Society

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Beijing Olympic Spirit

There is an important piece in The Washington Post today detailing how China is imprisoning and harassing political activists in the run up to the games: As the Olympics draw near, Chinese security officials appear to be targeting people who could channel information about rights abuses and government corruption to foreigners by publishing, as Huang’s Web site does, in Chinese and English. The site, http://www.64tianwang.com, is hosted on a server in the United States and is blocked in China by government censors. “The government has locked itself into a fictional account that the Chinese population has no interest in human rights and no criticism against the preparation of the Olympic

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Brown’s Praetorians close ranks

Ben Brogan, one of the most plugged-in journalists in Westminster, has a great scoop about a Brownite whipping operation which bypasses Geoff Hoon, the chief whip, and reports directly to the PM. Now, as Ben points out, Hoon has actually been quite successful as chief whip. This suggests to me that the real reason for the move is that the PM and his most loyal supporters believe they can no longer rely on Hoon; they fear that he will put the good of the party above that of the leader. Hoon is mentioned in nearly every possible scenario for how Brown might be deposed. So in some ways it is

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Should Labour get the defeat out of the way as quickly as possible?

There is an absolutely fascinating post by Simon Carr over at Open House. Carr reports that Labour SPADs are kicking around the idea that a Cabinet delegation should force Brown to stand down, install a new leader and hold a snap election which Labour would lose. The thinking behind this scheme is that it would lump the Tories with governing in the worst of economic times and set Labour up for a comeback victory in 2012/13. Essentially, it is a Labour version of the argument that it would have been good for the Tories to lose in 1992 as that would have left Labour to deal with Black Wednesday and

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The terminal dozen

The opening of Terminal 5 was a national humiliation but it seems that the problems there aren’t fixed yet. The trade union that handles the baggage at T5 claim that passengers have a one in twelve chance of losing their bag at the terminal if they are taking a connecting flight from there; incredibly there is no mechanical system for moving the bags that arrive on flights that land at Terminal 4 to the new terminal. I really do not understand why in this country both the public and private sectors are so incapable of pulling off what the French call le grand projet. I fear that the cost over-runs and

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Brown’s confused media strategy

I must admit to being slightly puzzled by Gordon Brown’s interview in The New Statesman this week with GMTV’s political editor, Gloria De Piero. It is a full of the kind of humanising detail that would work well in a to camera piece but looks slightly strange on the printed page. One wonders why Brown’s spin doctors didn’t go the whole hog and send him off to the GMTV sofa to talk about these things? Indeed, this interview seems rather typical of the half in-half out approach that has so come to characterise the Brown government: sign the Lisbon Treaty, but turn up late to the ceremony; have the Olympic

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Labour pains | 10 July 2008

Another day, another slew of stories about how Brown—or Heathcliff, as we should perhaps now call him—might be removed. The Guardian reports that the PM has been holding meetings with small groups of Labour MPs in an attempt to shore up his position. However, the meetings are not going according to plan as Brown apparently just thumps the table and urges the MPs to tell their constituents about what Labour has done for them. The Guardian recounts that when Brown blamed Labour’s poor poll ratings on the global economic turbulence, one former minister challenged him, saying: “Many say you are the problem. What are you going to do about it?”

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Department of Free Markets Being Better than Black Markets

A BBC Scotland documentary on organ sales is on TV tonight. The reporter discovers, shockingly, that: There is a black market in kidneys here in the UK. I secretly filmed people trying to sell me their kidneys, exploiting the vulnerability of someone who is desperate to help a family member. They are also trying to exploit the very law that has changed to allow me to make a ‘stranger donation’. They wanted to fool the authorities – the first woman I met started with an asking price of £250,000, another man wanted the ‘price of a Mercedes’ – £60,000. I met them in cafes across the UK and their actions

Alex Massie Alex Massie

David Davis and Obama

Matt Yglesias writes: the reality is that as long as Obama thinks he’s going to be wielding executive authority, he’s going to be useless as a check on out-of-control executive authority. This is entirely, even obviously, correct. In a British context, this is why David Davis’s seemingly quixotic campaign is immensely valuable: his re-election and his determination to make liberty, justice and principle a major issue will, one hopes and trusts, make it rather harder for David Cameron to succumb to the worst temptations of office…

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Purnell on manoeuvres

A fraternal friend of Coffee House is in touch to say that at a recent TUC drinks-do James Purnell stayed longer than any other minister and shook hands with everyone he could. Now, one would not think of Purnell with his snazzy suits and Blairite politics as someone who would seek out the company of the brothers. But needs must, the Unions will have a third of the votes in any Labour leadership contest and any new Labour Prime Minister would need a large amount of Union money to finance a general election campaign. Combine this with the fact that Purnell has recently shaved off his sideburns and one might

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Fear or stupidity?

My first reaction on hearing of what Harriet Harman said at PMQs today about her becoming Prime Minister—she joked that if it wouldn’t be possible because there isn’t enough airport capacity to allow all the men who would want to, to leave the country—was that fear of Gordon’s henchmen had again led a possible leadership contender to go to absurd lengths to rule themselves out, remember how Alan Johnson declared he wasn’t intellectually up to the job of being PM on Desert Island Discs last autumn. But others told me I was being far too generous to Ms Harman and that she actually froze and couldn’t find a way out

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Is this Labour’s new argument for airport expansion?

Today, at Prime Minister’s Question Time, Harriet Harman—standing in for Gordon Brown—joked that she could not become PM because: “there aren’t enough airports for all the men who would want to leave the country” Well, at least it will give the “race and gender impact” study into a third runway at Heathrow something to look at.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Harriet Harman’s home should be protected

I think the idea of Harriet Harman as Prime Minister is ridiculous but she is a member of the Cabinet and would probably be the PM if Gordon fell under the proverbial bus. So, we should all be concerned about the frequency with which Fathers for Justice are able to climb onto her roof. It is a rather worrying statement about the level of protection afforded her that Fathers for Justice have for the second time in little over a month gained access to the roof of her house. Now, I can already hear people saying that it is a harmless protest. But what worries me is that the police are unaware

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Change on the plane

Airlines these days seem to be finding any number of ways to squeeze some extra cash out of us. Some are now charging to check a bag, others for priority boarding. But as Phillipe Reines, who has taken more plan flight this year than most of us have had hot dinners in his role as Chelsea Clinton’s press chaperone, points out in a rather witty Wall Street Journal op-ed, there are other, better ways for the airline to make an extra buck or two. I like kids, I swear. But I’d pay almost anything not to sit in close proximity to one who is misbehaving. I will fork over 15

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Labour’s latest problem in Glasgow East

After an embarrassingly drawn out selection process with potential candidates dropping out or refusing Prime Ministerial entreaties to enter the fray, Labour has a candidate in Glasgow East, Margaret Curran who is currently a Glasgow MSP. But there’s a problem: she’s not the only Curran in the race. There is also a Frances Curran who is standing for the Scottish Socialist Party. Just to compound the problem for Labour, Frances’s name will appear ahead of Margaret’s on the ballot paper. If this by-election turns out to be a close run affair, the votes lost to Labour by this confusion could cost it the seat; The Times reports that at the

Charlotte Metcalf

The Establishment paedophile: how a monster hid in high society

The five-year-old girl cowers naked and crying in a corner. She is so frightened that she urinates. One of the men in the room hits her repeatedly. The others laugh. Another man picks her up and throws her face down on the bed. Then the men rape her. She dies soon afterwards of atrocious injuries. This is the scenario that the respected art historian and curator, Roger Took, boasted repeatedly about in internet ‘chat rooms’ to fellow paedophiles. In the chat rooms, Took relates how a Dutch man bought the child in Cambodia, kept her for a week and how Took was part of the group who enjoyed ‘splitting her

Richard Northedge

Good news for the prudent: we’re heading for recession

So Britain is talking itself into recession. Keep chattering. If people want a recession, let them have one, so that the rest of us can benefit from it. This is not a suggestion that cold showers do us good or that a spell of reality in the housing market is overdue; it is a reminder that when other consumers have lost their confidence, the bold can take advantage of their apprehension. Slumps mean opportunities. When the majority are out of the market place, the brave can go there without being crushed or outbid. This is the time to be counter-cyclical. If for the past five years no builder even had

Irfan Al-Alawi-S-Schwartz

Our survey shows British Muslims don’t want sharia

Don’t believe the Lord Chief Justice any more than the Archbishop of Canterbury, say Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi A senior establishment figure has once more raised the question of whether sharia law should be introduced as a parallel system of justice for British Muslims. Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, the Lord Chief Justice, was following in the footsteps of the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who in February suggested that the institutionalisation of unspecified aspects of sharia law is ‘unavoidable’. Rowan Williams gave the appearance of mere cluelessness; discussing sharia in a vague, multiculturalist manner apparently intended to project warm feelings toward British Muslims. But Lord Phillips, in attempting

Michael Tanner

Entranced by Janacek

The Cunning Little Vixen Royal College of Music Candide English National Opera Janacek’s wonderfully unsentimental and warm-hearted opera about animals and human beings and the relations between them turned out to be an inspired choice for the students of the Royal College of Music to stage at the Britten Theatre. Any self-proclaimed opera lover who doesn’t keep a close eye on what the colleges are doing is a fool, a snob or a liar, probably all three. It is often in the intimate settings of their theatres that one has the most enjoyable experiences, partly thanks to the proximity to the performers, partly because since none of them has to