All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Well, well, well – Darling’s Times interview, which James reported earlier, sure is a significant moment, and one which more than deserves a place on the spending cut timeline which I put together last week. In fact, let’s see what it would look like alongside a few of the most recent entries: 9 December 2009:
Alistair Darling knows that Gordon Brown is now too weak now to slap him down and his interview with The Times is notable for his candour. Fresh from having undermined Brown and Balls’s attempt to use VAT as an election dividing line, Darlings tells Rachel Sylvester and Alice Thomson that the spending review will be
I am forced to admit that I misjudged the nature of the Hoon-Hewitt plot. I credited them with having lined up some sort of serious Cabinet-level support (I have to say I assumed they had squared it with Mandelson). Whatever flaws you might attribute to the pair, they were once serious players in the New
Curlers on the Lake of Menteith, Perthshire earlier this week. Photo: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images. See, this is the sort of depressing development that makes one lose faith in modern Britain. Hopes had been hight that, for the first time since 1979, conditions would be right for the Grand Match between 2,000 curlers representing the
Labour lost the first week of the long election campaign. The Hoon and Hewitt plot and the late and tepid endorsements of Brown from key members of the Cabinet have highlighted the divisions within the Labour party. Hoon and Hewitt were right that stories about these decisions will not go away. They will run and
Here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the past week. Fraser Nelson watches the Labour party lose the plot, and thinks that David Cameron is cowering in the face of Labour attacks. James Forsyth reveals what we have learnt from the failed H&H coup, and argues that any action that wounds Brown
The Spectator will have to amend its list of political scandals because if the sinisterly-named Selwyn Black’s allegations stand up, then Iris Robinson’s in a league of her own. An older woman seduces a toy boy and strives to set him up in business: this is a remake of The Graduate with high politics thrown into
With admirable opportunism Sunder Katwala argues that the current frosty conditions make the case for more, not less government. As he says, everyone plenty of people like to rail against government in the absract only to find themselves asking the state to do more as soon as something – such as a heavy snowfall –
Ok, I know Labour circulars will always fly the party flag – but the email that’s just gone out in Gordon Brown’s name has to win some sort of prize for sheer party political effrontery. With the subject line “When we fight we win,” here’s how it begins: “If there’s one thing that our recent
A cracking post from Paul Waugh on the prospect of shadow cabinet elections for Labour. For those who can’t remember the last time they took place (14 years ago), they’re the annual elections which Labour MPs hold, when in Opposition, to help determine who gets to sit on the front bench. The party leader and
The verdict is in and just about every part of the US intelligence community failed to perform. The Solomonic decision of President Obama is that no individual is at fault – no systemic leadership problems here – and so nobody will be held accountable. Instead, there will be improved processes and better technology. This was
Don’t say you weren’t warned. Britain is now in the grip of a “whiteout”; schools closed, essential services hindered, lonely pensioners dying of starvation in their garrets. Exactly as I predicted last year, the white blanket covering Britain now is the consequence of thousand upon thousand of polar bear pelts which have floated southwards on
With inflation continuing to “surprise” on the upside, how long can the Bank of England keep justifying printing money? Now we learn that the Bank of England had printed £193.5 billion to finance government spending by the end of last week. So we are only four weeks to the next MPC meeting – but there
So who got what? Today’s Times has a great summary of the concessions and promises that Brown has had to make to keep his Cabinet colleagues on side, including: “In a series of negotiations: — Harriet Harman demanded and received a promise to have more day-to-day control over the election campaign. Labour’s deputy leader also
In today’s Times, and on the occasion of George Osborne and William Hague’s visit to Helmand, the Tories are publishing proposals for how to improve the Government’s approach to post-conflict operations. Their central idea: to create a stabilisation force in the military, complete with the necessary expertise, training and so on to win the peace
Archbishop George Carey has his detractors, but his article in the Times is a candid explanation of the ills that unfettered immigration is causing this country. The tone is so frank it shocks; the title reads: ‘Migration threatens the DNA of the nation’. Carey, of course, is not inciting anything as palpably evil as eugenics
In a few weeks time, a slew of foreign ministers will descend on London to attend a conference on Afghanistan. No.10 will use the event to sell Gordon Brown as a statesman, confidently dealing with the nation’s threats. The Conservatives, in turn, will probably try to score the usual points about Britain’s failure, alongside its
This morning, I drove past one of the Cameron adverts – “I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS” – and that Bacacharch & David song came into my head: “What’s it all about, Alfie?” It’s been in my head, in fact, ever since his Oxford speech last weekend. Just what is the Big Idea? We
Enough of this talk of national decline. We still do some things quite well and we should celebrate them. Darts, for instance. I’ve a piece on the PDC World Championships in this week’s edition of the magazine (subscribe!)… Darts, however, remains a Great British Success Story. For all that darting missionaries preach the gospel of
The atmosphere is flat in Westminster today. The plot finally fizzled out this morning but not before having highlighted how little support in the Cabinet Brown has. It was telling that it was Shaun Woodward, not anyone more high profile, who turned up on the Today Programme to defend the PM. Plots that wound but
Marcus says: “It’s going to be very mild, more like early April than January. There will be no snow. The average temperature will be 16 degrees centigrade, with a fifty per cent chance of monsoon style rain. Later the temperatures will drop to about 14 degrees, giving the earth some brief respite. Polar bears dead
After June’s rebellion, it’s thought that Brown made a promise to his Cabinet colleagues: “…that cabinet ministers such as Alistair Darling will not again find themselves briefed against. There was deep anger in cabinet when Darling found himself being referred to in the past tense by Brown earlier in the week.” But in today’s Guardian:
Whatever took place yesterday – and there was certainly more to this plot than met the eye – the immediate danger to Gordon Brown seems to have fizzled out this morning. Here’s what David Miliband has just told the cameras: “No member of the government was involved in the letter – we are all determined
So, this is now the coldest winter for thirty years and the snow is likely to hang around for two weeks, maybe three. How does this square with last year’s prediction from eminent scientists – the Met, the UAE change-the-numbers-monkeys, Marcus Brigstocke etc – that 2010 was going to be the hottest year on record?
Intriguing post from Iain Martin, who is well sourced in the Darling camp, about what might have been said between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor yesterday: “I’ve heard from two Labour sources now that the conversation was very difficult and that Darling raised the possibility of Brown going, but the PM resisted. It would
Well done, Gordon. You seem to have survived another attempted coup. And not just any old coup, either. This one may have been particularly badly organised and executed, but it was also – probably – the last one you’ll face between now and the election; the last one you’ll ever face in your political career.
What a day! I mean, we’ve two feet of snow here and are running low on vital provisions (tobacco and whisky) and one of the chickens went missing and is feared lost in a snowdrift. A shame, since she’s a reliable layer. Meanwhile at Westminster, a pair of clowns armed with plastic spoons tried to
David Miliband has learned a lot since last June. Then, he was bounced by Peter Mandelson into declaring his support for Brown within an hour or so of James Purnell’s resignation. Today, he waited hours to release a statement and then when he did it could hardly have been less supportive. Tonight when challenged by
On a day where statements of support for the Prime Minister from key Cabinet colleagues have been notable for how lukewarm they ware, David Miliband’s takes the biscuit: It is hard to see how this could be a weaker statement of support. There is no word of praise for Brown, no claim that he is
There are German operas that lasted longer than today’s Hoon-Hewitt plot. Launched at 12.45pm, given legs by the fact that ministers hate Brown too much to interrupt their lunches for him. But dead by 6pm due to Mandelson texting Nick Robinson. (Again, you can’t fault Mandy for drama). You feel the Tories should take Labour
After the hubbub about Hewitt ‘n’ Hoon’s plot to unseat Gordon Brown, PMQs is perhaps a distant memory. It’s certainly made my review a little later than usual. But better late than never, as today’s clash was a bloody and intriguing contest with both party leaders on combative form. Cameron seemed unusually relaxed, glib and
Three things stand out to me from today. First of all there is little Cabinet love for Brown: there was no stampede of Ministers rushing out to offer their support to him and several have yet to say anything. Also many of the statements of support contained precious little enthusiasm for Brown. The second thing
The secret ballot story is still ongoing – so it’s a little early to be drawing conclusions just yet. But, for now, it’s worth thinking about what H&H are hoping to achieve by all this. If it’s true that they haven’t discussed their plans with Cabinet ministers, then why are they sticking their heads above
Peter Mandelson’s much-awaited statement does not seem particularly full-throated in its support of the Prime Minister. ‘No one should over-react to this initiative. It is not led by members of the government. No one has resigned from the government. The prime minister continues to have the support of his colleagues and we should carry on