Society

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Palin’s media strategy

Boston, Massachusetts One of the striking things about the week since the election is the sheer amount of media Sarah Palin has done. She has sat down with the local press in Alaska, Fox News, NBC and is doing CNN tomorrow. By contrast, McCain is making his first post-election appearance on Leno tonight. Palin has evidently decided that she can’t leave the stage with the impression that she is a “diva” and not able enough for national politics the conventional wisdom. But these media appearances are a distinctly mixed blessing for Palin. While they may give her a chance to defend herself, they also rehash her various missteps on the

Venetia Thompson

Who put a sock full of cocaine in my drawer?

Venetia Thompson, who has never taken the drug, was shocked to discover a stash in her house. What to do? Her friends’ response was a collective shrug as if it were nothing unusual It is said that in London, you are never further than ten feet from the nearest rat. It seems that, these days, the same might just as easily be said of cocaine. Recently, while gathering up my washing, I discovered an unfamiliar sock. This was immediately bizarre, as I recognise all of my socks; there are not many of them, they very rarely travel in matching pairs, and can usually be found lurking in dark corners of

Susan Hill Susan Hill

The loss of health visitors is a true scandal

Susan Hill recalls how much she relied on her health visitor and bemoans the decline of this once-universal service: the victim of bureaucratic ‘targeting’ and government ignorance You can be sure of one thing about government. If it ain’t broke, they will fix it and don’t worry about the breaking bit, they will do that for themselves. Rewind 15 years to the health visitor system which was so ‘not broke’ it was a model for best practice throughout the world. HVs originally looked after patients ‘from cradle to grave’, advising and supporting anyone who needed them, including the elderly, the chronically or terminally ill and the disabled, but gradually their

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month

In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields. John McCrae, 1915

Alex Massie Alex Massie

War and Memory

“Take a trip through the British countryside and note the number of war memorials and be struck by the number of names on each of them. Once, these hamlets and villages coughed up their sons and sent them off to France. And as the long lists of names attest, many of them never came back. To take one example from thousands: my own home town of Selkirk in the Scottish Borders lost no fewer than 292 men during the Great War. This from a town with no more than 6,000 people.” From my latest piece at Culture11, remembering the First World War.

Daniel Korski

The worst of the markets

Ever wondered which of the world’s stock markets has fared the worst during the recent financial turmoil? Thanks to Stan Secrieru wonder no more. The winner is Russia (cue sounds of Russian national anthem). Helped by a brutal war, market-rattling commentary by Prime Minister Putin and a belligerent state-of-the-union address by President Medvedev, Russia’s RTS fell by 68 percent. A close second is China, whose dollar-packed treasury can do little to keep up China’s economic growth if Western demand slumps. Beijing’s leaders can take comfort in Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index, which “only” saw a 49% drop. In Brazil, the falling price of oil has hurt state-controlled oil multinational Petrobras,

Peter Hoskin

Put your questions to Francis Maude

Francis Maude – the Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, and MP for Horsham – has kindly agreed to a Q&A session with Coffee House.  Just post your questions for him in the comments section below.  And, on Friday, we’ll pick out the best ten and put them to him.  He’ll get back to us with his answers a few days later. UPDATE: We have now picked the questions for Francis.  Find out what they are by clicking here.

Peter Hoskin

90 years since the end of WWI

Today marks the 90th anniversary of Armistice Day and the formal end of World War One.  I quote from the climax of Norman Stone’s stunning work, WWI – A Short History: “Meanwhile, as German morale was collapsing, the final crisis was precipitated by another act of desperation. In a weird descant upon the navy-army rivalry that had done so much to weaken the [German] war effort, the naval authorities resolved on a last, mad move. Captain von Levetzow, chief of staff of the navy, could see the likelihood that Germany’s great ships would be interned, none of them left for the eventual reconstitution of the Reichsmarine. Better, he thought, ‘immortal

Peter Hoskin

The Tory tax cut: first impressions

I haven’t seen all the numbers yet – or, indeed, many details at all – so consider the following as very loose, first impressions of the tax cut Cameron’s just announced (details here): What is it? Companies which employ workers who have been jobless for three months will get a cut in the amount of national insurance they pay.  The cut will be worth £2,500 for every such worker taken on.  According to Cameron, that could reduce the overall tax burden on companies by up to £2.6 billion, and create up to 350,000 jobs. How is it funded? Out of the cash that would otherwise have been spent on unemployment

Peter Hoskin

Labour close the gap

Today’s Populus poll in the Times – the first to be conducted in the aftermath of the interest rate cut and the Glenrothes byelection – has the Tories on 41 percent (down 4 since early October); Labour on 35 percent (up 5); and the Lib Dems on 16 percent (up 1).  That’s Labour’s highest level of support since March. I doubt Team Cameron will be unduly worried by those headline numbers – after all, they are still 6 points ahead; solidly in the 40s; and all after several weeks of positive coverage for Brown.  But some of the below-headline findings will cause concern. For instance, 52 percent of respondents think

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Big Jacqui’s Just Looking Out For You

All Home Secretaries are ghastly, of course. But Jacqui Smith may be an even greater nuisance than previous holders of the office. That’s tough competition when you recall that the field also includes Michael Howard, David Blunkett and Jack Straw. The latter, of course, shopped his own son to the police. But here’s the lie being peddled by the gruesome Smith today: Jacqui Smith says public demand means people will be able to pre-register for an ID card within the next few months. The cards will be available for all from 2012 but she said: “I regularly have people coming up to me and saying they don’t want to wait

Peter Hoskin

Go ahead, punk…

Just to recommend a great debate that’s fizzing away over at Comment Central.  On one side there’s Daniel Finkelstein, who – I think it’s fair to say – is less-than-impressed with what he calls the Lib Dems’ “punk” tax cuts, and advocates a more cautious approach.  On the other, there’s Nick Clegg, who says those unholy, punk tax-cuts are right for our economically-depressed times. Finkelstein got the ball rolling with this post, in which he takes a jibe at the Lib Dems’ tax policy.  Clegg responded here.  I quote a paragraph with largely sums up that response: “Why does Danny think it’s impossible after a decade of spiralling Whitehall spending

Peter Hoskin

Cameron’s moral obligation

Good timing from David Cameron.  On the day the papers preempt the official notice that unemployment has risen above 1.8 million – its highest level since 1998 – the Tory leader gives a speech on the subject of mass joblessness. The main message is of how the Tories “will not stand aside” as people lose their jobs, and of how they have a “moral obligation” to help those who become unemployed as a result of the downturn.  It’s resonant language, which goes well beyond “we feel your pain”-style platitudes.  And, what’s more, it’s most likely backed up by a policy package – although we’ll have to wait for more details

Peter Hoskin

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 10 November – 16 November

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

Sunday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Verona Daily Mail

Condensed Shakespeare: nation’s tabloids report modern repeat of story of Romeo & Juliet under headline: KNIFE CRIME TOFF IN PAEDO SUICIDE PACT

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Further Adventures in Brave New Scotland

Can this really be true? Why yes my friends it can. A teenager from Ayrshire who was caught posing with a sword on the social networking site Bebo has been fined £200 at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court. Anthony Bowman, 19, pleaded guilty to displaying the image on Bebo between January 2006 and July 2008. His case came to light after police conducted a trawl of the internet in a bid to cut crime and disorder. Bowman was then identified by officers from the Strathclyde force’s Violence Reduction Taskforce. The teenager’s case was reported to prosecutors as part of Operation Access – an ongoing campaign against violence. Kilmarnock district procurator fiscal, Les

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Mr President, your priority should be…

Boston, Massachusetts Two of the Democrats’ biggest beasts take to the papers today to urge Obama to make their issue his top priority. In the New York Times Al Gore calls for immediate action on climate change while in the Washington Post Ted Kennedy declares that ‘Health Care Can’t Wait’. This is a taste of the pressure Obama will come under in the next few months; everyone knows that his political capital will never be this high again and that the first two years of his administration offer the best chance of enacting an irreversible political shift. Indeed, there are still political ads running on television—but they come from Democratic

Peter Hoskin

Who will win the tax war?

It now seems that Labour and the Tories are willing to follow the Lib Dem lead on tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners.  Yesterday’s papers had news that Brown & Darling are preparing a range of cuts for possible inclusion in the forthcoming pre-Budget report.  And today’s Telegraph reveals that Cameron & Co. are now lining up a preemptive tax cut of their own. There are strong moral, fiscal and political arguments in favour of targeted tax cuts, so – on paper, at least – it’s A Good Thing that all three main parties have hit on the same position.  But dividing lines remain, and they should ensure that

Peter Hoskin

<em>In Memoriam</em>

A poppy rests on a memorial for the fallen and missing of World War I, in Ypres, Belgium.  Today, thousands of remembrance services will take place across Britain, ahead of the 90th Anniversary of the armistice on Tuesday.