All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Tom Harris’s blog is a very useful creation. Now as it happens I don’t think that parliamentary democracy is under threat because Damien Green was arrested, disgraceful though that arrest certainly was. Nonetheless, there’s little doubt that this government has, time and time again and to an extent that may be as modern as it
Hurrah for Alan Jacobs at the fabulous American Scene for alerting me to this excerpt from Laura Miller’s new book in which she visits Wheaton College, Illinois. (Wheaton is Billy Graham’s alma mater and the college at which Jacobs teaches.) Miller’s book is about how a religious sceptic can still lose themselves in Narnia, but
Seriously. Well, not impossibly. Perhaps. Weirder things may have happened*. Yup, Jeb Bush is apparently considering running for Mel Martinez’s soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat. I imagine Jeb would win handily. These days I think people forget that Jeb was the Bush who was supposed to be President. One of the hinge moments in recent American political
Another sign of the times: every single employee of the Glasgow Herald, Sunday Herald and Evening Times was sacked today and told to reapply for their jobs (on changed – that is, less favourable – terms and conditions of course) if they hope to have some sort of a future in newspapers. Or at least
Courtesy of the Los Angeles Times: At least 38 people have been killed in Tijuana since Saturday, nine of them decapitated, in escalating drug-related violence that appears to have left in tatters a Mexican military offensive launched two weeks ago. To which NRO’s Mark Krikorian responds: “Better Get That Fence Built”. I suppose that’s a
Steve Clemons posts a very droll email purporting to be from an anxious Democrat wondering what, if any, job he (or she) might receive in the Age of Obama… Like you, I keep a secret “A list” of positions I would kill for, including all manner of ambassador slots, sub-secretary -ships and senior director positions.
It is hard to see how anyone can have confidence in the Serjeant at Arms. It is incredible that having been warned that an MP might be arrested and that the police might search a Commons office, she did not think to check what the rules and precedents surrounding this were. This is nothing less
A quick, capsule review of the Queen’s Speech debate in the Commons: Cameron was at his rapier-like best, while Brown performed his typical dodge-the-question act. But the PM did have one trick up his sleeve, and quite a big trick it was too. He announced an agreement between the Government and the UK’s 8 largest
Michael Martin came close to apologising to the House when he said that he “regrets” that police entered Parliament and searched Damian Green’s office without a warrant. Tory grandees including Michael Howard and Iain Duncan Smith pressed the Prime Minister on whether he too regretted that all this had happened without a warrant. Brown was
So it was all Jill Pay’s fault. That was Michael Martin’s verdict. He didn’t know. The Serjeant At Arms should have asked for a warrant and she didn’t. Nor did he shrink from dumping on her. He’ll grant a debate on Monday and set up a committee of grandees (just as he did with the
I do feel for Her Majesty. This ordeal should be foisted on her only after an election. Having to read out the New Labour newspeak was bad enough, but the Brownian argot is dreadful. I do love the way she did it without any feeling – with a wearisome look in her eye – and
The Tories aren’t going to take Peter Mandelson’s claims lying down, if Dominic Grieve’s interview with Sky News is anything to go by. The shadow home secretary has just said he thinks Mandy is unfit for office: “This morning, Lord Mandelson has been banging on about national security. We don’t believe there is any national security angle
Over at Three Line Whip, Jame Kirkup muses whether Peter Mandelson has taken a vow never to give a dull interview. Certainly, from a hack’s point of view, Mandelson makes for great copy. But it is Mandelson who is getting the most out of this relationship at the moment. I suspect that Mandelson realised he
At risk of sounding like Glenda Slagg, don’tcha just hate those mealy mouthed drink aware advertisements which are crawling all over the Tube? You know: “Party this weekend – it was a party, right?”. Because we all need to feel just that little bit worse right now. What people seem to forget is that bingeing
Nothing especially exciting to report on State Opening day yet. The Queen’s delivered her Speech, leading with the line that “My Government’s overriding priority is to ensure stability of the British economy during the global economic downturn” (see full text here). And Dennis Skinner’s delivered his traditional “joke”, asking whether there are “Any Tory moles in the
For any CoffeeHouser trying to understand the relationship between Lashkar-e-Taiba—the group that are believed to have been responsible for the Mumbia atrocities—and the Pakistani government, I’d thoroughly recommend Steve Coll’s post over at The New Yorker. This section seems to sum it up: “On the one hand, the group’s bank accounts remain unmolested by the
Peter Mandelson’s performance on Sky earlier was remarkably venomous. Here’s the main thrust of it: “I also have to say I think that for many Conservatives, it is a self-serving smokescreen, behind which to hide their own apparent collusion with a Home Office official who was allegedly systematically leaking Home Office papers to the Conservative
What can we expect from the Queen’s Speech; the centrepiece of today’s State Opening of Parliament? So far as policy is concerned, it’s doubtful whether there’ll be any surprises. The Times has a great round-up of the measures likely to be contained in what’s being spun as a “fairness” programme, and most have been trailed
For those of you interested in Scottish politics, it’s not a bad thing to be able, not before time, to welcome the country’s newspapers to the blogosphere. So, huzzahs for The Steamie then, a new blog devoted to tartan politics written by the political journos at the Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and the Edinburgh Evening
In the weeks since the Labour conference in Manchester, it has been clear that James Purnell has overtaken David Miliband as the leading contender among the Primrose Hill Set. Even though he is considerably more Blairite than Miliband, Purnell is attracting a wider range of support across the party because of his ability to put
Labour have been making hay out of the tin-eared comments of various Tories on the recession. First, there was John Maples saying that the recession should be left to take its course. Then, there was Andrew Lansley speculating about the possible health benefits of a recession. But today John Redwood has topped them both with
One of the more striking aspects of the Damian Green affair is how it’s angered MPs from every side, corner and alcove of the House. And quite right too – this is something that could have hefty implications for Parliament as a whole. The Tories and Lib Dems, in particular, have been singing from an
The Tories have just released footage of the police searching Damian Green’s office, along with a commentary by Dominic Grieve. I’ve embedded it below:
Here are Grant Shapps’ answers to the questions put forward by CoffeeHousers: Colin “What advice do you have for the individuals who are now deep in debt, after a decade long credit bubble; especially now that the safety net of massive house price rises is not there to save them?” The first thing to say
The Standard’s Paul Waugh got there first, but it’s still worth highlighting the comments of Peer Steinbrück, Germany’s finance minister, in an interview with Der Spiegel. He echoes Angela Merkel’s scepticism of Brown-style, debt-funded fiscal stimuli, but does so with a bit a rhetorical pizazz. A case in point: “Just because all the lemmings have chosen the same
Those of us in favour of “fiscal autonomy” for Scotland have been sent homewards to think again by the Calman Commission (pdf, here), which looks at the asymmetrical mess which calls itself devolution. But it’s not all bad news. It had been expected to dump on the idea, but is fairly clear about the need to
The Pakistan problem is one of the thorniest in international politics. It is almost impossible to see how you deal with a nuclear armed failing state whose government claims, with some justification, that it can’t control its military, intelligence service and all of its territory. But as Bob Kagan writes in the Washington Post today:
The decision by the Met to hold a review into the Damian Green arrest can only be welcomed – and is perhaps the clearest indication yet that the police feel something’s gone wrong somewhere down the line. But what will come out of it? One imagines that the conclusions will necessarily – and perhaps rightly
Camila Batmanghelidjh’s op-ed in The Times today contains a truly shocking fact: The truth, based on research by Kids Company and London University, is that one in five children in deprived inner cities is surviving neglect and abuse.
An important article by Rachel Sylvester today, on the implications of the Damian Green arrest. She sees it as a sympton of wider dissatisfaction with the way government information is disseminated: “The Freedom of Information Act, designed to open up the workings of the political elite to the masses, has, they believe, turned into a
Jonh Goldberg says that The Wire should be more popular amongst conservatives. He argues that conservatives should love The Wire because it shows what happens when you let Democrats run a major, if declining, American city. Well! At a certain point this is too dull for words: have we really reached the stage where even
Andrew Coyne defends Stephen Harper from his critics. Or at least, from some of them: While this laissez-faire, do-nothing government contents itself with spending more than any government in the history of Canada — 25% more, after inflation and population growth, than at the start of the decade — and pumping tens of billions of
The consensus in Westminster is that the Tories are back on the front foot following the PBR and the Damian Green arrest, but a ComRes poll in the Independent (reported on by Political Betting) has Labour closing the gap to one point. This is drastically at odds with the other polls that have come out
Ken Livingstone tonight made two quite remarkable statements tonight at the latest Soundings / Comment is Free debate on ‘Who owns the Progressive future?’ The first was boneheaded, the second demonstrated a quite remarkable disdain for democracy and human freedom. John Harris, who was chairing the event, pressed Livingstone on whether he welcomed the introduction of
