s not to say the welfare reform agenda should be jettisoned.  There’s overwhelming evidence that it works better than centralised alternatives, and with unemployment levels shooting ever upwards – and with some 5.2 million Brits on out-of-work benefits – there’s a clear need for drastic

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Watching the Watchers

LONDON, ENGLAND – FEBRUARY 16: Photojournalists stage an act of mass photography outside New Scotland Yard police station on February 16, 2009 in London. The event aims to highlight the threat of an amendment to the Counter Terrorism Act that could be used to prevent press photographers taking pictures of the police. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images) Of course, it’s not just press photographers who are vulnerable to this sweeping, draconian legislation. More here.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Obama and Churchill

So Obama has said he doesn’t feel the need for his presidency to be reinforced by the presence of a British-government-owned bust of Winston Churchill in the Oval Office. As my friend Tim Shipman reports, the bust, loaned to George W Bush after 9/11, is now in the care of the British Embassy in Washington. This is a good thing in as much as anything which damages the Cult of Churchill in the United States is to be welcomed. One can desire this without in any way compromising one’s respect and appreciation for Churchill’s wartime heroics. But the Churchill Cult in the US  – especially amongst conservatives – distorts American

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Blair policy-chiefs talking to the Tories

Westminster loves defections; they are tangible sign of the direction in which the wind is blowing. So, David Freud’s decision to move out of Labour’s orbit and to the Conservatives is being treated as big news in the village. Tory Kremlinologists should note that it was George Osborne who reeled him in. This is a sign of both Osborne’s continuing importance to the Cameron project and the fact that Freud will be reporting into the leadership not Theresa May. Paul Waugh blogs that the Tories should now be reaching out to two former heads of Blair’s No 10 policy unit, Geoff Mulgan who is now running the Young Foundation and Matthew

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Stanford’s Demise

It’s an ill-wind that fails to blow in any silver-lined clouds and the current financial difficulties are no exception. It seems that Sir Allen Stanford, the Texan financier determined to “crack” the American “market” with Twenty20 cricket may be in a spot of bother himself. I’m going to guess that having people suggest you could be a kind of Caribbean Bernie Madoff is, even if completely untrue, not Good News. It wasn’t the money involved in the Stanford Twenty20 challenge match between his all-stars and England that was objectionable. After all, there’s a long history of big-money challenge matches and cricket’s known worse rogues than Stanford in the past. True,

Peter Hoskin

One for the ‘headless chicken’ folder

I imagine CCHQ will have a ‘headless chicken’ folder, containing examples of where Brown’s numerous schemes to bolster the economy aren’t having the desired effect.  If so, it should certainly include a copy of the FT’s study into the Government’s loan guarantee scheme for small businesses.  Here’s how the FT introduces it: “Only about £12m has been lent to companies under the government’s £1bn loan guarantee scheme for small business, a month after it was launched, according to analysis by the Financial Times. Leading business organisations on Sunday attacked the ‘trickle’ of funding from the banks, warning that government attempts to kick-start corporate lending simply were not working.” Stories like

Peter Hoskin

Things are getting worse for taxpayers too

I wrote earlier that the papers are stuffed with bad news for Gordon Brown.  The same’s true for taxpayers, especially in light of the CBI’s latest set of economic forecasts.  They have GDP shrinking by 3.3 percent this year, and unemployment rising above 3 million in 2010.  Which adds up to a lower tax revenue for the Exchequer and, in turn, more and more borrowing.  Indeed, the CBI estimate that the government will need to rack up £100 billion more debt over the next couple of years than the PBR accounts for.  It’s a fiscal mess that – as yesterday’s excellent ConservativeHome report made clear – future governments and taxpayers

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 16 February – 22 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

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A face-saving exit for Brown?

Few commentators are as well plugged into the Brown circle as Jackie Ashley which makes her column this morning absorbing reading. Ashley floats the idea that Brown might quit after the G20 summit in April to become head of a new international financial regulatory body. Ashley admits that the story sounds implausible but she says that “it comes from quite close to the inner core.” Leaving aside the fact that putting Brown in charge of this body would be rather like putting the head of the West Indies Cricket Board in charge of all pitch preparation for international cricket, it seems highly implausible that Brown, who has waited so long

Peter Hoskin

The vultures circle ever closer

Is the bad news stacked against Gordon Brown reaching some kind of critical mass?  The newspapers today are absolutely stuffed with stories about banks, bankers and bonuses that are either embarrassing or downright ruinous for the PM.  And, to top it all off, Trevor Kavanagh begins his Sun column asking why Brown hasn’t resigned after the events of last week.  Sure, it’s highly unlikely that we’ll see that particular resignation before the next election; but there’s still a growing sense that it’s not so much chickens as vultures that are coming home to roost on the roof of 10 Downing Street. Unfortunately for the PM, his party’s now losing most

Sunday

Susan Hill Susan Hill

A story the press should not encourage

When I saw bewildered little Alfie Patten holding his baby I wanted to weep. Though, the 15 –going on- 35 year old mother was winding her daughter with all the casual expertise of a girl in the driving seat of the entire situation. You wonder who to blame first. Not the two kids involved. Sex is in their faces all day –cheap magazines, tabloids, television, the internet – oh, and compulsory sex education from Year 1. They can hardly avoid knowing exactly how to do it -and why in God’s name does a 12 year old boy who looks 8 know where to get, let alone how to use, a

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The next American geography

Richard Florida’s Atlantic cover-story on how the current recession will re-shape America is a thought-provoking read. He argues that the coming economy requires a different kind of geography: “the economy is different now. It no longer revolves around simply making and moving things. Instead, it depends on generating and transporting ideas. The places that thrive today are those with the highest velocity of ideas, the highest density of talented and creative people, the highest rate of metabolism. Velocity and density are not words that many people use when describing the suburbs. The economy is driven by key urban areas; a different geography is required … In short, it will be

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Moore pain for Brown

There are few things the press likes more than a whistleblower, they make for great copy. So, Gordon Brown will be alarmed to see Paul Moore, the HBOS whistleblower, appearing in The Independent on Sunday. ‘Paul Moore, the former head of risk at HBOS, told the IoS that he has more than 30 potentially incendiary documents which he will send to MPs on the Treasury Select Committee. He says they disprove Mr Brown’s claim about the reasons for HBOS’s catastrophic losses – now estimated to be nearly £11bn – and show that it was the reckless lending culture, easy credit and failed regulation of the Brown years that led directly

Peter Hoskin

An air of resignation about Downing Street

When you step back and think about it, it’s really quite astonishing how fast and how emphatically Brown has fallen since his minor ‘bounce’ in the autumn.  Sure, he was always going to struggle as the recession bit deeper and deeper.  But to so swiftly get to this point – where all news is bad news; where there is little salve or comfort; and where hope is dying from suffocation – really takes some doing.  Little wonder, then, that Labour now seems saturated by despair and self-loathing; something that’s captured wonderfully by two comment pieces in today’s papers. The first is Andrew Rawnsley’s article in the Observer, an essential portrait

Saturday

Melissa Kite

Real Life | 14 February 2009

With good reason, I get suspicious and frightened when things go right. I have learned certain truths during my time on this planet, not least that all events in the end conspire against me and that every rule and regulation I encounter has been tailor-made specifically to frustrate my progress. And yet. And yet. A lot of things have been going right lately. The system seems suddenly to have completely turned around in order to work with me, not against me. I don’t want to be churlish about this. I want to give credit where it is due — to the gods and/or the ruling authorities on earth — but