All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
As Iain Martin and Guido have noted, Ed Balls – and, for that matter, Ed Miliband – could probably have done without Gordon Brown hovering from the political graveyard to cast judgement on today’s growth figures. But hover he has, as the above video of his appearance on CNBC News testifies. It’s almost as though
ConHome has published its latest members’ survey. Its (admittedly unscientific) findings into respondents’ recollections of floating voters at the last election have reopened the debate about why the Conservatives didn’t win. In a combative piece, Janet Daley insists that the results ‘stand the modernising argument on its head’. These findings look more inconclusive to me.
Magnificent schadenfreude being shown by all and sundry over the case of Sky Sports presenters Richard Keys and Andy Gray and their off-mic comments about how useless woman are. This is at least partly because Keys and Gray are genuinely awful and nobody liked them very much anyway. And their off-mic comments were precisely what
Bagehot has a properly righteous post lambasting teachers who complain that it’s too difficult to teach their charges to read and write and count properly. A week later, a BBC Radio 4 phone-in programme, Any Answers, featured a pair of state school teachers, both with 30 years of experience, again pouring scorn on the dangerously
This is quite extraordinary. And in its way, rather fine. The contrast between this trailer and the reality of Tim Pawlenty’s brand of blandish midwestern competence is itself entertaining. This suggests he’ll run a campaign blending Top Gun with Independence Day plus the soundtrack of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Which, of
As the coalition considers how to develop a growth strategy, it would do well to call in Paddy Ashdown and hear about the ‘Bulldozer Initiative’ he launched while in Bosnia working for the United Nations. Not a highway programme, the Bulldozer Initiative was instead one of the smartest pro-business schemes I have seen. And something
Well, the government would have done better to read Fraser’s response to the fall in GDP before they went and blamed much of the 0.5% decrease on the inclement weather. Cue “Wrong kind of snow” jokes everywhere. And, frankly, Tories would be laughing all the way to the nearest TV studio had Gordon Brown ever
And this, folks, is a day where Ed Balls is having his cake and eating it too. Not only is he basking in the grim light of the growth figures, but he is using the opportunity to recast his own stance on the economy. Speaking on the Daily Politics just now, he de-emphasised the argument
“Recession here we come, a snow-dabbed double-dip” tweeted Faisal Islam, Channel Four’s economics editor. He summed up much of the hysterical reaction. It may spoil a good story, but here is what I suspect the broadcasters won’t tell you today. 1. Erratic GDP swings are common when recovering from a recession. Remember how stunned everyone
These provisional GDP figures showing that the economy shrank in the fourth quarter have come as a shock, the consensus was for growth albeit at a slower pace than in the third quarter. These figures can, obviously, be significantly explained by the winter weather which brought the country to a halt. The ONS is saying
What is ‘poverty’? It might sound a basic question but, when we hear about x percent of people ‘living in poverty’, what does that actually mean? The policy review conducted by Frank Field last year offered a number of insights into the issues of life chances and their determinants. But it failed to address that
At least in retrospect the Haughey era of GUBU governance had a certain measure of baroque absurdity which provided some amount of perverse entertainment. Mind you, that also followed a period of reckless mismanagement of the public finances. I think it was sometimes said on Wall Street that any time there came a cataclysm you
By happy coincidence Barack Obama delivers the annual State of the Union address on Burns night this year. As usual we are being told that there will be no “laundry list” of policy recommendations and, as usual, we’re likely to hear a laundry list of policy recommendations. This being so, what better platform could there
Danny Finkelstein has written an interesting post objecting to Channel 4 referring to the ‘Conservative-led coalition’ last night. Finkelstein’s objection, and a valid one to my mind, is that ‘Conservative-led’ makes a judgment about the nature of the coalition. Of course, this whole spat has been set off by a clever letter from Ed Miliband’s
Richard Lambert has launched an uncompromising but constructive assault on the government’s growth strategy, or lack of it. He said: “The government is…talking about growth in an enthusiastic and thoughtful way… But it’s failed so far to articulate in big picture terms its vision of what the UK economy might become under its stewardship. “What
For a long time, the terms of Britain’s Europe debate has been about the merits – or otherwise – of membership. This has occluded discussion about the need to promote a deregulated and economically liberal single market, for which the Conservatives have fought so successfully since Britain joined the then EEC in 1973. Now
A suicide bomber has killed more than thirty people at Moscow airport. This is the third major terrorist attack on Russian soil in the last year. Islamist groups were responsible for the previous two attacks and, I imagine, will claim proprietorship this one also. It is a telling reminder that the domestic threat faced by
Much ado about bankers’ bonuses this afternoon. Tim Montgomerie reports that the proposed banking deal has run aground in Whitehall. The timing is inconvenient: Cameron and Clegg are due to fly to Davos to attend the World Economic Forum. The government hopes to allay public resentment by coercing banks into increasing their lending; which is
I’m afraid that women have been faking it, having us men on. You see they understand the offside rule and always have done. How could they not? It’s so simple that even a brace of abject football pundits know that an actively involved player is offside when he is closer to the opponent’s goal line
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 – providing 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
…here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the weekend. Fraser Nelson exposes the con man, Ed Balls. James Forsyth says that all extremism is a problem, and sizes up the runners and riders to replace Coulson. Peter Hoskin asks how the Lib Dems have fared in recent days, and explains why Coulson’s
When Tony Blair talks about the invasion of Iraq he tends to preface his comments with the following sentiment: “Look, we can argue about whether or not it was right to invade, and that’s a respectable argument. But what you cannot do is argue that it was undertaken in bad faith, that there was some
Yesterday saw the publication of a report into Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza, the Hamas-run part of the Palestinian crypto-state, and the Israeli military’s raid on a flotilla of aid ships bound for the coastal enclave last year. The inquiry, headed by former judge Yaakov Turkel, argued that: “The naval blockade imposed on the Gaza
David Davis’ interview on Jon Pienaar’s show this evening has revived the debate about whether or not it matters how posh the Cameron top table is. Andy Coulson was the most senior person there who understood what it is actually like to work your way up the ladder and with him gone that experience is
We already knew Ed Balls was behind Gordon Brown’s economic policy. He devised the policy on spending that left Britain with the worst deficit heading into the crisis, and wrote the bank regulations that his colleague Douglas Alexander attacked earlier today. What we have discovered today, from Balls’ first foray into economic policy as
Yesterday, Brian Cowen resigned; today his government has imploded. The Green Party, which was bolstering Cowen’s ruling coalition (if such a phrase is applicable in this instance), have left the government. The Fianna Fail-led coalition is now two votes short of a majority, and therefore the finance bill may not pass in its current form. If
I suspect the identity of the Prime Minister’s next director of communications is of far more interest to those who work in Westminster than those in the country at large. But the identity of Coulson’s successor will reveal something about the balance of power in the coalition and at the Cameron court. I’m told that
To the chagrin of CoffeeHousers, I have long rated Ed Balls and his abilities. He has a degree of brilliance, albeit tragically deployed in the services of a destructive economic agenda. But as we welcome him back, it’s worth reminding ourselves that his abilities are of a specific type. He understands economics (even though
Nick Hornby’s Oscar-nominated film, An Education, seems at first to have a misleading name. After all, the central character struggles with Latin, is discouraged from French and gives up a very privileged education for an older man, who turns out to be married. Thankfully, in both film and in real life, the protagonist – the
At the start of the phone hacking scandal, I was sceptical that News International’s pursuers would get far. There is an omerta on Fleet Street. Reporters do not blab about their employers because they know they will lose their jobs and guess, probably correctly, that no other paper will hire them once they have a
The joy of Aung San Suu Kyi being given Internet access for the first time on Friday has proved transient. Time magazine reports that Irrawaddy, Burma’s premier English language magazine, has been forced to close its print operation for financial reasons. Irrawaddy is a clandestine publication, revered as an ‘open window into an opaque
Oh dear. That is to say, three cheers for this comedy post by the New Statesman’s Laurie Penny. It turns out there is scarcely any limit to David Cameron’s deviousness. I mean, consider all this: Over the next two and a half years, a full calendar of bread and circuses has been scheduled to keep
Tony Blair’s reappearance at the pointless Chilcot Inquiry – pointless because it won’t change anyone’s mind about anything or have any meaningful impact upon future policy – has at least permitted an interesting revision of the historical record. Rod Liddle sums this up in his typical pithy style: The more you read, the more you
There has been no shortage of depressing news for the Tories lately. But, the other day, Benedict Brogan wrote a lengthy post about William Hague that must have made particularly unpleasant in-flight reading for the Foreign Secretary as he jetted around the South Pacific. It argued that: “In his absence – and even when he