All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Rebekah Brooks has finally resigned this morning. Her departure was actually expected yesterday, in the morning indications were given that she would quit that afternoon. My understanding is that the thinking at News International was that if she was still in her job when she attended the select committee hearing on Tuesday, she would just
“He got it entirely wrong.” That is Rupert Murdoch’s response to Gordon Brown’s singular account of his relationship with the Murdoch press. “The Browns were always friends of ours,” Murdoch added in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, in which he promised to set the record straight on the “lies uttered in parliament” when
Not the least astonishing aspect of the News of the World affair is the useless manner in which the Murdoch family has responded to the crisis. There appears to have been no plan, no attempt to get a grip on the situation; they have instead lurched from one miscalculation to another. Not that Rupert sees
The Italian senate passed the government’s emergency budget cuts earlier in the day by a margin of 161 votes to 135. The budget will reduce spending by the equivalent of £42 billion over three years, which is supposed to reduce the deficit to zero by 2014 according Finance Minister Guilo Tremonti’s calculations. Brussels will
The Murdochs have done a reverse-ferret and now will attend the Culture select committee on Tuesday. The harm done to their reputation by their initial refusal is yet another self-inflicted wound. It was clear, given how previous select committee inquiries on these matters had not received proper answers from various representatives of News International, that
British newspapers are haemorrhaging readers and influence, and next Sunday we will see just how much this process has accelerated. That day’s newspapers will — I’m sure — all be making some kind of pitch to orphaned News of the World readers. When Today closed, there was a similar scramble (“Welcome to your place
I think Liberal Conspiracy should drop the “liberal” bit if they keep publishing tommyrot of this sort: I’ve never understood why we allow our print media to support a particular political viewpoint. Why is it that just before an election, our media line up in their separate camps and decide to tell us who to
The latest issue of the Spectator features an article in qualified defence of Rupert Murdoch by William Shawcross, author of Murdoch: the Making of a Media Empire. In it, Shawcross writes: ‘Simon Jenkins, now a Guardian columnist, wrote before the current horrors that Murdoch ‘is the best thing that ever happened to the British media
The Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee has responded to Rupert and James Murdoch rejecting their request to give evidence to them, by issuing a summons. My understanding is that parliament cannot compel them to attend because they are not British subjects. But others think that as long as they are in the country they
The British Crime Survey is published today and the Home Office had prepared for the worst. For months now, figures close to Theresa May have been expressing their fear that the combination of Ken Clarke’s liberal prisons policy and economic hardship would cause a rise in crime for which the Home Office, graveyard for so
Fairness demands one acknowledge this has been Ed Miliband’s best week since he became Labour leader. James’s piece in this week’s edition of the magazine explains why in typically fine fashion. He concludes: There’s undoubtedly something different about Miliband now: more swagger, more conviction. His adept handling of this crisis and his successful parliamentary gamble
On the occasion of la fête nationale (not Bastille Day), here’s Yves Montand with his greatest hit: Prevert & Kosma’s wonderful Les Feuilles Mortes. Salutations to all French friends, readers and relatives today.
I have an interview with Ed Miliband in the latest issue of The Spectator, conducted the evening before yesterday’s Parliamentary debate on News Corp and BSkyB. Here’s the whole thing for CoffeeHousers: Rupert Murdoch’s hold on British politics has finally been broken. The politicians who competed to court him are now scrapping to see who
In some ways, Gordon Brown’s absurd speech yesterday evening felt like the crest of a wave. It’s not that the phone hacking scandal has gone away — far from it. But the initial surge of political activity and spite has abated, having achieved many of its immediate goals: the end of the BSkyB bid, a
Gordon Brown’s speech in the House of Commons just now was remarkable. It was completely deluded, one of the most one-sided versions of history you’re ever likely to hear. Abetted by the Speaker, Brown spoke for what must have been at least half an hour trying to justify his record in office and depict himself
With the European financial crisis rumbling on, anti-EU sentiment in Britain is deepening. Two polls — one by YouGov for PoliticsHome and the other by Angus Reid — show that 50 per cent of the public would vote for Britain to leave the EU if there was a referendum. Of course, this is nothing
As British helicopters pound away at Libyan targets, another battle is being waged inside the Ministry of Defence’s fortress-like building. The fight is over the post-2015 budget, and it is an arduous one. After the uniform-creasing settlement the MoD got in the Spending Review last year, the Prime Minister said in the House of Commons
If memory serves, Gore Vidal liked to stress the point that he was always the bugger, never the buggered. Something similar might be said of Rupert Murdoch’s approach to his business dealings. The Dirty Digger – and bugger, for that matter – is not accustomed to failure. And yet, inside just seven days, he has
The Office for Budget Responsibility’s 126-page Fiscal Sustainability Report really oughtn’t make for electrifying reading. But it does. What Robert Chote and his gang of number-crunchers have done is to gaze into our fiscal abyss, and summon up forecasts so that the abyss can gaze back into us. I mean, look at the graph above.
Was there ever a PMQs like this? The mood was like a revolutionary court. On the central issue – the judge-led inquiry into the hacking affair – there was general agreement. But the doors of justice have been flung open at last and hosts of other crimes are rushing in to receive an airing. Ed
Two things struck me about PMQs today and the Prime Minister’s statement on the forthcoming public inquiry. First, the Prime Minister took a very different approach to Andy Coulson than he did at his press conference last Friday. Today, all the emphasis was on how angry Cameron would be if the assurances given to him
A change from the Coffee House norm for this last PMQs before the summer recess. Instead of the usual live-blog, we’ll be live-tweeting the session, and our tweets will appear in the special window below (you may be familiar with it from Guido’s PMQs coverage). Tweets from other political types may also appear. And you
This has been another difficult morning for David Cameron. He’s now taking flak for having said he would take part in the BSkyB debate this afternoon and then deciding not to. But what should, perhaps, worry the Prime Minister more than this criticism is the evidence that the Liberal Democrats are siding with Labour to
Loyal Tories and government types are hoping that the media will soon move on from Murdoch. And the unusually heavy briefings emanating from George Osborne’s office last night were perhaps an attempt to shift the spotlight. But it will take a very gripping story to displace the phone hacking saga, especially if yet more has-been
Politicians are swarming all over the phone hacking scandal today, in even greater number than during the past week. If it isn’t the main topic at PMQs at noon, then it certainly will be immediately afterwards; when David Cameron delivers his statement on an inquiry into the whole mess. And then there’s Labour’s Opposition Day
The UK government is becoming increasingly concerned about the situation in the eurozone and the fact that there does not appear to be the political will to address it. One government source complained to me earlier today that “unless they get their act together the eurozone are in danger of fiddling while Rome burns.” Tonight,
Gordon may have come carrying dynamite, but News International has some explosives of its own. In a pair of statements this afternoon, the Sun and the Sunday Times have set about undermining, or just plain denying, our former Prime Minister’s testimony. By the Sun’s account, not only did they get the story about his son’s
The end might be nigh for the euro. The currency has hit an all-time low against the Swiss franc, as individual eurozone government bond yields vaulted higher due to mounting concerns about the region’s debt crisis. To spell out what this means: in Spain, 12 billion euros of interest payments will accrue for every 100
The news that the government is to support Labour’s motion tomorrow calling on Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation to withdraw their bid for BSkyB is a victory for Ed Miliband — and a sign of how all political parties are rushing to distance themselves from Murdoch. George Osborne likes to say that the ‘first thing
Today, the spotlight in the phone hacking scandal is shifting onto the police — who have an awful lot of questions to answer. Indeed, I suspect at the end of this the reputation of the police will have been hugely damaged. The evidence from senior Met officials — some retired, some serving — has not
The half-brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has just been murdered outside his fortified compound in Kandahar. Ahmed Wali Karzai was the political kingpin in Kandahar province, formally serving as head of the provincial council. I am told by officials that he was killed by one of his bodyguards at a checkpoint; the killer was
As promised: And here’s a pertinent tweet from Andrew Neil:
So far as today’s inflation figures are concerned, it’s April all over again. Just like then, CPI inflation has fallen (in this case, from 4.5 per cent to 4.2 per cent). And just like then, I’d urge against excitement. We are still, don’t forget, ballooning above the target level by over 2 percentage points. And
As an exercise in provoking bloggers Jonathan Rauch’s suggestion that the internet is, like, totally hopeless is splendid. So there’s that. But as a plausible critique? Not so much. For instance, Mr Rauch – with whom I am guest-blogging for Andrew Sullivan this week – writes: For people who want to read and think, which