Society

Wednesday

21 Jan 2009

Obama will be more hawkish than Europe expects

Barack Obama is the first Democrat to be Commander in Chief in the post 9/11 era. The election of a Democrat was a necessary requirement for the emergence of a new, settled American foreign policy for this time. You can’t have a bi-partisan foreign policy consensus when only one party knows the foreign policy challenges from the inside. Certainly the Bush administration made mistakes on foreign policy. It over-reacted in certain areas and implemented good ideas badly in others. But I suspect that there will be a more continuity between the two administrations than most people expect. The threats facing America have not changed with the departure of George W.

Peter Hoskin

A gentlemen’s agreement?

Read Sam Coates’s latest blog post and despair. Turns out, certain Tory backbenchers had bashed out a “gentlemen’s agreement” over expenses with the Government. The idea was that they were going to vote with Brown to block the publication of MPs’ expenses on a “receipt by receipt” basis. But thanks to David Cameron whipping his MPs against the Government’s proposals – and thanks also to Brown’s panicked climbdown over the vote – their plans have been scuppered. Good. Sometimes it’s just plain astonishing how quickly MPs will jettison their duty to the public, and their loyalty to the party, when the issue of expenses comes up. Thing is, they’re often

Lisa Hilton

An affront to faith and thought

Many of us may no longer believe in God, but it appears we still miss Him. The nineteenth century’s anguished howl of loss as the tide of faith receded across the sands of Dover beach had diminished to barely a whimper before the atheist buses zoomed along to jolly up the argument. Catholic bishops in Genoa have succeeded in banning the Italian version of the campaign whilst bus driver Ron Heather has declared his intention to boycott any bus carrying the slogan “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life”. Perhaps Mr Heather is objecting to a certain lack of rigour in the statement; “probably” inclines to

James Forsyth

The statistics which bring home the need for welfare reform

This week’s shadow Cabinet reshuffle was designed to make it campaign not government-ready. But the Tories do need to prepare for government as they are going to confront a huge set of problems. Policy Exchange have produced a pamphlet with ‘100 Reasons why Britain needs to change’ and, even leaving aside the country’s ever worsening position, it makes for depressing reading. The desperate need for welfare reform is brought home by these statistics: “In 1997 Tony Blair said that ‘By the end of a 5-year term of a Labour Government, I vow that we will have reduced the proportion we spend on the welfare bills of social failure…This is my

Peter Hoskin

Brown backs down over expenses

As Iain Dale pointed out earlier, one of the more mystifying aspects of PMQs was Brown’s claim that his MPs would have a free vote on expenses measures, despite strong reports to the contrary. To clear things up, Number Ten has since revealed that the vote has been abandoned. It remains to be seen what this means for the full publication of MPs expenses, but it’s got to be regarded as a positive development – the measures that Brown was trying to force through were anything but transparent. The big winner from all this should be the Tories. Not only has Brown been forced into an embarrassing climbdown, but there remains plenty of room

Alex Massie

Expenses: Brown Gets out of Gaol

Disappointing to see that the government has retreated from its plans to exempt the disclosure of MPs expenses from being ocvered by the Freedom of Information Act. Yes, yes, everyone is supposed to hail this as a victory for transparency and, perhaps, as Iain Dale says, for online activism and lobbying too. I fear we protest too much on this issue. Not because MPs expenses should be kept secret (of course they shouldn’t) but because a vote on the matter, with Labour MPs subjected to a three-line whip no less, would have a) been a monumental, and thus pleasing, embarrassment for the government and b) could easily have been repealed

Alex Massie

Gut Instinct

Mark McKinnon, Bush’s advertising man who left the McCain campaign because he didn’t want to work against Obama, reports from the plane taking the Bushes back to Texas yesterday: And while I’m reluctant to quote the president directly from private conversations, I think I can fairly report that he feels a genuine warmth for President Obama. He admires his sense of family, his relaxed and easygoing nature, and his character. He has gotten to know him during this transition period and he has a pretty good gut for people. His gut tells him Obama has what it takes to be a successful leader. Not yet tested. Not yet proved he

Alex Massie

Bush’s Limited Idea of Compassionate Conservatism

George W Bush has earned praise for the manner in which he has left office: dignified and quiet. Fair enough. And at least unlike his predecessor he didn’t cry tears of self-pity. Nor, by and large, did Bush disgrace the Presidency by handing out a bundle of pardons to friends and cronies. With one exception that is. Throwing one last bone to the GOP base, Bush commuted the sentences of Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, a pair of Border Patrol officers convicted of shooting an unarmed Mexican (who was subsequently proved to be a drug smuggler* – though the agents did not know that at the time) and then

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 21 January 2009

Welcome to Coffee House’s live blog of PMQs today. As always, things will kick off at 1200, so stay tuned from then. 1204: Here’s the Dear Leader. After condolences, he gives a welcome to President Obama: “The stress that President Obama places on action…” First question from Douglas Carswell, and it’s an important one: “Why is the PM whipping his MPs when it comes to revealing details of MPs’ expenses.” Brown claims that the Government wants to introduce more transparency – or trans-pair-ancy, as he puts it. 1207: Brown: Holocaust Memorial Day will be commemorated by a debate in the House next Thursday. 1208: Cameron’s up now. Echoes Brown’s good wishes for Obama.

Alex Massie

Everyone Needs an Obama

I also enjoyed the Alice Miles article Peter links to at the mother-blog, not least because I’ve never bought the notion that Gordon Brown was anything other than a long-term liability to this government. This, however, made me laugh: But does Labour have a Barack Obama of its own? The most hotly tipped contender is Chuka Umunna, the charismatic Labour candidate for Streatham – although that may be partly because Mr Umunna is black. And he is only 30 and not yet an MP, which is obviously a problem. Yeah, I guess it is. Still, this has the makings of some great sport: Where-oh-where is the Liberal Democrat Obama? How

Alex Massie

Inauguration TV

One of the advantages of the satellite TV revolution is being able to compare the way different countries view historic events. Russia Today, the Kremlin’s English-language outreach channel, for instance, was extremely revealing, if sometimes unintentionally, during the Russo-Georgian mini-war last summer. Yesterday it didn’t bother with live coverage of Barack Obama’s inauguration, featuring instead a talking heads panel featuring a number of grumpy Russian analysts. Still, that was better than China’s propaganda vehicle, CCTV (yes, really), which, as far as I could see, hopping between stations, just ignored it altogether. On the other hand, ignoring the celebrations might have been preferable to watching the inaugration on any of the

Peter Hoskin

The bounce gives way to despair

Two striking passages from Alice Miles’ article in the Times today, demonstrating the rising pessimism in Labour ranks: “Clarke’s return kills ‘toffs’ and it kills ‘novice’,” said one adviser this week. “You look at that team now and you think, ‘yes’.” And that was an adviser to Mr Brown speaking. And, “I don’t know why anyone thought that people were going to be grateful for the fact that the economy is going down the spout,” conceded one Labour strategist this week. He added that he thought that if the polls got worse month after month and end in wipeout in the local and European elections on June 4, Mr Brown

Peter Hoskin

Now’s the time for “new politics” again, Dave

Remember how promising things sounded in the wake of the Derek Conway affair last year? All the party leaders had basically the same message – This Can’t Happen Again – but it was Cameron who refined it into something of a driving philosophy, with his talk of a “new politics” which stands against the political class. Sadly, that talk faded as the year progressed, and it became more and more likely that we’d never see the full publication of MPs expenses. With the discovery today that Gordon Brown has – disgracefully – imposed a three line whip on Labour MPs to vote for a block on the full publication of expenses, it’s

Matthew Lynn

Private bankers run into very public trouble

Matthew Lynn says banks that prospered by offering exclusive ‘wealth management’ services during the boom years are about to encounter some very angry customers Of all the phrases in the financial lexicon, ‘private banker’ is one of the most evocative. It summons up images of discreet addresses in the more remote Swiss cantons, of luxuriously furnished townhouses in Mayfair, of chequebooks printed in florid script, of pinstriped executives who never stint on the second bottle of claret. Thriller writers find them as handy a plot device as a fully loaded Beretta. Nothing else manages to wrap up tradition, snobbery and timeless financial solidity quite so completely in one institution. Until

Dominic Prince

Surviving the Recession

The credit crunch has had some unlikely repercussions. Tim Blixeth, a US lumber billionaire, was recently trying to sell his Caribbean island. With little interest shown in the $75 million asking price, Blixeth is now trying to barter it. He has suggested that a Gulfstream jet or a snazzy New York apartment might just secure the island. On a different scale, I know how he feels. We used to pay £85 an hour to have a man who knew about computers come and sort out the cyber mess in the Prince household. We would often get bills for £500 and that would happen three or four times a year —

Rod Liddle

The BBC can’t help loving Obama, just as it can’t help encouraging recession

Rod Liddle says that television news is intrinsically biased: it transforms what it reports. In the case of the economy, ministers are right to counteract this with a dose of optimism Excuse me for a moment; it’s all become a little too much for me and I need to sit down somewhere quiet, take a few deep breaths and dry my eyes. I feel all choked up inside. He came down for us, to wash away our sins. Sorry, sorry – forgive me, I’ve been watching the BBC’s coverage of Barack Obama’s coronation, live from Washington. It’s a sort of cross between Princess Diana’s funeral and Live Aid Concert, except

Olivia Cole

Meet the new eco-toffs: Champagne Swampies

Olivia Cole says that the row over Heathrow’s third runway has revealed that despite the credit crunch there is a resilient class of celebrities and toffs with expensive green tastes Do you remember Champagne Socialists? Well, there’s a new version of that old clique, with the same curious mix of self-importance and self-indulgence but with a 21st-century green agenda. I call them Champagne Swampies. Swampy was the environmental protestor who became a cult figure in the mid-1990s, huddled in a tunnel by the proposed Newbury bypass, never washing his hair. His 2009 variants, the Champagne Swampies, share his concern for the environment, and they’re out in force at the moment

Fraser Nelson

‘I read about my promotion in the Sun’

When I met Chris Grayling last week, he was about the only member of the shadow cabinet who looked relaxed rather than as though he was nervously awaiting news of the reshuffle. His work on welfare reform had been hailed widely enough for him to feel secure. ‘I’d like to stay in this department. I’m enjoying this job,’ said the then shadow work and pensions secretary. ‘Of course, the job you do is always at the whim of the party leader. Should David Cameron phone up tomorrow and say, “Right, you’re doing something else” — then fine.’ A few days later, Mr Cameron did precisely this. So it is a

Tuesday

20 Jan 2009

Alex Massie

A Young Nation Rises Again

In many respects this was a deeply traditional inauguration speech. It didn’t reach the heights of Obama’s “Jeremiah Wright” speech in Philadelphia, but it didn’t need to and was, in any case, an address given to a very different kind of occasion. The Wright speech was interesting, not merely because of how Obama addressed the controversy, but because of what it told us about how he thinks. This, by contrast, was a grander, more formal affair. Less personal and so less interesting. But it didn’t need to be a perfect speech. Nor did it matter much that it wasn’t. It did more than enough to get the job done; what

Peter Hoskin

Alex Massie joins Spectator.co.uk

I’m delighted to welcome Alex Massie to our team of regular bloggers on Spectator.co.uk. Alex is a seasoned journalist who’s gained a devoted following on the blog he set up back in April 2007 – The Debatable Land. Now that blog’s been ported over here, and you can follow it by heading to this address: http://www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie. What will you come across? Quite simply, some stunningly incisive writing – on everything from British and American politics to cricket. Perhaps the best place to start is Alex’s own introductory post here. Do check it out.