Society

Friday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A needed contrarian

Every age needs its contrary thinkers, those prepared to challenge the conventional wisdom of the day. As Lexington argues in The Economist, Samuel Huntington—who died on Christmas Eve—was that for the 1990s. While others were triumphalist after the West’s victory in the Cold War, Huntington was pessimistically warning of a coming Clash of Civilizations. Huntington was many things but he was not creature of fashion. Clash, to my mind, is at least as flawed a theory as The End of History but it has undoubtedly added something to the intellectual debate. We would be in a better state today if more people in the 1990s had not succumbed to the

Peter Hoskin

The Tories’ message for 2009

Over at Conservative Home, Jonathan Isaby flags up George Osborne’s response to some of today’s gloomy economic and financial indicators.  Here are the shadow chancellor’s words: “First we discovered that there were fewer shoppers in December despite the VAT cut, now we discover house prices are falling sharply and mortgage approvals at a record low despite the stamp duty holiday introduced three months ago. The new year shows that Gordon Brown’s policies are not working and the recession is getting worse not better. That is because an economic recovery depends on confidence in the future, and people do not have that confidence while we have a Labour Government in power

Lisa Hilton

Dressing for the end of the world

We know it’s not cool to dress like a master of the universe right now, and the lunchtime crowd at the Ivy on Tuesday were less Madoff than Man at C&A. Regulars have always been more fashionable than Fashion, considering themselves too serious and important to appear to pay attention to clothes, but the abundance of pastel jumpers suggests a trend reminiscent of Nineties black-nylon stealth wealth. Perhaps dressing like a contestant in a celebrity golf challenge indicates a cannily egalitarian sympathy with the miseries of middle management. Sartorial stress is creeping into other outposts of the Caring empire. At Annabels, that little corner of London society that is forever

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Elections the Tories should win in 2009

The idea that 2009 will be a good year for the Tories is fast becoming conventional wisdom. Michael Brown makes this case in typically eloquent style in The Independent today arguing that once the downturn begins to really hurt, people will turn from the government to the opposition. But what really struck me was Brown’s observation about the two elections that we definitely will have here in 2009: “For the first time since 1993, county council elections will be held in England NOT on the same day as the general election. In 1997, 2001 and 2005 these local elections coincided with Tony Blair’s three victories on general election turnouts –

Peter Hoskin

Has the death knell sounded for the Euro?

Peter Oborne makes a bold prediction in today’s Mail: that the Euro – ten years old yesterday – won’t live to see its twentieth anniversary.  Whether or not you agree with that prognosis, Oborne’s case is compelling: “Indeed, far from being the staggering success its supporters claim, the euro-zone is already inflicting huge damage on the nations within it. Many currency market experts believe that some of these struggling members may be forced to peel away from the euro – with devastating consequences for the rest of the world. The greatest problems, in the short term at least, are in the four Mediterranean economies known as the PIGS – Portugal,

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The sterling turning point?

I’m fairly pessimistic about the prospects for sterling – or the GBPeso as some CoffeeHousers have dubbed it. But as a counterbalance to the stuff I’ve been posting recently, here is a forecast from Royal Bank of Scotland which reckons sterling has been oversold, the turning point has arrived and that we will be able to afford to go on holiday after all. Our pounds will be buying €1.20 by next Christmas and €1.30 by Christmas 2010, but we can forget about those $2 pounds. Here is its graph (below). RBS inverts things, and asks how many pence a Euro will buy. RBS reckons the BoE will cut rates to

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Helen Suzman RIP

Helen Suzman was a woman of quite remarkable character and bravery. To have been the sole anti-apartheid MP in the South African parliament for so many years must have required a level of courage and a dedication to principle that few of us can imagine. Suzman was a good liberal, in the proper sense of the word. She opposed the great evil of apartheid, pointed out the failings of the Mbeki government over AIDS and Zimbabwe and denounced Mugabe. As she put it herself: “I am proud to acknowledge that I am a liberal…who adheres to old-fashioned liberal values such as the rule of law, universal franchise, free elections, a

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Tony Blair: That the economy grew for a decade under Labour was down to luck not Gordon Brown

The Daily Mail reports a quite astonishing quote from Tony Blair: “Mr Blair, replying to a question after delivering a lecture at Yale University in Connecticut, said: ‘It is true that we had ten years of record growth when I was prime minister. ‘I have, unfortunately, come to the conclusion that it was luck.’” Having not heard the audio one can’t tell if Blair was joking, as his spokesman claims he was, or what the context was. But Brown’s boasts about his own economic record have always been exaggerated; a whole bunch of those record quarters of consecutive economic growth came under the Tories and Brown was operating in a

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

What to look out for in 2009

The events of 2008 should make us all wary about making predictions. So instead, I’m going to flag up some things that I think are worth watching out for in 2009. The Chinese government’s legitimacy is predicated upon rapid economic growth, so what will happen there when the downturn hits? I’m fascinated to see if there is more social unrest, whether newly affluent urbanites become as irked at the Communist party as folk in the countryside and whether the leadership resorts to nationalist sabre-rattling in an attempt to shore up its position. Iran is the problem that hasn’t gone away. As Richard Beeston notes in The Times this morning, Iran

Daniel Korski

2009: an election year

Next year will be an election year. Though it now looks unlikely that Gordon Brown will call a general election, both local and European elections are scheduled for June 2009. These will undoubtedly be important, as a test of both how people feel about the government’s handling of the economic crisis and their views on the Lisbon Treaty, which the Irish are likely to have voted on again. But a number of elections held overseas next year will have a much greater impact on Britain’s security and wellbeing than any of these polls. The most important election is that of a new Afghan president in late 2009. The poll will

Peter Hoskin

The race to recovery in 2009

Among the things to look out for in 2009 is whether – and when – our economy starts to recover.  Thanks to Alistair Darling’s optimistic prognoses in the Pre-Budget Report, there’s already plenty of room for embarrassment for the Government over this.  Their growth forecast for 2009 (of between -0.75 and -1.25 percent of GDP) is out of whack with the forecasts of almost every other major analyst (which averaged -1.7 percent in December).  And the idea that the economy will start recovering by the third-quarter of 2009 has also been widely scoffed at. Accordingly, then, Brown is already making noises that the Treasury forecasts will have to be readjusted. 

Peter Hoskin

The cost of the downturn

A useful piece of research in today’s Mail: “The financial crisis has slashed an average of £60,000 from each family’s wealth over the past year, it has been claimed. Sliding equity prices and dramatic falls in property values have shaved more than 18 per cent off savings and assets, according to estimates by Capital Economics. That is the equivalent of an average £60,000 fall in the wealth of every household in the country and adds up to £1.5trillion. The 2008 plunge exceeds an entire year of British economic output.” Such numbers could prove politicaly costly for Labour, too.  The more people understand what they’ve already lost as a result of

Tuesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Blagojevich won’t go quietly

The embarrassment that is Rod Blagojevich, the Illinois governor who has been accused of trying to effectively auction off Obama’s Senate seat, isn’t going away for Illinois, the Democrats or Obama. Rather than resigning in shame following Patrick Fitzgerald’s devastating press conference, Blagojevich has tried to brazen it out. Today, he is set to name a replacement for Obama, 71 year old former Illinois Attorney-General Roland Burris. If seated, Burris would be the only black senator—Blagojevich presumably thinks that this factor would force the Senate to seat him despite Blagojevich appointing him while indicted for, among things, attempting to sell this position.    Judging from the statement from the office of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A speech George Osborne should deliver

A problem for the Tories at the moment is that they lack a big idea on the economy. This is what enables Brown to unfairly paint them as a ‘do-nothing’ party. The Tories should take inspiration from Arthur Laffer. Here’s a lightly adapted version of a recent Laffer article, that Osborne should make party policy:   “We need to impose a tax on the thing we want less of (carbon dioxide) and reduce taxes on the things we want more of (income and jobs). A carbon tax would attach the national security and environmental costs to carbon-based fuels like oil, causing the market to recognize the price of these negative externalities.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Russia skids on an oil slick

Today’s Wall Street Journal is spot on about how the limitations of Putinism have been exposed by the collapse in the oil price: The last few months have laid bare Putinism’s true character. His recovery was no miracle: With oil so high, and half the work force employed by the state, any country like Russia would boom. But now the cost of Mr. Putin’s abandonment of market reforms and his neutering of state institutions and the private sector can be better appreciated.” The Journal reports that 39 percent of Russians are now dissatisfied with the regime. One of the geopolitical things to watch in 2009 is how non-democratic societies like

Grant Shapps

Half the country is worried about their housing situation

There may have been a time when homelessness seemed like a problem that other people worried about. But times have certainly changed. A new survey out today reveals that nearly half the population is actively concerned about keeping a roof over their heads during 2009. And there’s surprising consistency between people in all types of housing. For instance 44 percent of mortgage holders are worried about being able to meet their payments over the next 12 months, only just under the 47 percent of Local Authority and Housing Association tenants who say they are also worried. And you don’t have to be a council tenant or own your own home

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Europe’s bullying atheism is a threat to public debate

Reading New York Magazine’s profile of Tony Blair, I was struck by this quote from Blair: “Actually,” he says, “what’s interesting is I’ve spoken to several European leaders—I won’t name them—who I didn’t really think were religious at all, and was rather surprised. They know I’ve started this foundation. And they’ll say, ‘That’s really interesting, because you know,’”—and here he lowers his voice a bit—“‘I am actually a practicing Christian.’” Turner adds that prominent business executives have told him the same thing. It does strike me as rather worrying that European culture is becoming so aggressively atheist that politicians feel obliged to hide their faith. As an agnostic, I’ve no

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Welfare reform and the recession

It was widely thought that welfare reform would be one of the victims of the downturn. But interestingly, the political case for it—as opposed to the practicality of actually doing it—seems almost easier to make at a time when everyone is tightening their belts. Certainly, Purnell’s proposals faced less opposition from the left than one would have expected. Peter Oborne’s essay in the Mail today shows part of the reason why this is the case: those who have decided to live on benefits have total ‘job’ security even during a recession in which a million people are expected to lose theirs. The unfairness of this is compounded by how much

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Reasons to think 2009 will be good for the Tories

Anthony King, the polling sage, has an op-ed in the Telegraph today setting out the polling case for why the Tories should go into the New Year in good heart. King notes that the Tories—who have led in the YouGov poll for the last 15 months with forty percent plus support—have not been in such a strong polling position since the poll tax did for Margaret Thatcher’s popularity. He also points out that anti-Tory tactical voting is likely to unwind at the next election with Labour’s lead among Lib Dem voters having fallen from 40 percent at the last election to 11 percent today. But the prime reason for optimism

Monday

Douglas Murray

Studying Islam has made me an atheist

Douglas Murray says that he stopped being an Anglican after analysing Muslim texts and deciding that no book — of any religion — could claim infallibility Just over a year ago I told a lie. In print. In this magazine. I was one of those asked by The Spectator last Christmas whether I believed in the virgin birth. Since it had always seemed to me that if you believed in God a ‘pick and mix’ approach to the central tenets of the faith was pointless, I said ‘yes’. But in fact I felt ‘no’. It wasn’t that I had been wrestling over the doctrine of the incarnation, I simply felt