All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
If I was a betting man, I’d fancy a sly tenner on Chris Huhne right now. Nick Clegg has failed to impress during the leadership contest and Huhne, who doesn’t worry about being boxed in if elected leader, has been pandering to the membership like nobody’s business. The heated exchanges between the two contenders yesterday
Much as I applaud the Tory education plan in general, my heart sinks when I see stories such as one on the front of The Observer that Cameron wants all kids to read by the age of six. This strikes me as the contradiction running through Tory policy: to regulate, or liberalise? The plan for
Andrew Rawnsley has an important piece in the Observer this morning about how conflict could again break out in the Balkans. The issue this time is the final status of Kosovo. The Americans favour independence for Kosovo, the Russians oppose it and the EU is mostly for it but with conditions. As Rawnsley explains, “Time
‘Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled, Scots, wham Bruce has aften led, Welcome tae your gory bed, Or tae Victorie! ‘Now’s the day, and now’s the hour: See the front o’ battle lour… Scotland vs Italy, Hampden Park, 1200 (EST), 17/11/07. Game on. UPDATE for DC readers: The Lucky Bar on Connecticut Avenue and N
David Aaronovitch’s piece in The Times today based on his interviews with the former Prime Minister and his associates for his The Blair Years series on the BBC is fascinating. Once again Blair reiterates that he did Iraq because he believed that it was the right thing to do. His concluding remarks, though, are grim:
OK, this is obviously extremely odd behaviour. But where’s the crime here? There’s no victim. There’s no lewd or offensive public display. Nothing at all. And yet this poor sod is now on the Sex Offenders’ Register for three years. Madness. If they can convict you of this, what can’t they convict you of? A
Union Edition: About 30 people picket in front of a bank in downtown Washington, D.C., wearing big yellow signs that read: “Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters.” They shuffle about in circles, many wearing hooded sweatshirts and jeans. Their coats are draped over parking meters; their belongings sit in plastic grocery bags on the sidewalk. I
Bob Marshall-Andrews, the independent-minded Labour MP for Medway is a Whip’s nightmare. But he’s the sort of stout citizen any parliament worth the name needs more of. Years ago, we received good value from him when we invited him to speak at my undergraduate debating society. So, it’s nice to see that he’s lost none
John Pienaar’s BBC column has a great little anecdote in it this week about Alan West’s reaction to the way his comments on not being convinced of the case for 56 day detention were reported. According to one report, he heard the radio headlines immediately after his morning interview reporting his doubts about government policy.
Clive points to a fascinating New Statesman story by David Matthews on whether the Tories can pick up significant black support at the next election—last time out they only got 2 percent of the black vote, compared to 80 percent for Labour. As the piece points out, the Tories now for the first time have
The Independent have launched a string of new blogs which are well worth checking out. Open House, their comment blog, looks particularly promising—anything that offers us more of John Rentoul and Steve Richards can only be a good thing. Rentoul, who is one of the great authorities on Tony Blair, flags up a rather revealing
Jack Straw has taken to the ceremonial trappings of his new role with a vengeance. The former firebrand NUS president never seems happier than when dressed in his finery. Now Kevin Maguire reveals that Straw has been in training for his new role, or at least the dressing-up part of it, for a lot longer
There’s just over a week to go until the Australian election and it’s very hard to see John Howard winning it from here. Though there has been a slight narrowing over the course of the campaign, all polls are still showing Labor with a landslide winning percentage of the vote, 54-55%. Thanks to favourable electoral
Why did Gordon Brown say “British jobs” for British workers rather than just “jobs?” John Denham wriggled out of this question this morning. I suspect the real answer is that Gordon Brown – a stickler for statistics – is painfully aware of a trend the media has never picked up on: the huge brain drain
Nick Clegg’s interview with the New Statesman is well worth reading for an insight into how he sees relations with the two main parties. Clegg describes himself as “an anti-Labour northern MP” and explains why he thinks that the Lib Dems’ room for growth comes from taking seats from Labour: “Something like 85 per cent
Sure, Roger Federer has not been quite so magnificent this year as he has been these past three years. Defeats to Canas (twice), Nalbandian (also twice) and Djokovic in Montreal have dented his air of effortless (non-clay court) supremacy. But, seriously, how can you write an article with the headline “Federer’s Ability to Dominate May
Mitt Romney was so desperate to serve his country in the late 1960s that rather than go to Vietnam (as he so very much wanted to) he was compelled to spend years in France as a Mormon missionary. But what about Rudy Giuliani? Glenn Greenwald has a useful reminder: Romney’s draft-avoidance isn’t quite as shameful
The Spectator Threadneedle politician of the year is George Osborne and the parliamentarian of the year is Alex Salmond. A full list of winners is available here. Full video of the event is available below.
We have just posted the text of the remarks that Matthew d’Ancona delivered at the Spectator Threadneedle Parliamentarian of the Year awards earlier today, We’ll also have video of the whole event available shortly.
Newcomer of the year: Nick Clegg Inquisitor of the year: Michael Conarty Peer of the year: Baroness Thatcher Speech of the year: William Hague Resignation of the year: Tony Blair Minister to Watch: Liam Byrne Marathon Man of the year: Ian Paisley Campaigner of the year: Iain Duncan Smith Parliamentarian of the year: Alex Salmond
George Osborne, The Spectator politician of the year
If you want to watch today’s event live click here. The awards ceremony from Claridge’s Hotel in London will be broadcast live with welcome speech from 1-1:10pm and 1:50-2:30 pm. The awards will be presented by last year’s winner John Reid and hosted by Matthew d’Ancona, editor of the Spectator. To watch click here.
The Spectator Threadneedle politician of the year is George Osborne and the parliamentarian of the year is Alex Salmond. A full list of winners is available here. Full video of the event will be available shortly at Spectator.co.uk
Peter Riddell has a very wise column in The Times today. As he points out, what Admiral West said yesterday about 56 day detention was actually quite sensible even if it was a ‘gaffe.’ While the burden of proof should be high for extending the period of detention without charge, it would be glib to
The Daily Telegraph’s Christopher Hope wanted to know who Gordon Brown has been inviting to dine at Chequers since he became Prime Minister. Not an unreasonable Freedom of Information request you might think – especially to a Prime Minister who pledged a new era of openness and accountability. Well, how’s that working out? Not so
Seeing as Gordon Brown is stonewalling efforts from both MPs and journalists to find out who he has invited to Chequers for dinner, I thought we could help him out by suggesting some suitable guests. I’m thinking Larry Summers for some economics and US politics, Amartya Sen for a bit of development talk and Linda
Brown lost over immigration at PMQs, but wasn’t thumped which is a result for him. He is desperate to tease out a Tory split on the EU referendum, and may be making progress. I notice that when Brown embarked on his usual misleading economic boast (incapacity benefit numbers are dropping about as fast as Venice
We’ve just posted a column by Martin Vander Weyer on the significance of the St Pancras Eurostar terminal and why it means that one day we might get a fast, efficient rail service in the country. Read it here.
Gordon Brown has never looked comfortable at PMQs but after a poor first few performances he developed a clever strategy of announcing policy during it, for instance on super casinos. This guaranteed that the main news coming out of PMQs was not how well Brown did but the policy he had unveiled. As Mike Smithson
I love it when Alex Salmond sets a deadline for Scottish independence. First was his “free by ’93” slogan, followed by a lame joke about “nationalist heaven in 97”. Then came his prediction that the “union will not live to see its 300th birthday” (ie 2007 – a deadline shared by Sean Connery). Now he’s
I guess all the other problems facing the government must be solved as Gordon Brown is now to turn his attention to making sure that premiership teams select more British players. As The Guardian sports section puts it: ‘British players for British clubs.’ Brown is a genuine sports fan and there’s public concern over the
My pal Mike Crowley’s (good!) New Republic piece on Hillary’s tough press operation is drawing lots of attention from the blogosphere. It’s a reminder that the subject hacks and bloggers like best is, well, stories about hacks and bloggers. I daresay it’s doing wonders for TNR’s web traffic today. Which reminds me that this ability
To the extent that the United States Congress has abandoned any pretense of honouring the idea of fiscal restraint, it should be said that earmarks – or pork barrel spending – is a tiny problem when set beside the Pentagon’s budget and future spending commitments on entitlements. Still, earmarks are what folk like to huff
The most surprising headline of the day? Step forward the brave sub-editors at The New York Times who produced this gem: In Interview, Musharraf Defends Rule by Decree Well, fancy that!