All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
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
I was going to write about Jonathan Freedland’s absurd column in today’s Guardian, but thankfully Norm has said pretty much all that needs to be said. Do these people really want to increase one’s sympathy for McCain? Because all this stuff about how the US owes it to the rest of the world to elect
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
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
Gordon Brown’s boast of having created “three million new jobs” has always had to come with the major unspoken caveat that (according to the Statistics Commission) 81% of these “new jobs” in this working-age population are accounted for by immigration. Yet for my cover story on immigration tomorrow I asked the Office for National Statistics
A leader in today’s Guardian is another entry for the Cameroons’ list of non-electoral milestones. Entitled “Progress in Blue”, its case seems to be that the Tories are pushing the kind of progressive agenda that Guardian readers should consider voting for. Here’s the nub of it: “There have been moments in the postwar history of
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
The Autumn issue of the Fabian Review features an article by the YouGov pollster Peter Kellner on why Labour could win the next election. It’s not out until 15 September, but the Mirror’s Kevin Maguire has seen a copy and writes about it in his column today. Here – with Maguire’s embellishments – is Kellner’s reasoning:
The Guardian has got its hands on details of the Government’s rescue package for those struggling with rising fuel bills. The centrepiece of it is a £1 billion deal with energy companies, by which those same companies will contribute more to the carbon emissions reduction target scheme – in other words, more money will be
How will Lbour fight the next election? Stupidly, it seems. According to a briefing paper obtained by the Guardian, Labour “has decided to attack the Conservatives at the next election as an unreconstructed, dangerous rightwing party that is only masking its true instincts behind slick positioning.” Oh dear. Labour argue that: “Occasionally the mask slips
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
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
Ok, so it turns out that Brown’s article today wasn’t an apology of any sort. But there’s still some speculation that he’s going to use his conference speech to more or less say “sorry”. With that in mind, the Tories have just launched ‘Brown’s Big Apology’, a corner of their website where – from now
Could it be? Has Brown admitted that he needs to rethink his approach, that he needs to change? Has he – in a roundabout way – apologised? It was starting to look that way earlier today, with the publication of an article by the PM in the Parliamentary Monitor. The subhead of that article: “The world
I have today been unmasked as a racist. Johann Hari of The Independent has managed to peer into my psyche and diagnose me. You see in my News of the World column (now online) I called Barack Obama “uppity”. Except, of course, I didn’t – I said that this was the charge being levied against
I was in Beijing last weekend and, having heard about the “Great Firewall of China”, I typed ‘Tiananmen Square’ into Google. I was surprised to find the Wikipedia page describing the 1989 massacre – complete with image of the iconic ‘Tank Man’. Just six months ago, this page was unavailable. The Chinese government isn’t making a
So there we were again – those of us with access to Sky Sports, that is – sitting on the edge of our sofas, willing the improbable to pass, and willing indeed to stay up very late to watch it happen. But it was not to be. Few on this earth – with the possible exception
One of the major recent debates within the Labour party has been over how best to attack David Cameron and the Tories. Well – if a briefing obtained by the Guardian is anything to go by – that debate has pretty much resolved itself. It suggests that Labour should portray the Tories as a wolf in sheep’s clothing – as
Polly Toynbee’s piece in the Guardian this morning is what one might expect – telling us class is not dead in Britain and inequality is more of an issue than ever. Maybe so, but she still waxes lyrical about phenomena she doesn’t seem to understand. She writes: “there was nothing cool about Sunday’s picture of Prince Harry’s
The headline on David Miliband’s latest blog post: Coexistence not confrontation
The Strategist section of the latest Spectator Business has now gone live. In association with IBM, Strategist brings you in-depth analysis of the latest business issues. You can access the new articles here. Do also check out Strategist Online – an exclusive vodcast concentrating on one of the articles. You can watch the latest episode
The latest extract from Bob Woodward’s book about the battle over Iraq policy among the military is well worth reading. It reveals quite how bad relations got between advocates of the surge and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Jack Keen—a retired general and a key advocate of the surge—was even banned from travelling to Iraq by the
Is Alistair Darling in for a mauling at the TUC conference later today? The official line from the brothers is that he’ll get a “frosty but polite” reception. But given that the Chancellor is most likely going to turn down calls for public sector pay rises, it’s anyone’s guess as to how long the politeness
The Real Clear Politics polling average now has McCain ahead by 2.9 percent, the largest lead he has ever had by this measure and the first time he has been ahead in it since April. Now, this number obviously needs to be taken with a pinch of salt: McCain is currently enjoying both his convention
You could say that pragmatism won out at today’s Global Vision / Daily Telegraph conference on the future relationship between Britain and Europe. On the one hand, you had the pro-Europe voice of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing arguing that Britain should more or less be able to pick ‘n’ mix what parts of the EU agenda
Fraser has already commented on the economics side of George Osborne’s interview in The Guardian today, but this little bit about Iraq stood out to me: “I still have rows with my mother about the Iraq war,” Osborne says. Felicity Loxton-Peacock, noted debutante, anti-Vietnam war protester and former deli owner, feels particularly strongly on the
David Cameron’s recent visit to Afghanistan and Pakistan received relatively little press attention; showing just how exceptional the amount of coverage that Cameron’s statements on Georgia and trip there garnered were. In his address in Pakistan, Cameron once more set out his ‘liberal conservative’ agenda. Here’s the key passage of the speech: “A liberal Conservative
Andrew Sparrow flags up a quote by David Miliband at today’s Cabinet away-day in Birmingham: “I think Gordon is leading us with more vigour and determination and will prove people wrong … I am absolutely convinced that Gordon can lead us to victory. He has enormous values, drive and vision.” Now, as Andrew admits one
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 – provided 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
Is the debate about faith schools becoming more constructive and intelligent? The reason for hoping so is the launch of a new campaigning group called Accord which calls for major reform of the system, but in a relatively nuanced way. It is composed of more than the usual atheist suspects, who think that anything religious
Two analyses of the economy today, one fanciful and one spot-on. Gordon Brown says “I am confident that we can get through these difficult times and meet these challenges a stronger, more secure and fairer country then ever before.” Why is he confident? The cure for this will require the precise opposite to his policies
…here are some of the posts made over the weekend at spectator.co.uk: Fraser Nelson picks apart the British reaction to VP nominee Sarah Palin and shows how another Brown critic gets struck by lighning. James Forsyth questions whether Nick Clegg’s tax plans will appeal to his party’s supporters and shows that Stephen Carter won’t go
The ‘conservatorship’ of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae represents, as Steven Pearlstein notes in the Washington Post, the most direct role for the federal government in the “workings of the financial system” since the great depression. Clive Crook points out that the eventual nationalisation of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will bring 25 more times
Let me make something very clear: I like, admire and respect Andrew Sullivan and his writing. I can’t remember when I first started reading his blog, but I think it must have been in early 2001. Certainly before 9/11. Since then I suspect I must have read more words written by Andrew than by any