Society

James Forsyth

No change, no chance for Labour

Gordon is safe is the new conventional wisdom. Nick Robinson, the arbiter of the CW, said this morning on the Today programme that “Gordon Brown no longer appears to be under threat.” This strikes me as evidence that Labour has given up, that it lacks the stomach for the fight. Looking at Brown’s poll rating—74 percent think he is a bad Prime Minister—it is almost inconceivable that Labour could win the next election with him in charge. Indeed, one suspects that Brown is leading Labour to a defeat of epic proportions. It is not as if Brown has faced down his internal enemies. It is just that they have retreated

Will power-sharing work?

The power-sharing deal reached in Zimbabawe is certainly an historic development. It’s hard not to conclude that it’s a positive one too. After all, the pro-West MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, will now have some role in the governance of the country. Ok, he should have been made President back in March, if democracy had been allowed to run its course. But, on that front, this latest still seems like a step in the right direction. But it’s also difficult not to be sceptical about the deal. Details will be announced on Monday, but early word is that we’ll effectively be looking at two parallel governments – Tsvangirai will be Prime

Alex Massie

Ohio Impromptu

Wins my support. How could he not, him being a Trinity man and the only Nobel laureate for literature to have played first-class cricket? [Hat-tip: Alex Ross]

James Forsyth

The next left

If you want to know how a post-Brown Labour party might take on the Tories, I’d thoroughly recommend the Jon Cruddas and Jonathan Rutherford edited Is the future conservative? It is one of the first things from the left that I have read that takes the Cameron Tories seriously and maps out how the left can fight back. Here’s Cruddas and Rutherford’s rallying cry to the left: The future does not belong to the Conservative Party. Right now it belongs to a social democracy that is willing to bring liberal free market capitalism and corporate power back under control. The debate is about how we secure this post neoliberal politics.

Win a luxury holiday to Dubai

The Spectator have teamed up with Dubai tourist office and Pure Luxury to offer one lucky reader a free holiday in Dubai.  To be in with a chance of winning, enter the competition here. 

James Forsyth

The danger of a Tory Brown bubble

The new Populus poll shows that 74 percent of the electorate thinks Gordon Brown is a bad Prime Minister. As Peter Riddell—not a man prone to over-statement—writes in The Times today, “The public have given up on Gordon Brown.” This is, obviously, in one sense great news for the Tories. Running against an incumbent who is a busted flush during a recession is about as good as it gets for an opposition. But the extent of Brown’s unpopularity should cause the Tories the odd nervous moment. Imagine for a second if Labour did get its act together and dump Brown. All of a sudden the 67 percent of voters who

Labour’s confused agenda

It seems today’s Guardian bears the fruit of the Labour briefing paper they obtained earlier in the week on how best to attack the Tories.  Stephen Byers’s op-ed toes the ‘same old Tories’ line to a tee, focusing –above all – on the Conservative belief in small government: “Cameron is an old-style Conservative who is deeply uncomfortable with the state playing any role in our lives…I believe that now is the right time for a debate about the size and role of government: in particular, the need to establish a new relationship between citizens and the state. This is something that Cameron is trying to avoid. His is a dogmatic

9/11 remembered

It’s seven years since almost 3000 people lost their lives in the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.  The anniversary will be marked by a series of commemorative services across the world – including one at Ground Zero in New York, which will be attended by both John McCain and Barack Obama – and a new memorial will be unveiled in Washington by George Bush.

Alex Massie

Sarah Palin’s Feminism

Camille Paglia agrees with me. Should I be worried? Sarah Palin is like Annie Oakley, a brash ambassador from America’s pioneer past. She immediately reminded me of the frontier women of the Western states, which first granted women the right to vote after the Civil War — long before the federal amendment guaranteeing universal woman suffrage was passed in 1919. Frontier women faced the same harsh challenges and had to tackle the same chores as men did — which is why men could regard them as equals, unlike the genteel, corseted ladies of the Eastern seaboard… For an alternative, more policy-based, take, see Kate Marsh at TNR.

An alternative to the Barnett Formula

Many thanks to Mike Denham – the author of a Taxpayers’ Alliance report on the Barnett Formula, released today – for the following post… In the last week, the allocation of money between England and Scotland has been in the news with the Scottish National Party planning to abolish council tax in Scotland, replace it with a local income tax and have English taxpayers foot a part of the bill.  The Government’s Calman Commission, set up to review devolution, is mandated to investigate whether fiscal devolution would be a good idea.  Disputes over the distribution of taxpayers money between Scotland and England aren’t new, but those disputes have rarely been

Take the Maths Challenge

The think-tank Reform has just wired us a copy of their maths challenge – a set of 10 questions designed not only to test the grey-matter, but also to promote a rigorous maths curriculum.  The challenge will be distributed at the party conferences – to see how the politicos fare – but we’ve reproduced it below for the benefit of CoffeeHousers.  For information on how to have your answers checked, click here.  Do let us know how you get on…  Questions Note: These problems are designed to be tackled without a calculator 1.(a) 15 x 9 = ?;   (b) (2 1/2 + 5/3 ) ÷ 2 1/2 = ? 2.When

James Forsyth

Is sunshine the best disinfectant?

Anne McElvoy’s piece in the Standard today on the Cameron-Osborne relationship makes the following claim: “As their differences are in the open, they do not fester.” It is tempting to agree that sunshine is the best disinfectant. But I wonder how the press would have reacted to Osborne publicly drawing distinctions with Cameron and taking a thinly-veiled slap at Cameron’s jejune approach to Iraq as he did in The Guardian on Monday, if the Tories were not close to twenty points ahead in the polls?   PS Those interested in the Cameron-Osborne relationship should make sure to read Tamzin tomorrow.

The laureate of intractable conflicts

Looking every inch the Brit that he isn’t, American playwright Christopher Shinn takes a bite of a sandwich in a Shepherd’s Bush rehearsal room on a rainy summer afternoon and confesses that, although grateful, he still finds it ‘a mystery’ that it should have been London’s theatrical community, rather than New York’s, that made his career. For his latest play, Now or Later, recently opened at the Royal Court, will be his fifth to premiere in London before going anywhere near his own continent, about which he relentlessly writes. It’s not that Shinn, 32, is not successful in his native country. Quite the contrary: the author of nine critically acclaimed

Rod Liddle

Have we ever faced an enemy more stupid than Muslim terrorists?

Isn’t it about time Muslim terrorists rethought their strategy of recording glorious martyrdom videos, in advance of failing to blow anything up? Wouldn’t it be a bit less embarrassing for all concerned? Time after time we see these imbeciles on our television news promising all sorts of mayhem and misery, the righteous and cleansing fires of Allah poured down upon we imperialist decadent kafir scum, ‘body parts’ scattered in the streets, etc. And then they forget to take a cigarette lighter with them to the airport, or the detonator doesn’t work, or they’re arrested buying 5,000 bottles of hydrogen peroxide from the local hairdresser’s shop and thus somehow arousing suspicion

How I became a world record holder

At a Google conference in Rhodes, Matthew d’Ancona finds himself part of a bid to break the world record for Zorba dancing — and to relive one of the greatest scenes in cinema ‘Teach me to dance. Will you?’ Few scenes in cinema have the emotional poignancy and magic of the last moments of Zorba the Greek (1964), as Basil, the young English writer played by Alan Bates, seeks his final lesson in life from Anthony Quinn’s majestic peasant-magus, on the Cretan shore. All around them are broken dreams, and the air hangs heavy with the prospect of their parting: but nothing can repress their joy as that familiar theme,

Alex Massie

Queen of the Silver Dollar

A mini-blogging hiatus, folks, as I’m off to Glasgow tonight to see the one and only Emmylou Harris play at the Royal Concert Hall. I assume Norm will be seeing the great lady when her tour reaches Manchester in a couple of days time. I think Chris Dillow is also a fan and – since three bloggers are more than enough to sustain a trend – does this make Emmylou the biggest country star in the British blogosphere?

James Forsyth

The McCain campaign mocks Gordon Brown

The news that Gordon Brown has thrown his weight behind Barack Obama has raced round the internets. If truth be told, Brown hasn’t endorsed Obama or done anything like that. Rather, a clumsily written article has implied that he has by singling out Obama for praise and not mentioning McCain. The McCain campaign’s response to these reports is scathing. In a post on the McCain report entitled “The Coveted Gordon Brown Endorsement” it points out that Obama no longer advocates the policy that Brown praised him for. Now, really this is a storm in a tea-cup. But it is hard to imagine the Bush or Kerry campaigns sending up Tony Blair