Today, Jacqui Smith unveiled the first ever ID card . These earliest cards are designed for foreign residents (and will be sent out in November to marriage visa holders and international students). Will this really improve security? Or is it just a way of ‘softening up’ the process of national implementation? Either way, expect fakes to appear on the streets in the next few weeks…
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s article in the new issue of the Spectator – featured on this morning’s Today programme – is already making waves. Dr Williams has form as a controversialist, of course: his remarks about sharia law caused a storm earlier this year, though he insisted that his argument had been distorted and misunderstood. This time I think he knew exactly what he was doing. To say that Marx was “right” about certain aspects of capitalism is self-evidently a red rag to a bull – as is the Archbishop’s claim that the way in which we talk about the market strays into “what the Jewish and Christian scriptures call idolatry.” Yet
President Bush’s dramatic statement to the nation last night was aimed at persuading recalcitrant House Republicans to support the bailout bill. His bald statement that without immediate action by Congress, “America could slip into a financial panic, and a distressing scenario would unfold” was meant to create the political pressure to bring them into line. Today, Obama and McCain will join key Congressional leaders at the White House to try and hammer out a deal. McCain in a bold but risky moved has pushed for postponing the first presidential debate on Friday until Congress reaches a deal. Obama has cleverly responded by saying the president should be able to multi-task.
If Geoff Hoon is to be moved in the coming reshuffle, which seems almost certain, who to make the new Chief Whip will be a telling and tricky decision for the PM. Many Brown loyalists are furious about Hoon’s light-touch approach to the rebels. His comments about the rebellion have been ambivalent—“I simply don’t think at this stage it’s appropriate” is hardly a ringing endorsement—and they fume that Chief Whips are meant to put the thumb-screws on rebels rather than treating them with kid gloves. Brown must be tempted to move a loyalist into the slot. But if someone did start putting the rebels on the rack, that could push
Well that it is for another year, on the train back to London. Brown is in a stronger position than when he started and the right of the party is split – i.e. a good conference. The moderate, pragmatic centre left around Compass are on the move. Today was ‘women’s day’. Didn’t start too well. Apparently at 3am Ruth Kelly resigned- in the bar of the Radisson! Well I was in the bar at 3am and I’m sure Ruth was not there. Although I do remember the whole of the press gallery running into the Hotel lobby after some familiar looking guy. Harriet made a barnstorming speech. Didn’t get in
The Telegraph is reporting that Gordon Brown will not be seeing the US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, the main mover on the US bailout plan, on his trip to the States. This is despite Brown saying in his conference speech that “I and then Alistair will meet financial and government leaders in New York” to make proposals for how to stabilise and “rebuild the world financial system” Brown desperately needed to come out of the Labour conference with some momentum. But the Ruth Kelly resignation and the fact that his meetings in New York on the financial crisis in New York are far from high-powered have denied him that. It
Harriet Harman in many ways had the easiest speech of the conference to deliver. All she had to do was throw red meat to the delegates – but she did so effectively. Certainly, the standing ovation that the two thirds full hall gave her was far more sustained and heart-felt than the one David Miliband received earlier in the week. Harman’s speech was based around a highly feminised attack on David Cameron. It is personal and unpleasant–it assumes that Cameron is the kind of man who’ll say anything to have his ‘wicked way’ with you and then will forget about you. But I wonder if it could be effective; it
Tuesday night/Wednesday morning GB’s speech nailed it. No game changer in terms of tax policy, though. The ‘Spectator/Compass middle class tax cut’ was not even announced. Very clever; we must be saving it for next week. The speech worked for GB—the conference response was significant; indeed profound. The space for the coup plotters has been closed down. They in turn are seriously pissed off about how good it was. Rumours persist regarding the Flint martyrdom video. I hate these big speeches and instead watch them on TV. Sarah showed guts. Most significant was Brown’s more emotional language through the use of individual stories rather than long lists of achievements and
Ruth Kelly’s resignation has guaranteed that Brown’s speech is going to be a one day story. Rumours are swirling about why she has gone and why the news leaked out now—the worst time for Brown. In her speech to conference just now, Kelly said what a privilege it had been to work with both Blair and Brown. But tellingly her last line was ‘we can and must do better.’
As expected, the by-election up in Fife is going to be on November 6th—two days after the US presidential election. If Labour lose, then those in the cabinet who know Brown’s limitations will face their moment of decision.
Here in Manchester, Team Brown are making little attempt to pretend that the ‘no time for a novice’ line wasn’t aimed at David Miliband as much—if not more—than David Cameron. Indeed, after the whole ‘six out of ten’ ‘Heseltine’ debacle and the photos of Miliband looking slightly ridiculous most people here are shorting Miliband. If he wants to keep up the buzz that has surrounded him, he is going to have to fight to re-establish his authority. Yet at the same time, the gloss is coming off Brown’s speech with every hour that passes. The realisation that nothing has really changed is sinking in, Jackie Ashley neatly sums up the
The sophisticated truck bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on 20 September, which took dozens of lives, was the latest incident in a campaign to destabilise the entire subcontinent. Most reports have blamed al-Qa’eda militants but the real blame for the crime belongs with the Talebanised sectors of the Pakistani armed forces and intelligence service (ISI), and the pusillanimity of the Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari, widower of the assassinated Benazir Bhutto. The Marriott assault was clearly a sequel to the bombing less than three months ago, on 7 July, at the Indian embassy in Kabul, which was also devastatingly murderous. Pakistani authorities tried to deny the involvement of
Sunday What more compassionate way to open than by allowing Mrs Spelperson to lead us in prayer at an inclusive service for all faiths and none at Birmingham’s historic yet modern town hall? (Some of us need to pray harder than others of course, especially those who might have broken parliamentary expenses rules, but we’ll say no more about that now.) To give things an urban edge, our special music guest stars will perform hip hop hymns. As you know, Dave has always been a big fan of gangsta rap. Can’t wait to hear ‘I Vow to Thee, Emcee, My Country’! In the conference hall: ‘Get To Know Birmingham’ with
In theory, Europeans find American elections vulgar and plutocratic. In practice, they find them utterly gripping. This is partly because the US is wealthy and powerful, but mainly because American campaigns, being more participatory than European ones, are more interesting. All organisations grow according to the DNA encoded at the time of their conception. The US was founded in a revolt against a distant and autocratic regime. In consequence, its polity developed according to what we might call Jeffersonian principles: the idea that power should be diffused and that government officials, wherever possible, should be elected. Most European constitutions, by contrast, were drawn up after the second world war. Their
Otello Welsh National Opera, Cardiff La fanciulla del West Royal Opera House Otello, for me the most perfect though not the greatest of Verdi’s operas, continues Welsh National Opera’s survey of his late works, in a new production by Paul Curran. The first night was a much tamer affair than it should have been, though the performance wasn’t cautious or underprepared. Nor could one say that it was under- or miscast. Carlo Rizzi conducted a rapid but detailed account, with the orchestra on good form, though one could have wished for a stronger string section. The chorus was tremendous, with plausible movements during the opening storm scene, where often there
Using the Oxford Junior Dictionary (1979), by Philip Pullman Before Lyra, before polar bears and His Dark Materials, and before his first children’s book, Count Karlstein, in 1982, Philip Pullman was a lowly drudge in the very humblest halls of lexicography. Pullman in fact spent his earliest career in teaching, working at various Oxford middle schools before moving in 1986 to Westminster College, where he taught B. Ed. students. In 1979 he did some jobbing work for Oxford University Press and produced the booklet at hand, Using the Oxford Junior Dictionary (his name appears only on the inside cover, though he is the sole author). It is the usual fare
I remain perplexed. People are still talking about David Milliband as Gordon Brown’s successor. I just don’t see it. Miliband’s the sort of kid who was always picked last in a game of playground football. Even if he’s better than some of the other kids, you still wouldn’t want him on your side. He’s that irritating. Anyway, what’s Gordon saying to him here? [Via Danny Finkelstein]
I guess this isn’t too much of a surprise. But here’s Rush Limbaugh talking about Barack Obama’s ancestors, yesterday: LIMBAUGH: These polls on how one-third of blue-collar white Democrats won’t vote for Obama because he’s black, and — but he’s not black. Do you know he has not one shred of African-American blood? He doesn’t have any African — that’s why when they asked whether he was authentic, whether he’s down for the struggle. He’s Arab. You know, he’s from Africa. He’s from Arab parts of Africa. He’s not — his father was — he’s not African-American. The last thing that he is is African-American. I guess that’s splitting hairs,
Courtesy of Sarah Schmelling at McSweeney’s: Horatio thinks he saw a ghost. Hamlet thinks it’s annoying when your uncle marries your mother right after your dad dies. The king thinks Hamlet’s annoying. Laertes thinks Ophelia can do better. Hamlet’s father is now a zombie. – – – – The king poked the queen. The queen poked the king back. Hamlet and the queen are no longer friends. Marcellus is pretty sure something’s rotten around here. Hamlet became a fan of daggers. V droll. [Hat-tip: Ezra Klein]
From the Telegraph’s obituary of John Burrows, an intelligence officer who spent part of the war working at Bletchley Park: In August 1939 he married Enid Carter, an employee of the British Sugar Corporation, and a few weeks later, on the outbreak of war, he volunteered for the Intelligence Corps. “When I joined the Army, I was a teacher of modern languages,” he said. “I admitted to a working knowledge of German and was immediately posted to Singapore.” Relatedly, today’s paper also carries an obituary for Phyllis Thom, who, like my grandfather, spent most of the war in a Japanese POW camp: By 1944 death had become an everyday occurrence,