All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Daniel Finkelstein suggests an alternative analysis to that which prevails about the cabinet split. Labour’s aristocrats are divided not over style or substance, but the timing and extent of spending cuts. Finkelstein locates his argument in Labour’s repetitive history of poor financial management. Every Labour government runs out money and becomes riven by the prospect
A reader asks if I might write something about the “ridiculous assertion that alcohol abuse costs every Scot £900 a year”. Happy to do so! We all know that if a tobacco company sponsors research no-one in the press will ever call any report produced by that research “independent”. Everybody knows that it’s only government-commissioned
As Paul Waugh notes, it was just like old times. Alastair Campbell told us all to grow up and trust in Tony. Naturally, controversy about the dossier was the product of over imaginative hacks, and Campbell asserted that the caveats of experts are nothing compared to a PM’s need to take major decisions. It was a sensational
So what’s happened to the Tories’ policy-a-day blitz that was meant to fill all of January? Tory announcements and speeches were happening thick ‘n’ fast at the beginning of last week, and, obviously, we had Cameron’s speech yesterday – but it hasn’t been quite as non-stop as we were led to believe. This is
Not the Black Shorts but Anjem Choudary and the Black Tunics. As always, Wodehouse is our trusty guide: The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you’re someone. You hear them shouting
If there’s one thing Team* Spectator agrees upon it is, I think, that Tory health policy is utterly inadequate and desperately confused. One especially problematic promise, however, is the notion that what we need is a Department of Public Health. How will this work? Well, the inspiration would seem to be Mayor Mike Bloomberg in
The Robinsons, Peter and Iris, are already in it deep. But this snippet from Martin Fletcher’s column, highlighted by Iain Martin, raises the level of, erm, ordure: “In 2007-08 the pair received a total of £571,939 from [their political] posts. They also use their parliamentary allowances to employ their two sons, daughter and daughter-in-law as
Andrew Turnbull, who was permanent secretary at the Treasury from 1998 to 2002 and Cabinet Secretary from 2003 to 2005, has previous when it comes to criticising Gordon Brown. But his recent piece in the FT — ‘Six steps to salvage the Treasury’ — is one long barely coded attack on the PM. Take this
The conviction of seven Muslim protestors for shouting nasty things at returning British soldiers was a grave and dangerous assault upon freedom of speech. I don’t care how foul the men are, or how provocative their beards might be, nor how smug they appeared on the court steps after the verdict – it was still
Irony of ironies, proselytising liberal and convinced egalitarian, Anjem Choudary, told the Today programme that the banning of Islam4UK, al-Muhajiroun and their aliases is a ‘failure of democracy’. A further irony is that he is right, sort of. Alan Johnson’s decision is understandable but incorrect; the surest way to silence these repugnant extremists and reactionaries is through equality
Alastair Campbell is before the Iraq Inquiry. As one of Blair’s closest aides, Campbell’s role in the run-up to the Iraq war was key. But I suspect the spinner-in-chief will be doing what he was originally hired to do: namely, protect his master by attracting the incoming fire. In this case, though, he will be helping
There’s something quite refreshing about David Cameron’s plan to offer a tax break to married couples. It says, simply: this is what I believe. And it does so in spite of polling data and strategic arguments to the contrary. This is one area where you certainly couldn’t accuse the Tory leader of caring too much
David Cameron’s speech today at the launch of Demos’s Character Inquiry was both brave and significant. His message was that it is parenting, not material wealth, that plays the most important role in determining a child’s prospects in life. As Cameron put it, ‘What matters most to a child’s life chances is not the wealth
I’d like to think that if the Christmas Day underwear-bomber had been en route to London rather than Detroit then our response to the attempted attack would have been a little more phlegmatic than the Cousins’ but I’m not wholly convinced that would have been the case. So Fareed Zakaria’s excellent column in today’s WaPo
It is just plain bizarre that Gordon Brown has announced that he will serve a full term if Labour wins the next election. He should be playing down his role in the forthcoming election (difficult I know, when he is Prime Minister) not reminding people that he will be around for another four years. It
Guess who’s back. Yes, James Purnell, the man who tried his best to topple Gordon Brown last year, has emerged from the relative obscurity of the backbenches and Think-Tank World to set out a new prospectus for the Labour party in today’s Guardian. David nodded towards it earlier, but it’s worth looking at in a
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, the leadership speculation starts stirring again. It’s not Gordon Brown who’s the subject of it this time, though – but rather the defence chief, Air Marshall Sir Jock Stirrup, who, according to today’s Times, is due for the chop after the next
According to James Carville there’d be 67 Democratic Senators if it weren’t for those ghastly chaps at Fox News. As with everything Carville says this must be taken with a pinch of salt. Nevetheless one need not look too hard to discover evidence of the impact Fox has had on American journalism* in precincts far
The road to Damascus has nothing on this. Ed Balls – in interview with the FT – has condemned the class war strategy, called for an end to Labour figures briefing against each other, and suggested that the government should be more “upfront” about spending cuts. Hallelujah! What a difference an attempted coup makes! And
British readers probably don’t need any reminding that Congressman Peter King (R-NY) spent decades raising money for the IRA and championing their cause at every available opportunity. However my experience is that plenty of Americans remain all too unaware of his terrorism-supporting record. Happily the nice folk at the Daily Beast asked if I’d compile
At the Demos event on character this morning, Frank Field came out with a quite remarkable statistic: that for the last year for which there are records, two years ago, there were more violent crimes against the person in his constituency, Birkenhead, than there were in the entire country 50 years ago or 100 years
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
Sky has again given the BBC a lesson in how to produce documentaries. Ross Kemp in Israel last night was superb: not just grippingly produced, but actually balanced. Yesterday’s episode opened with Kemp on a tour with an Israeli taxi driver, who talks about the Palestinian terror attacks, the effects it has on his community
…here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the weekend. Fraser Nelson reveals the full horror of the Brown administration, and analyses David Cameron’s performance on the Andrew Marr show. James Forsyth argues that Darling’s intervention is a very significant moment, and argues that the Cabinet’s lack of love for Brown is a
Divide and conquer, that is what preoccupies the Prime Minister. Later today, Gordon Brown will address the Parliamentary Labour Party to reassure them of the strength of his leadership and to invigorate the party by setting it on an election footing. How he achieves the former is anyone’s guess but he will realise the latter
Maureen Dowd is a lovely person but this is a truly terrible column. No Drama Obama is reticent about displays of emotion. The Spock in him needs to exert mental and emotional control. That is why he stubbornly insists on staying aloof and setting his own deliberate pace for responding — whether it’s in a
‘Never interrupt your enemy when is making a mistake’, said Napoleon; the Tories have abided by this dictum in the last few days. They have held back policies announcements while Labour debated whether or not it wanted to get rid of Gordon Brown. The Tories have reentered the fray today with David Cameron’s appearance on
David Miliband lacks the gumption to play Brutus, but does Geoff Hoon? The Sunday Times has obtained correspondence between Hoon, Brown and Blair illustrating that the then Chancellor overturned Treasury assurances that the MoD would receive additional funds for helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan. Brown wrote: “I must disallow immediately any flexibility for the Ministry of
Here, CoffeeHousers, is my take on this morning’s Cameron interview: 1. General demeanor: excellent, articulate, confident. The complete opposite from Brown. It does make you think that he should wipe the floor with Brown in the TV debates. 2. “Last week we saw William Hague and George Osborne going to Afghanistan together. First shadow Chancellor,
There’s that prism I mentioned: Ed Miliband writes an article for the Observer, which ostensibly backs Gordon Brown in the first paragraph, and it’s written up as the first, tentative step on his own leadership campaign. Thing is, that’s probably also true. The clue is in how far he steps off his ministerial beat*, to
So, at the end of a hyperactive week in politics, we’ve got a pair of interviews with Brown and Cameron. The PM chats with the News of the World, while Cameron appeared on the Marr sofa earlier. One general similarity between the two interviews stands out: neither is particularly confrontational. Rather than chiding Labour after
Fraser rightly draws our attention to the highly entertaining extracts from Peter Watt’s book published by the Mail on Sunday. Granted the whole enterprise is accompanied, as is traditional in these matters, by the sound of many an axe being ground and some of the details – to say nothing of the quotations – are
Remember Peter Watt? No one in Team Brown did either –and that, it now turns out, was a big mistake. As general secretary of the Labour Party when the Blair-Brown handover happened (and cash-for-honours was in the air) he was in a brilliant position to know what went on. And, after being abandoned by all
I’ve just heard a truly shocking story. A neighbour, left brain damaged by a haemorrhage, arrived at St Richard’s hospital in Chichester on Tuesday afternoon for her check-up. She was discharged at 2 am. No beds or ambulances were available and she was sent out into the night, and of course a blizzard. One