All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Bits of plaster are already falling off the ceiling over tomorrow’s cover story in the magazine, in which (amongst other things) I reveal a plan to launch a leadership challenge to Gordon Brown if Labour’s performance in the local and European elections is as terrible as the party’s strategists fear. The idea, as I explain,
The New York Times has an excellent symposium up on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. This point from Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA officer who headed up the office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence at the Department of Energy under President Bush, is particularly concerning: “Twice since the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. taken action to break up networks inside
As Pete said earlier, the question of how Brown gets out of this Post Office mess is fascinating. On the one hand he has the 150 plus Labour MPs who have signed an early day motion against the plan—and you can add to that number a fair few MPs who are trying to fly below
The law of unintended consequences is one that Westminster unfailingly passes, and there are signs that the massive Quantitative Easing programme is making it harder for companies to raise money, because the government is flooding the market with its own IOU notes. The Bank of England today confirmed that less than 1% of the £44.5bn
If the Tory leader is as canny a political operator as I think he is then he should adopt Compass’s idea of setting up the Post Office as a not-for-profit company immediately. The idea from the left of centre think tank had been dismissed too quickly by Downing Street, which seems determined to alienate as
Impressions, rather than substance, dominated today’s PMQs. With the Brown premiership downgraded from stable to critical over the weekend, this could have been a career-terminating ordeal for the soggy-eyed old panda but he got through it pretty well. By the end he was still confidently afloat, if not quite buoyant. Cameron raised the question of
There is, as you might expect, some good stuff in Christopher Caldwell’s Weekly Standard piece on the rise and fall of the Celtic Tiger. But it also contains some strange thinking, albeit of a kind that is often found when foreigners consider the Irish. Thus: This [prosperity and immigration] is all very exciting for the
The politics of the Government’s plan for Royal Mail are becoming more and more confused. The latest signs from Downing Street are that they may make one or two concessions to the backbench rebels, but that they’ll stick with the main thrust of the part-privatisation package. Yet Nick Robinson points out another option that may
Good and bad news from China: A Chinese county has rescinded a rule urging its government workers to smoke more in order to boost tax income. The authorities in Gong’an county had told civil servants and teachers to smoke 230,000 packs of the locally-made Hubei brand each year. Those who did not smoke enough or
Live coverage from 1200. 1201: And we’re off. The DUP’s Gregory Campbell asks what further assistance Brown can offer the devlved regions to help them during the recession. Brown: “We will continue to offer real help now”. 1203: Cameron kicks off: “A series of U-turns…”. Then asks whether these are “signs” that the “government is
It’s reshuffle rumour time, I’m afraid, with a few of today’s papers carrying stories about whom Brown might ditch and promote in the aftermath of the local elections. Much of it centres on Jacqui Smith, who appears to be the favourite to get the chop. And there’s also some chat about Hazel Blears getting demoted
Hamish McRae, whose coverage of the crash has been prescient and authoritative, sets out the key question that comes out of the state of the public finances in his column today: “We have had over the past decade the largest increase in public spending that has ever taken place in peacetime. It is also the
Gordon Brown loves hiding behind numbers. He does it almost every PMQs – when he reels off the usual tractor production statistics – and he has done it in every Budget he’s been involved in, either as Chancellor or Prime Minister. My guess is that he hopes to cover up not only how bad things
Editing a small magazine is like writing a poem. It is half judgment, but also half inspiration. It can never be done by a committee. So I sensed disaster when I read that the Monthly in Melbourne boasted a committee that met regularly to make editorial decisions (even if it did meet, as reported, in
Mental illness has always taken up a lot of space in the lexicon of New Labour, I have always thought Alistair Campbell’s own brush with the black dog had something to do with this. From Ron Davies’s “moment of madness” to Gordon Brown’s “psychological flaws”, the terror of incipient madeness has always been a New Labour nightmare.
Like James, I thought there’s some interesting stuff in David Brooks’ column today. On the other hand there’s also a fair quantity of stuff with which one might take some issue. To wit: Today, if Republicans had learned the right lessons from the Westerns, or at least John Ford Westerns, they would not be the
Parties of the right fall into a simplified, intellectual comfort zone when they have been in power too long. It happened to the Tories and it has happened to the Republicans. David Brooks sets out the problem in his New York Times column: “Republicans are so much the party of individualism and freedom these days
For all its faults, the European Commission is quite good at polling and economic analysis. And its diagnosis for the UK is even worse than some of the papers write up this morning. For CoffeeHousers who are sitting down, here are a few of its most depressing points. I added the OECD, which includes other
Brace yourselves. Gordon Brown has hit YouTube with another video message for his adoring public (watch it after the jump). To be honest, it’s not a bad as his last comedy effort – he’s stepped out of the bunker, for a start, and there’s less rictus grinning – but it’s hardly going to set the
Watching Joanna Lumley give evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee (I haven’t seen Keith Vaz so excited since he took Shilpa Shetty to Parliament), I suddenly realised what ministers don’t understand. Sure, the Gurkhas understood the terms of their employment when they signed up; no agreement has been broken. Sure, they have seen action
Ephraim Hardcastle’s column in the Mail today contains this story about the Prime Minister’s tense relationship with the Number 10 staff: ‘A switchboard operator rang him back the other day and said they wouldn’t put up with being spoken to like that. Brown had to apologise.’ Its appearance is further evidence that it is now
Oh, how difficult life is for a Prime Minister who’s lost pretty much all his political capital. Almost every major Commons vote becomes a potential landmine, threatening to blow a premiership apart. And so it is with the Government’s plans for Royal Mail. As today’s Times reports: “David Cameron holds Gordon Brown’s political life in
Pete has already flagged up Rachel Sylvester’s column, but there’s one line in it about the Gurkhas that particularly caught my attention: “I am told that ministers agreed in a Cabinet sub-committee that the issue should be resolved, but they were overruled by No10.” On Friday, there was a huge blame game going on about
…here are some of the posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the bank holiday weekend: Fraser Nelson marks the 30th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher becoming Prime Minister, and reports on Hazel Blear’s intervention. James Forsyth notes three things keeping Gordon Brown down, and says that Harriet Harman’s friends may be doing the PM a favour. Peter
There’s plenty of noteworthy stuff in Rachel Sylvester’s column this morning – Hazel Blears getting the “hairdryer treatment” from Gordon Brown; Downing Street overruling Cabinet ministers who wanted to “resolve” the Gurkha issue; and confirmation that a “Blairite” could stand as a stalking horse candidate after the local elections – but nothing more so than
I’m becoming increasingly convinced that in a year to 18 months time, we’ll come to view the global situation as even more alarming than the economic one. Arguably, the greatest cause for concern is Pakistan. (I still, though, tend to view Iran’s nuclear ambitions as the greatest potential threat.) In Pakistan, almost every concern of
“Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.” It was 30 years ago today that The Lady said these words at 10 Downing St. It’s not quite the Prayer of
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
Say it ain’t so, Harriet! Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman has denied a report she would fight for the party leadership, as speculation grows over Gordon Brown’s position. She insisted the story was “simply not true” and under “no circumstances” would she be a candidate. She told the BBC’s Today programme: “I don’t want to
Today’s Times reports that Peter Mandelson and Ed Balls will head up a weekly strategy meeting in Downing Street. This along with the fall of McBride presumably means the end of the infamous Wednesday meetings. These Wednesday meetings summed up what so many people inside the Labour party disliked about Brown and his way of
Anyone who wonders how the NHS can almost treble its phenomenal budget while its service grows worse on many measures should read The Guardian this morning for an example. The 2004 GPs’ contract – Stuff Their Mouths With Gold II – meant their pay soared to an average £120,000, but that for just a £6k
There’s a telling line in this story from the Mail which (if true!) gets to the heart of Gordon Brown’s sense of himself. Apparently he was unhappy with the line of questioning being pursued by a recent TV interviewer, leading Brown to complain, off-camera, that “You are impugning my integrity.” Now if ever a complaint
The Telegraph has a front page story which guarantees that the Labour leadership speculation will continue for a while yet. It reports that Harriet Harman’s “friends have told The Daily Telegraph that Miss Harman will not stand aside in favour of a rival considered more appealing to voters” if there is a contest. In anything
Arlen Specter, the senior Senator from Pennsylvania, switched parties for no higher reason than to save his seat: that is what should worry Republicans. That Specter thought he had no chance of winning as a Republican in a state that until the 2006 mid-terms had two Republican Senators is a sign of how far and
