All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The Telegraph’s interview with Peter Mandelson and The Guardian’s with David Miliband are setting the news agenda this morning. Mandelson tells the Telegraph that he expects there will be another attempt to topple Brown from a “small group who keep coming back”. While Miliband admits he considered resigning on Thursday night. Both push the message
A subject close to my heart is the fear of mental collapse that lies just below the surface of New Labour. So I wrote about it for this week’s Spectator magazine. You’ll find it here.
Gordon Brown does not change his ways, or his tactics. It will have shocked him to find the newspapers rejecting as a lie his claim that he would not cut spending. But he’ll be thinking, “they’ll get bored of this rebuttal and I won’t get bored of my attack.” So his strategy is to bulldoze
General Petraeus’s comments yesterday, reported by the Washington Post, that violence in Afghanistan is now at its highest level since the toppling of the Taliban shows how bad the situation has got there. But interestingly: “Two-thirds of all the attacks in Afghanistan are concentrated in about 10 percent of the country’s districts” If the coming
There’s a fascinating story in the New York Times today about how some al Qaeda terrorists are moving from the tribal areas of Pakistan to Somalia and Yemen. The key question is why are they doing this, is it because Pakistan has become a less hospitable place for them both because of US drone strikes
Charles Clarke’s interview with Andrew Neil for Straight Talk is going to make news. In it, Clarke makes clear that the moves to oust Brown are suspended not ended. As he tells Andrew: “It will depend how events go but more importantly than any other single thing it will depend how the people of the country
In this week’s Economist, Bagehot has an interesting thought about the dynamics of the Mandelson Brown relationship: “The official line is that [Peter Mandelson] and Mr Brown have buried the hatchets they once deployed against each other, and revived the understanding they shared before their falling out. Perhaps; but perhaps his succour itself contains a
Just to prove that Brown ‘n’ Balls haven’t locked Alistair Darling in the basement of the Treasury, the official Chancellor gets an interview in the FT today. Plenty of stuff in there about green shoots, oil prices and those darstardly Germans, but it’s this passage which jumped out at me: “The chancellor is quick to
I wouldn’t ever dream of debating economics with Paul Krugman*. Politics, however? Well that’s a horse of a different colour. The Nobel laureate is, it seems, in Britain and he has this to say: Weird politics here in London, with Gordon Brown desperately unpopular even (or maybe especially) among those who surely share his general
Now that Gordon Brown’s central attack line of ‘Labour investment v Tory cuts’ has been exposed as a lie, what will he do? His claim that he has planned no cuts under Labour has now been comprehensively exposed as false by Fleet Street today. Plus bloggers are producing figures and proofs – Dizzy and Chris
Alan Johnson to the New Statesman: “When Gordon steps down after ten years of successful leadership I’ll be too old anyway.”
Aside from the failure of other ministers to follow his lead, one of the saddest aspects to James Purnell’s resignation is that the DWP has lost an extremely capable minister. Yes, I know he’s not a particular favourite of CoffeeHousers – but he was instrumental in getting David Freud’s welfare reform agenda accepted as government
In a sign of the times, Andrew Lansley’s gaffe—which sent Tory high command into a rage—seems to be hurting Labour most. Andy Burnham, the new Health Secretary, has just told the NHS Confederation “I can’t write the spending review – it would be ridiculous.” But last night on Channel 4 News, Burnham seemed to be
For real: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday accused his election rivals of adopting smear tactics used by Germany’s dictator Adolf Hitler and said they could face jail for insulting him. Ahmadinejad was speaking at a rally in Tehran on the final day of an increasingly bitter and hard-fought election campaign, in which he faces
PR Week, which has delivered an impressive string of scoops during the Brown era, has an interesting little anecdote about Caroline Flint’s resignation: “Westminster sources said Flint toned down her resignation letter on the advice of friends. One insider even claimed it originally contained words such as ‘devious’ and phrases such as ‘sexist pig’.” If
Like Julian Sanchez, I consider Reason’s compilation of 40 years of Time magazine’s addiction to hysteria a real treat. This 1972 effort – warning, as you can see, of the inexorable rise of Satanism in the United States – is just the beginning of it. From there it’s but a hop, skip and jump to
It is easy to lose money down the back of the sofa, less so to lose a debt. The Treasury has long tried to hide the value of the pension promises made to public sector workers. Now, though, the present administration or its successor must start to be honest about the true size of the
Martin Bright makes a very good point on his blog about why the press will dismiss the protestations of loyalty and unity coming from the Cabinet: “Too many conversations have been had by too many ministers with too many journalists about the inadequacies of the Prime Minister to believe the words of solidarity.” In the
The Sun’s leader column today is an indication of just how much the terms of the spending debate have changed: “And, frankly, where is the disgrace in making cuts? Who really believes some services WON’T need cutting to pay back the monstrous debts we are running up to beat recession? More unedifying was Gordon Brown’s
When the histories of Gordon Brown’s premiership are written, I’m sure the events of the past week will get a prominent showing. And I’m sure, too, that Allegra Stratton’s blow-by-blow account in today’s Guardian will be among the most useful first-hand sources. There are plenty of fascinating nuggets in there: how the plotters regard Hazel
As I wandered through parliament on Monday evening I bumped into a former minister who had just come out of the do-or-die parliamentary Labour Party meeting. He reached in his pocket and showed me a text message on his mobile from a constituency activist: “So it’s a slow, lingering death then,” it said. This was
Andy Burnham has just let the cat out of the bag on Channel Four News: Labour would cut by 10 percent too. Our new Health Secretary has just been given a robust interview by Jon Snow and was asked if he would say there would not be cuts elsewhere if health is protected. His reply:
Well, well, well – it sounds as though Andrew Lansley’s loose lips may have cost him his hitherto “unsackable” status. Tim Montgomerie spoke to a source in Cameron’s office about the shadow health secretary’s “10 percent cuts” comment on Today this morning, and got the following response: “No one is unsackable … [Lansley] will not
The evidence of Ed Butler, who commanded 16 Air Assault Brigade in Helmand in 2006, to the Defence Select Committee yesterday was devastating. As The Times reports: “Brigadier Butler told the committee that in 2006 the Treasury had “capped” resources available for the operation, limiting funding to £1.3 billion for a “three-year campaign”. The Government
The CIA station in London is at the center of a bitter fight between different branches of the US intelligence community in Washington DC. For years, the CIA has had the right to appoint the station chief who runs US intelligence operations in London and liaises with MI6 and GCHQ. Now, the National Security Agency
Usually it’s the war-dead who overshadow the start of PMQs. Today it was the undead. Brown is back and if the Labour rebels really believed his promise to ‘listen’ their trust seems to have been misplaced. This was the Brown of old, the unbudgeable slab of granite, the obsessive numerologist casting statistics in all directions
Little did I imagine, when I calculated that the Tory spending parameters would involve a 10 percent cut in non-NHS departments, that it would attract such an audience. Brown repeaed it on Marr, as if it were an official Tory figure. But when Andrew Lansley mentioned it this morning as an official Tory figure then,
Live coverage of PMQs from 1200. 1202: Here’s Brown now. First question from Andrew Selous (Con) on specialist hospitals. Guess where Brown goes with this: he brings up Andrew Lansley’s “cuts” comment this morning (even though Lansley was talking about areas other than health). I suspecty he may bring this up again. 1204: Second question
ConHome’s Tim Montgomerie – instrumental in getting the Cameroons to ditch their pledge to match overall Labour spending plans – has launched his most acerbic attack yet on the Tories’ commitment to hefty real terms spending increases in health, as reiterated by Andrew Lansley on Today this morning. His points deserve repeating: “There is indeed
Perhaps the most comic aspect of the past few days is how the Cabinet and then the PLP have been persuaded to give Gordon Brown a stay of execution by promises that Brown would be more collegial and call off his bully boys. (I’ve lost count of the number of times Gordon Brown is said
And so the Glorious Fightback begins for Gordon Brown. Stage One is his announcement on Parliamentary reform today; but it’s Stage Two, his “national plan” next week, which seems to be getting the most hype. Indeed, an insightful article in the FT suggests that the Dear Leader’s inner circle regards it as “the last throw
From the Departments of a) Modern Britain and b) Modern Childhood. The Lancashire Telegraph reports: Primary school pupils are to be shown a film about the dangers of terrorists as part of an organised safety day. More than 2,000 10 and 11-year-olds will see a short film, which urges them to tell the police, their
So what’s the story, George Osborne? Reading his speech today, there’s plenty of sturdy talk about lowering the national debt burden and encouraging saving – but a few gaps that need filling if the policy is to live up to the rhetoric. Osborne seems to recognise this himself: for every reference to the Office of
First things first: congratulations to Ireland and the Netherlands for enlivening the World Twenty20 Cup. Secondly, well-done Australia who now have an extra couple of weeks to prepare for the Ashes. Typically, England flattered us with their cunning in their opening fixture only to let us down in their second. Thirdly, I’m indebted to Pootergeek