All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
I’m not sure why the New York Times Magazine thinks its readers will be interested in a long piece about the News of the World and its history of phone-hacking but I’m glad that the Times has published this article anyway. Among the most damaging allegations: the suggestion that, for various reasons, the police limited
Say what you like about Blair, but he is something of a political entrepreneur. He detects a gap in the market and fills it: he did with New Labour in the mid-1990s. And he detects a trend in the globalised world: a system where governments don’t matter so much and power is held by a
Michael Gove has announced that 32 schools will open as Academies at the start of the new term. More schools are set to open over the next academic year, but it is a disappointing figure. However, it could’ve been worse – I’ve heard rumours that as few as 10 schools would adopt Gove’s reforms. The
The ballot has opened and the Mirror has joined the mounting chorus in favour of David Miliband. They say of Miliband: ‘We believe he has the intellect, talent and experience to take on the Tories – and eventually become PM.’ Their timing is odd, given that Fleet Street and Westminster are currently captivated by Tony
In tomorrow’s papers the reviewers will compare ‘A Journey’ to those “real-life” misery memoirs that seem to be publishing catnip. It is not inaccurate to conclude that this is tale of one man’s struggle in an abusive relationship, and all the more unstatesmanlike for it. The tiny details of the relationship between TB and GB
There’s a remarkable self-certainty about what we’ve seen of Tony Blair’s book so far. Sure, there are the fleeting moments of doubt and insecurity: the drinking that was becoming less a pleasure and more a habit, for instance. But, apart from that, the dominant motif is how His Way was the Right Way. And so,
Even the literary critics have to wait until tomorrow for the Blair memoirs – but the book’s contents are slowing spilling out onto the Internet this evening. A series of extracts has just been published on the official website, and the Guardian has extensive coverage, including an interview with the man himself. So far, there’s
William Hague has just released this statement: “I feel it is necessary to issue this personal statement in response to press and internet speculation over the last ten days. Earlier this year a Sunday newspaper began questioning whether my marriage to Ffion was in trouble, and last week another media outlet asked whether there was
Not just a Prime Minister, not just a global statesman, in A Journey Tony Blair also demonstrates he knows how to treat a girl: CHERIE: “I DEVOURED HER LOVE” “…that night she cradled me in her arms and soothed me; told me what I needed to be told; strengthened me; made me feel that I
And Westminster’s Idle Question of the Day is: will Ed Balls be made shadow chancellor under a Miliband leadership? There are good arguments both for and against the proposition – and most of them are made in this blog post by the Guardian’s Nicholas Watt. Even Blairites, he says, are warming to the idea of
A day before the ballot papers get sent out, and the grey corpse that was the Labour leadership contest has suddenly leapt into a crazy jig. Ed Balls is slamming the “soap opera” of the Mili-rivalry, while calling for more social housing. Andy Burnham is insisting that he’s still in with a chance of winning.
…here are some of the posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the bank holiday weekend: Fraser Nelson wonders who governs Britain, and asks whether Labour will boldly go with ‘Red Ed’. Peter Hoskin says that we’re just seeing Same Labour, and watches Alistair Darling exhume Cameron’s Big Mistake. David Blackburn has some bad news for Ken
As Pete wrote this morning, the plan to share aircraft carriers with France is controversial. It seems that concerns over sovereignty, job losses and differing strategic interests reduce to the one issue that no government has addressed: the protectionist system of defence procurement, which hampers the operational effectiveness of our armed forces. Typically forthright, Douglas
Insightful work by the FT’s George Parker, who traces the choreography of the spending review in an article for the paper today. What’s striking is how much the coalition expects to achieve by what Parker calls “peer pressure”. Ministers who get through their spending settlement quickly and successfully will be held up as examples to
As austerity measures go, the plan to share aircraft carriers with France is totemic stuff. Not only could it save the Exchequer a heap of cash – by reducing the need for two replacement carriers – but it also says a lot about how our government wants to operate in the world: multilaterally, flexibly and,
Amid all the feverish commotion about cuts, it’s easy to forget that it took the Tories until November 2008 to ditch Labour’s spending plans – and, indeed, that it was barely a year ago when George Osborne first mentioned the c-word in public. Even David Cameron admits that this delay was his biggest mistake. It
Whatever happened to Peter Mandelson’s regard for Ed Miliband? A year-and-a-half ago, the Ennobled One was thought to have marked out MiliE as a future Labour leader. But, today, he pulls out the verbal chainsaw and sets about tearing him down. The younger Miliband, Mandelson implies in an interview with the Times (£), would lead
New government statistics show that libraries are less popular than ever, with a drop over 5 years of nearly one-third in the number who visit them. Over 60 percent of adults do not use them even once a year. Libraries seem vulnerable. With government striving to make economies and councils made to cut budgets, libraries
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
As Tim Montgomerie notes, cuts are becoming more real. Yesterday, the government axed NHS Direct, the telephone health service. Actually it hasn’t been axed but replaced by the more cost effective ‘111’ service. Removing the sacrosanct letters ‘NHS’ from the title of any body is anathema to the opposition, who have mobilised a frantic defence
David Cameron has dismissed the Labour leadership election as a “Star Trek convention” with policy wonks battling out to go where no spad has gone before. That caricature has some currency (see picture, left). But as he’ll know, a deeper choice faces Labour. David Miliband may be the geekier one – playing Spock to Ed’s
So, a “well-placed*” source tells the Guardian that while David Cameron would like Ed Miliband to be the next leader of the Labour party, he thinks the party would be best-advised to select Ed’s brother David. This news, scarcely earth-shattering to anyone who isn’t already a Labour party member (and obvious even to many of
The News of the World’s revelations about connivance between cricketers and bookmakers is dismaying; the story can’t alas, be considered wholly surprising. If proved – and on the face of it there’s every reason to suppose that the allegations are accurate – then it’s difficult to see how Salman Butt and the other players implicated
George – now Lord – Foulkes is taking his leave of Holyrood and returning to the comfort of the red benches in the House of Lords. It’s fair to say that Foulkes’s ability to wind up nationalists has not endeared him to SNP supporters. Still, Lallands Peat Worrier is quite right that the national bard
Danny Alexander has told the Observer that substantial tax cuts are highly unlikely for five years. Alexander argues that ‘the tax burden is necessary as a significant contribution to getting the country’s finances in order. So it will have to stay at that level for quite some time.’ Given that the income tax threshold will
Not as thick as he looked, Dubya. The Sunday Telegraph reports that the Bush administration urged Tony Blair to remain in office because it had ‘big concerns’ about working with the monomaniac Gordon Brown. Here are the details: ‘Senior officials in the US administration sounded the alert after a meeting between Mr Brown and Condoleezza
Here is one of a new set of pictures of the Camerons posing with Florence Rose Endellion, who looks rather contented with life. It’s all very nice and there is no political capital in it. None at all. Honest.
Strange but true: the Cameroons are wary of a Labour Party led by David Miliband. The Guardian’s Nick Watt has been eavesdropping and he’s gathered a few choice quotes. Kool-aid drinking Tories say: “David Cameron said the candidate he hoped for was Ed Miliband, and the candidate he most feared was David Miliband.” “On the
CoffeeHousers may like to see the full leaked letter (pasted below) to which I referred in The Spectator’s cover story this week. It shows how the NUT is using Freedom of Information to try and force school heads to hand over a list of names of anyone who might support a campaign to opt out
Broad and Trott skip on against Pakistan. Amir looks on in some pain. Photo: Clive Rose/Getty Images. One ball. One wicket. That’s how far away Pakistan were from establishing a match-winning and series-squaring position at Lords. Now only god or, more probably, rain can save them. When Stuart Broad joined Jonathan Trott at the crease
Jeremy Hunt has responded to Mark Thompson’s MacTaggert lecture, the contents of which have been reviewed by Paul Goodman at Con Home. You can watch Hunt here. He’s becoming as repetitive as the talking clock: the BBC must be live on the same planet as everyone else, the licence fee is not off limits and
Professor Ken Pease, the renowned criminologist, has written a report for the think-tank Civitas which rubbishes Ken Clarke’s plan to reduce prison numbers by extending community sentencing. Pease is of the Howard school: prison works. The key is that community sentences do not reduce reoffending. Pease estimates that 13,892 convicted offences could have been prevented
Liberaltarianism is, in case you haven’t been following this mildly esoteric debate in Washington, the notion that rather than hitch their wagons to conservativism American libertarians and libertarian-minded folk should also explore relations with (US) liberals in order to further the libertarian agenda. This has proven an oddly controversial idea and, generally, has been dismissed
A splendid spot by Dave Osler at Liberal Conspiracy: Malcolm X’s ideas about education in Harlem and Brooklyn aren’t so very different from those Michael Gove has in mind for Haringey or Toxteth. As Malcolm X wrote: The Board of Education in this city [New York] has said … there are 10 percent of schools