Society

Saturday

Lucy Vickery

Competition | 22 November 2008

In Competition No. 2571 you were invited to submit an extract from the life story of a famous figure from history written in the style of a contemporary misery memoir. The seemingly insatiable appetite for tales of other people’s torment and degradation that keeps ‘mis lit’ at the top of the bestseller lists is as depressing as the subject matter of the books themselves, which may be why, overall, you were on less sparkling form than usual this week. As one might expect, the Tudors loomed large, but I was surprised no one chose Job, surely the original misery memoirist. In the great tradition of the genre, Katie Mallett’s Vlad

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Any Other Business | 22 November 2008

My hopes for America lie less in Obama- mania, more in Vaud and the Villains Long before I became a journalist I taught myself to absorb the essence of an unfamiliar city by staying alert in the taxi from the airport: Los Angeles offers a particularly vivid first encounter. As the yellow cab barrels out of the precincts of LAX on to an angry avenue called La Brea, images and warnings crowd in. Neon signs in Korean and Spanish tell me that this is one of the planet’s most multi-ethnic conurbations. Half-crazed vagrants haunt the sidewalks, their random possessions piled in shopping trolleys. Radio ads offer a catalogue of modern

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Another Voice | 22 November 2008

Very long flights — flights like mine, to and from Australia, for instance — offer such an opportunity to think that you can tease a thought almost to the point of madness. What follows may read like that, and if you don’t wish to perform mental gymnastics on a nerdish pinhead until you’re intellectually giddy, quit now. But I’ve been turning over in my mind a recurrent problem in human reasoning that in real life irritates and trips us all, leading to endless misunderstandings — and I may have cracked it. It’s the problem of time zones, and putting clocks ‘forward’ and ‘back’, and whether it’s ‘earlier’ or ‘later’ in

Theodore Dalrymple

Global Warning | 22 November 2008

The other day, the 9.56 bus to the nearest train station was late and the people at the stop — of whom I was by far the youngest — began to grumble a little. Then, looming out of the mist, appeared the driver. The other day, the 9.56 bus to the nearest train station was late and the people at the stop — of whom I was by far the youngest — began to grumble a little. Then, looming out of the mist, appeared the driver. ‘I’m sorry, the brakes have failed,’ he said. ‘I’m not prepared to risk your lives and they won’t be repaired until the next bus.’

Friday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Hillary Accepts

Well, one assumes the dear old New York Times wouldn’t run a story saying she’s accepted the offer to be Secretary of State unless it was pretty well certain that she will. That sound you hear is foreign editors tearing up their pages right now. The groaning comes from Sunday newspaper hacks who now need to recast their focus pieces. What does it all mean? Well, like I say, it suggests Obama’s not going to break with the Washington consensus on foreign policy. But perhaps we will all be surprised. Alas, this also means the already tiresome “Team of Rivals” meme will run and run…

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Will Brown let Darling tell us that he is going to hike the VAT rate to pay for the stimulus package?

As we learnt during the banking crisis, what Robert Peston predicts tends to become reality shortly afterwards. So, his informed speculation on what is in the PBR is well worth reading. This passage is particularly interesting and appears to be the latest shot in the briefing wars, which has reached up to cabinet level, around the Brown-Darling fight over whether or not Labour should explain how it tax cuts and increased spending will be paid for: “But he [Darling] will also announce deferred tax rises and deferred cuts in public spending – to kick in when the economy has recovered a bit. When would that be? Maybe 2010, maybe 2011. If he

Peter Hoskin

Maude responds

Here are Francis Maude’s answers to the questions posed by CoffeeHousers: Sue Denim “The Tories are ignoring their base to chase the votes of the soft centre-left. Discuss.” I don’t really know what this means.  We have to be a national party, generous in outlook and broad in appeal.  I’ve always thought that most people’s instincts and preferences are in line with ours: for social responsibility rather than central state control; believing that there is such a thing as society but that it’s not the same thing as the state.  We’ve never believed that everything can be left to the market or that individual responsibility is all.  We know that

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Labour arguments for a June 4th poll

The more people one speaks to the more one gets the impression that there might be an election early next year. The principal rationale for a poll in 2009 is ignoble: by 2010 the reality of recession will have caught up with Gordon Brown so he needs to go to the country before then. There are a couple of particular attractions for June 4th—the date floated in the Evening Standard—for Labour.  June 4th is also the date of the European election, this would ease the burden on Labour’s finances—Labour can’t afford to fight serious campaigns in both and so could suffer a momentum-reversing thrashing in the European elections if it

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Who is stoking the early election speculation?

In the New Statesman this week, Martin Bright writes that ‘one former cabinet minister who spent a long time at the Treasury told the New Statesman: “Gordon has to get the Obama visit [the G8 summit in April] out of the way then call an election. There really is no other option.” Today on the front page of the Evening Standard Anne McElvoy reports that a Brown “ally” told her that: “He would be mad not to think about it. “The date really selects itself if you look at the options. Gordon will have had the G20 meeting in London in April, which will show him chairing the most important forum in the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Jam today, jam tomorrow but never jam again

This morning’s FT lays out just how bad a state the public finances are in: “Annual public borrowing is set to rocket towards £120bn over the next two years – far higher than City forecasts – forcing Alistair Darling to announce plans for deferred tax rises and public spending curbs when he presents his pre-Budget report next week. … The consensus forecast is for borrowing to hit 6 per cent of national income, or £90bn, next financial year, but the Treasury expects the rate of deterioration to continue apace, suggesting the budget deficit will hit 8-9 per cent of gross domestic product over the next two years, close to £120bn

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Lord of the Dance

The momentum behind the Mandelson dancing story just keeps building. The latest piece is in the People column in today’s Times: Was it a foxtrot, a waltz or a quickstep? Twinkletoed Lord Mandelson pressed his Strictly Come Dancing credentials by sweeping lobby correspondent Sunita Patel off her feet at his Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform drinks party at Westminster. “He was really very good,” says the Wolverhampton Express and Star reporter. “He asked me if I could dance and I said yes, though in fact it was actually my first time. Let’s put it this way, he didn’t tread on my toes.” Can his Cabinet colleagues say that?

The Spectator

Across the site | 21 November 2008

To accompany this week’s leading Arts article by Selina Mills, the Spectator website has been given exlcusive permission to host a clip of the recently-discovered Agatha Christie tapes.  You can listen to that clip, and read Selina’s article, by clicking here. And over at the Parliamentarian Awards section, we’ve uploaded all the articles from the special supplement in this week’s issue of the magazine.  They include Matthew d’Ancona’s review of the year in politics; an article by Iain Martin on the erosion of Parliament’s authority; Lloyd Evans on the speaking styles of the three main party leaders; an interview with Tony Benn by Mary Wakefield; and Louise Bagshawe’s account of

Peter Hoskin

Should the Tories lie low?

An engaging article by Simon Jenkins in today’s Guardian, on why the Tories shouldn’t worry about the vacillating opinion polls, and would be better served by lying low for the time being: “There is no electoral advantage ever to be gained by an opposition during a national crisis. The sane policy is to keep your head down and stay quiet… ..Political commentators have widely attributed Cameron’s fall to the vagaries of his economic policy and the vacillations of Osborne. History offers no support for this analysis. It suggests that the behaviour of an opposition at such a time is irrelevant. History also suggests that Brown’s current standing will for sure

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

So what kind of blog is this, anyway?

Well, according to this site – which purports to “analyse” your blog – I’m a Mechanic or an ISTP on the Myers-Briggs scale, just like Andrew Sullivan. This means that we’re: The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generelly prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts. The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Parliamentary failings exposed by the tragic case of Baby P

Someone who has followed the Baby P case particularly closely, writes to Coffee House with the following observations: Haringey’s lawyers concluded on 25 July 2007 that the “the threshold for initiating Care Proceedings … was not met” despite medical staff concluding in June that there was “a reasonable probability” that Baby P’s injuries had been caused by physical abuse. This suggests that the lawyers believed that Baby P “probably” being deliberately hurt was not sufficient evidence even to argue the case for a Care Order.   Considering that the hurdle that has to be cleared to get a Care Order is that a child “is suffering, or is likely to

Peter Hoskin

Could a Brown-Darling split undermine Labour’s economic message?

The latest official borrowing statistics were released earlier today, and – thanks to a few revisions, detailed by Paul Waugh here – they’re slightly lower than you might expect.  Not that the numbers aren’t still massive.  Public sector net borrowing between April and October stood at £37 billion – bringing the total over the economic cycle up to £640.9 billion, or 42.9 percent of GDP.  While, crucially, net borrowing for October was 1.4 billion – the first time that there hasn’t been a net repayment in October since 1994.  And that’s even when leaving, say, PFI liabilities and the bank bailout off the balance sheet, as is Brown’s want. Now,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Obama’s other challenge

There has been a lot of attention on the immense domestic challenges that Obama will face once he has been sworn in, but the foreign policy problems haven’t gone away. Not only is America fighting two wars but Obama is almost going to have work out what to do about Iran which is far along the path to nuclear status. As The New York Times puts it in its story on the latest IAEA report: “Even so, for President-elect Barack Obama, the report underscores the magnitude of the problem that he will inherit Jan. 20: an Iranian nuclear program that has not only solved many technical problems of uranium enrichment,