All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Unbelieveable. It’s going from bad to worse to apocalyptic for Labour. The latest news is that Tom Watson – a key Brown ally, and minister for digital engagement – is set to resign as well. The main question doing the rounds in Westminster is whether this spate of leaks is designed to undermine Brown; whether
Here are Theresa May’s answers to the questions put forward by CoffeeHousers last week: John Moss “Is a time of financial crisis when many people are losing their jobs not the best time to push through radical reform of welfare to gain public trust in the system and get control of cost.” John, I agree
I suspect Jacqui Smith has done a Ruth Kelly – she knew she was going, so why wait to be knifed? Why not go at a time of her choosing, and take control? She doesn’t need to make an announcement. She just needed to let it be known that she will resign, and sooner or
And so the expenses fiasco looks set to claim its biggest scalp yet – in the form of the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith. To be honest, it’s not much of a surprise: Smith – with her bathplugs and her husband’s porn rentals – became the embodiment of the scandal a couple of months back, and
Now that the Tories have reopened their candidate selection process, there are going to be plenty of candidates wondering how best to take advantage of their opponents’ extravagant expense claims. The intricacies of capital gains tax and “flipping” second homes are all very entertaining, but liable to become bogged down in legalese. Not so, by
So say Sky. More soon.
The Christmas issue of the Spectator is in the shops now, but if you don’t yet have a copy, here are the contents in full: Features In defence of Blairism – Tony Blair Michael Gove interviews the Archbishop of Canterbury James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson interview David Cameron Mark Clarke, Bercow, Sewel: 2016 was a vintage year for
Gordon Brown’s greatest political achievement was to be the heir presumptive to the Labour leadership for 13 years. For more than a decade, there was not a day when he was not the favourite to take over once Tony Blair had gone. Brown did this through a whole variety of methods, including plenty of brutal,
After Patricia Hewitt, Beverley Hughes and David Chaytor we are now up to 16 undead MPs: ones who have decided to stand down at the next election, but hang on a year until they can get their payoff – which is up to £120,000 depending on age and length of service. Go now, and they
Absolutely worth reading Rachel’s Sylvester column in the Times today, on the growing frenzy inside the Cabinet. There are plenty of noteworthy snippets about Ed Balls (e.g. “Lord Mandelson’s allies suspect the Schools Secretary of spreading rumours that he would be moved to the Foreign Office because he wanted him out of the way”), but
Every so often someone at Lords remembers to trot out the line that Test Cricket is and must remain the pinnacle of the game; every time this happens something pops up that makes it harder than ever to take the ECB seriously when they say this. Not that the ECB are the only culprits; the
How committed is Obama to human rights? Not very, it seems. Perhaps his speech in Cairo on Thursday will change one’s view of this, but the new President must be judged by actions, not merely words and noble intentions. As my friend Mike Crowley points out: But when it comes to Egypt, he has already
Marty Peretz makes a sensible point: A story by Parisa Hafezi at Reuters knocks the wind out of the expectation that, if Dr. A’jad loses his re-election campaign, Iran’s nuclear policy will be changed. These matters rest in the head and hands of the Ayatollah Al Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, successor to the revolutionary founder
A day of political drama has a twist in the tale: a ComRes poll which shows support for the Tories collapsing and Labour closing the gap to eight points. Anthony Wells, an authority on polling. is calling this result “frankly odd” and saying that he’d “be amazed if YouGov, Populus or ICM produced figures to
The MPs’ expenses scandal has been a devastating distracttion. It has been an essential process. But it is a distraction all the same. How many times have commentators now said the country is now facing a political crisis to match the economic crisis? This is not the whole story. The economic situation means that people’s anger about the venal behaviour of
It is worth thinking for a second about how bad the past few days have been for Brown. We have had a poll showing Labour in third and then one with Labour recording the worst rating ever for one of the two major parties. What has, perhaps, caused equal damage to Brown is that he
That Mori poll which has Labour on 18 percent is dominating conversation in Westminster tonight. Coming after the poll at the weekend which had Labour third, it has the speculation up another notch about whether a challenge to Brown might begin to materialise as early as Friday. Putting these polls into perspective, offers no comfort
Today a Danish journalist came to ask me abut the campaign for the British European elections. “What campaign?” I asked him. Expensesgate has so dominated the airwaves that there has been little room for anything else, let alone elections to a legislative assembly that few people care, or even know, much about. With at least
As Yglesias notes, it’s uncanny how too many conservative pundits continue to believe that every problem is a nail and the only tool the United States possesses is a hammer. Now, like everyone else, I have no idea how we should deal with North Korea. And even that assumes that there is some kind of
The Labour limbo continues: the party is down to 18 with Mori—level with the Lib Dems. This is, according to Political Betting, a Westminster voting intention poll. The Tories are on 40. I can’t think of the last time one of the big two was in the teens in a Westminster voting intention poll.
Anyone who thinks that Cabinet members will immediately come out against Brown in the aftermath of this week’s elections had better take a look at this quote in today’s Mirror: “One senior figure said pressure will ‘ratchet’ up on the PM if Labour slips to third or fourth place. He added: ‘There is no person
So when will Iran get enough nuclear material for a bomb? In evidence to the Knesset this morning, Israeli military intelligence has suggested this could happen as early as this year. Of course, the Iranians don’t (yet) have the right missiles. There was some concern about Russians selling a S300 anti-aircraft missile to China who
In Westminster, the word is that Gordon Brown will reshuffle the Cabinet on Friday as the local election results come in. The thinking is that this will distract attention from the results, allow Labour to claim that the European election results on Sunday are a verdict on the past Cabinet not this one and, most
When a politician tries to make a virtue out of the fact that he was brought up in a household in which lying was frowned upon then, verily, you know he’s on his uppers. Equally, though I daresay that much of the expenses scandal does offend the remnants of Gordon’s “presbyterian conscience” it’s not immediately
Last week, the Sun’s editorial strongly implied that it wasn’t endorsing any of the main parties for the Euro-elections. The Sun said, “If the established parties have their way, the prospects for change in Brussels vary between fat chance and no chance.” But today, The Sun urges its readers to vote Tory, saying “If you
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 – provided 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
Gordon Brown v Evan Davis this morning – and while most Brown interviews before 9am have a soporific effect, this one was (by Brown’s standards) a belter. The Dear Leader had come with an announcement: he is proposing a National Council for Democratic Renewal and was inviting questions on it. Davis had other questions, and
…here are some of the posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: Fraser Nelson fisks Gordon Brown’s interview with Andrew Marr. James Forsyth wonders whether the Labour press will decide Brown has to go, and gives his take on David Cameron’s mortgage. Peter Hoskin reveals how to kill – rather than save – a premiership,
Oh dear. The pressure really is on Alistair Darling now. After the revelations about his serial flipping, today’s Telegraph flags up another potential misdemenour on the Chancellor’s part: that he claimed parliamentary expenses on a south London flat which he rented out, while also claiming second home allowances for his grace-and-favour properties. Not only does
The Dear Leader did Andrew Marr this morning – I’ve just returned from a beautiful day out to watch it online and give it a quick Fisk. Here are my top half dozen points. 1. “To be honest, what I’ve seen offends my Presbyterian conscience.” Is this the first recorded use of the phrase? And
Vince Cable’s reputation might be another over-inflated bubble that will have to burst at some point, but there’s no doubt he’s a formidable politician. Alistair Darling should be extremely worried that Cable is now demanding his scalp because of his property flipping. “When he was accused of ‘flipping’ homes and getting the taxpayer to pay
There’s something grimly hilarious about the frontpage headline of the Sunday Times today: “Gordon Brown wants Ed Balls as Chancellor”. Sure, we’ve known that for years, but now it sounds as though the Dear Leader may actually be on the verge of making it happen. The story goes on refer to a “top-level leak” from
There was something entirely predictable about the mortgage on David Cameron’s constituency home getting drawn into the expenses scandal. Even Tory MPs supportive of the line Cameron has taken on this issue have, in private, pointed to it; noting that Cameron himself had found the most politically palatable way to make the system work for
The Obama administration is planning to rewrite the rulebook for warfare establishing new laws for war in cyberspace including a series of international agreements that will spell out just what actions are permissible and what will be considered an act of war. For the first time, countries like China, which launch millions of attacks every