Society Archives

Monday

15 Sep 2008

Purnell takes an apparent swipe at Brown on child poverty and says Labour’s backbench rebels are “entitled to do anything they want to”

There was a fascinating debate tonight, sponsored by the Evening Standard, about whether or not New Labour is doomed for defeat. James Purnell had drawn the short straw of being the Labour politician on the panel and in the circumstances he turned in a fine performance. But there were a couple of moments that caused the Kremlinologists in the room to draw breath. First he announced that the reason child poverty is not about to being eliminated is not, as the Tories argue, because big state solutions don’t work but because the money earmarked in recent Budgets for the task has been insufficient. Now, when you consider who has been

Brian Cullen

Downing Street desperate to look tough

Two bits of news have emerged this afternoon that indicate Number 10 really wants to strike a strong pose on the Labour ‘rebellion’ – but appears to be making a ham of it. 1) Firing someone who’s already quit. News emerged this morning that Brown had ‘fired’ forestry envoy Barry Gardiner MP for adding his voice to the rebels. Unfortunately for the PM, Guido has now broken the news that Gardiner had in fact resigned a couple days before Brown removed him. 2) Getting support – from the wrong people. Margaret Beckett has told potential rebel MPs to fall in line or the electorate would not forgive Labour. Unfortunately some of Brown’s cabinet

James Forsyth

In other news, the Lib Dem conference

Spare a thought for Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. Their conference, one of the best chances for them to get some proper coverage, is being over-shadowed by the banking crisis and the Labour leadership plotting. This is a pity as the Lib Dems seem to be trying to reposition themselves on the political spectrum. First, they have committed to cutting taxes and public spending. This is going to change the tone of the debate about this subject in a way that favours proponents of a smaller state. Second, they have de-emphasised their pro-Europeanism —an indication, as Andrew Neil notes, that they really are worried about losing their seats in

Peter Hoskin

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 15 September – 21 September

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

James Forsyth

Will Glenrothes be the end for Brown?

The financial crisis has pushed the Labour leadership down the headlines, but there does seem to be a new consensus emerging that, although Brown will not be forced out now, the last few days have made his departure in the near-future far more likely. It has certainly put more pressure on his conference speech and his much-hyped autumn fight-back. The Glenrothes by-election is the next electoral test facing Labour and if Brown fails that, it could be the end. Jackie Ashley writes that: “If Labour loses the coming Glenrothes byelection, key figures will go to him and say it’s all over. If he tried to hang on, I’m told, there

James Forsyth

Nightmare on Wall Street

With Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy, Merill Lynch being sold to Bank of America for less than $30 a share and AIG seeking a bridging loan from the Federal Reserve it was a bloody Sunday for Wall Street. It remains to be seen if bloody Sunday will be followed by a black Monday but there is considerable fear about what might happen next. As the Washington Post puts it this morning, “The titans of Wall Street have, over the past 72 hours, been forced to reckon with the reality that the financial sector they built is, in its current form, too big, uses too much borrowed money and creates too

Sunday

14 Sep 2008

Alex Massie

McCain’s Second Life

What was John McCain to do? By that, I mean: what sort of campaign was he supposed to run? Steve Benen says it’s “chilling” that Sarah Palin could be a heartbeat from the Presidency. Matt Yglesias notes the “crassly political” nature of her selection and asks what federal agency or cabinet department she might be qualified to run if she hadn’t been picked as McCain’s running-mate. Andrew Sullivan, in his characteristically restrained style, fears for the future if “this dangerous, vindictive, Christianist cipher” is “foisted” upon the United States. And yes, today’s New York Times story on her record – and style of governing – in Alaska is, to put

Alex Massie

Tales from the Nanny State

Good grief. A TEAM of NHS nurses is patrolling Scotland’s streets to target pot-bellied members of the public and tell them how to lose weight. Armed with measuring tapes to check waists and equipment to test blood pressure, the “Street Nurses” are policing busy shopping centres, supermarkets and community centres. Any man with a paunch, or woman with an “apple-shaped” body whose waist measurement is higher than recommended limits is given diet and lifestyle advice or referred to local slimming classes. Under the scheme the nurses, wearing high-visibility waistcoats, set up portable tables and chairs in town centres to monitor passers-by. If they spot someone who looks overweight they will

Theo Hobson

A matter of faith | 14 September 2008

Theo Hobson is writing a regular column for Coffee House on religion. This week he tackles the legacy of Cardinal Newman and the Alpha Movement’s new ad campaign. Frankly I don’t care whether or not Cardinal Newman’s remains are dug up and buried somewhere more saintly; the phrase ‘let the dead bury their own dead’ springs to mind. But it slightly amuses me that Peter Tatchell defends Newman’s right to be left where he is, next to the man whom he loved, Ambrose St John. On Newsnight,Tatchell was coy about what sort of love he thought was involved. He laughably described the friendship as a ‘same-sex’ relationship: it’s quite hard

James Forsyth

A well-led, hungry Labour party would have made the Tories suffer today

Watching David Miliband surrender all he gained over the summer, Labour rebels wound but not oust Brown and the Lib Dems having their conference overshadowed by Labour’s troubles it would be understandable if the Tories felt things were going just fine. But a close reading of today’s papers should jolt the Tories out of any sense of complacency and encourage those Labour MPs who are sitting on the fence to join in the rebellion. There are three stories in today’s paper that the Labour attack machine would have used to hammer the Tories back in the day. First, and most seriously, there is The Sunday Times’ investigation into Lord Ashcroft’s

James Forsyth

Miliband retreats

“I do support Gordon Brown” squealed David Miliband on the Politics Show just now. In an interview which was markedly different in style and tone from his confident performances during the summer after the publication of his Guardian article, Miliband backed away from a challenge, explicitly arguing against a leadership contest. When Jon Sopel challenged him on the ambiguous language he had used on the Jeremy Vine show when he was sending ‘come and get me’ signals to the Labour party, Miliband retreated from his earlier position. Having run his colours up the flag pole over the summer, Miliband now seems to have lowered them. Both stylistically and substantively this

Saturday

13 Sep 2008

Melissa Kite

Real Life | 13 September 2008

Don’t be fooled At last, I’m starting to enjoy the downturn. The key was realising that by buying less of everything I’m annoying people in positions of power and calling a lot of very rich people’s bluff. This is most satisfying. For example, I used to scoff at an advert by the French energy firm EDF which promised that if I used less gas and electricity they would be delighted to reduce my bills. I tended to think that the correct response was to laugh my head off at the silly Frenchies with their statement of the blindingly obvious, based on an eye-watering lie that they would be happy if

Jeremy Clarke

Low Life | 13 September 2008

I first came across the book Iron John: Man and Masculinity by Robert Bly when I saw it being clutched in the bony old fingers of the man that used to chair meetings of our local Alcoholics Anonymous group. At the end of one of our weekly meetings he held up this book and pointed the cover at us. This man never managed to master the Alcoholics Anonymous principle that we were to depend on a ‘higher power’ for help. He’d overcome his addiction by applying his great intellect to the problem. He said to me once, ‘I wouldn’t argue with me because I had a superb education, you know.’

Taki

High Life | 13 September 2008

Regensburg The mighty Danube begins in the park of the Furstenberg Palace and flows eastward for a distance of 2,000 miles across ten countries on to the Black Sea. Last weekend, Prince and Princess Heinrich von Furstenberg, the titular heads of the family who live in that palace, gave us a little tour of Walhalla, the German Hall of Fame situated further down the river from their park, in Regensburg, the perfectly preserved medieval town where a wonderful party celebrating Maya Schoenburg’s 50th birthday has left me feeling all of my 72 years. Make that 102. But first Walhalla. As everyone knows, it was the dwelling place of the Gods,

The Spectator

Dot Wordsworth on words lost in translation

My husband’s club was closed in August, which meant, paradoxically, that I saw less of him, because he enjoyed the chance to exercise reciprocal rights at other clubs, which I suspect might not have welcomed him as a member in the first place. Sitting in some smokeless smoking-room he took to reading the Financial Times, and there he saw an article by Michael Skapinker on the uses of simplified English. Apparently, Voice of America broadcasts some programmes in something called Special English, which has about 1,500 words, in comparison with an educated Englishman’s vocabulary of 30,000. In response to the FT article, David Gibbons, a translator with a Milan bank

Dylan Jones

Diary – 13 September 2008

There are many things I’ll miss about my year with David Cameron, not least my regular visits to Portcullis House, the ugly upside-down cow’s udder opposite the Commons (it was designed by Michael Hopkins, although it looks as though he did this in the dark, possibly using Plasticine and some peat briquettes). After a while I began to think of its lobby as a current affairs version of the bar in Star Wars, the one peopled by a galaxy of freaks. It is also something of a research assistant catwalk, and while you couldn’t reasonably compare it to the lobby of Vogue House — which, predictably, has the most glamorous

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 13 September 2008

This column and its readers have just won our first battle in our long war. The BBC Trust has announced that it will investigate the way in which the television licence fee is collected. It wants to know, for example, whether the public think that the methods of enforcement are ‘reasonable and appropriate’. This column has been highlighting the predicament of those (including myself, in my London flat) who do not possess a television. We receive unreasonable and inappropriate letters from TV Licensing, often by the dozen, which assume our guilt for evasion without any evidence and threaten us with inspection and a criminal record. I notice that televisionless households

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody | 13 September 2008

Monday Look! There is no question of us doing a U-turn on our pledge to match Labour’s spending plans. You can’t do a U-turn if you were never going to go a particular way in the first place. Or if you went for a long drive that brought you exactly back to where you started, you wouldn’t say you’d done a U-turn. You’d say you’d done a circle. Or a curve. Oh dear. Let’s put it this way: we always planned to stop promising to match Labour’s spending plans by the end of this year. So in fact we are on target for fulfilling one of our key pledge reversals!

The Spectator

Letters | 13 September 2008

Taking care of Toby Sir: Kirsten Dunst never insisted that I ban Toby Young (Status anxiety, 6 September) from the set of How To Lose Friends & Alienate People. Toby’s piece stemmed from a recent article of mine in Empire magazine. In his opening paragraph, he says he learned from it that ‘the reason I was banned from the set of the film is because Kirsten Dunst insisted on it’. But Toby didn’t read my article before he wrote his. For the record, Kirsten told me on set that Toby had given her a performance note. (Toby says she overheard him give a note about her performance to a third

Toby Young

Status Anxiety | 13 September 2008

By the time you read this I may be dead. I have been pressganged into taking part in the London Duathlon this Sunday in order to raise money for the Chelsea and Westminster Health Charity. A canny young man who works for the charity noticed a reference to the paediatric unit at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in something I wrote about my son and suggested that this might be a good way to give something back. It was a request I couldn’t refuse. Ludo was born with neonatal varicella, an extremely rare condition that, in certain circumstances, has a 30 per cent mortality rate. Varicella is the Latin word for