All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Danny Finkelstein’s right: there are some surprising results in today’s ComRes poll for the Independent. The one which catches my eye is that David Miliband would be the most successful alternative leader at reducing the Tories’ poll lead. Along with Jack Straw, the poll suggests, he would make Labour the largest party in a hung
…here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the weekend. Fraser Nelson revisits the BNP conundrum, and profiles Labour’s choice to take on Nick Griffin. James Forsyth examines Labour’s latest dividing line, and says the Tories are planning operation tumbleweed. Peter Hoskin wonders if Alan Johnson’s feeling a little more confident, and catches
Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling will launch their umpteenth fight back today by talking tough on banks and bonuses. They hope to prove the Conservatives are interested solely in “helping their rich friends”. The Times has the details: ‘The Chancellor will tell the party conference in Brighton that legislation to be introduced in the next
Last night, I appeared on an hour-long phone in on Five Live listening in amazement as Angela Smith and Barry Gardiner defended Brown. You’d be amazed the lines the Labour MPs are being sent out with: that the shallow media is personality-based, but real people know that Brown did a great job on the economy. Seriously. That
Tonight offered the opportunity to compare and contrast the two Miliband brothers as they were interviewed one after the other by Steve Richards. Any comparison of their performances should recognise that Ed Miliband has the far easier brief. He gets to sound bold and green and the vast majority of Labour members agree with what
A few weeks ago, there were reports that thousands of schoolgirls were suffering “adverse reactions” to the controversial cervical cancer vaccine Cervarix. Now, the Times have found that a 14-year-old schoolgirl has died after being given the jab. And this when the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, along with the Department of Health, has
Over at UK Polling Report, Anthony Wells flags up a noteworthy poll boost for Labour. In YouGov’s daily tracker for Sky News, the party are up five points from last Friday’s tracker poll. Here are the headline numbers in full: Conservatives — 39 percent (down 1 percentage point since last Friday) Labour — 29 percent
Charlotte Gore is entirely correct: Lib Dems have one killer policy: Set the threshold for Income Tax and National Insurance contributions at £10,000 a year (or roughly minimum wage). It’s so good Labour activists want their party to steal it. I wouldn’t be surprised if similar pressure is being put on David Cameron to do
1204: The hall is relatively full for Darling. He starts off by talking about the big choice that faces the country, saying we have learned in the last year what a difference a government can make. 1206: Darling is trying to do the populist banker bashing, but his delivery is not right for it. From
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 – providing 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
The only conversation I have had so far at Labour Party conference is about why everyone realises that Gordon Brown would do his comrades a great service by standing down but no one can find a way of getting him to do the right thing. The general feeling is that the Labour Party has the
Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images. Fraser makes a number of excellent points in his latest post on the BNP and I also agree that Jack Straw is not a great choice to debate Nick Griffin. Straw is too self-righteous for the job and, despite his lefty past, neither the bruiser he thinks he is, nor possessed
The discovery that Iran’s regime has, yet again, deceived the international community and secretly built an additional nuclear facility has made world leaders re-focus on the issue. On Friday, the US, UK and France said the UN had to be given immediate access and urged tough new sanctions. Even Russia expressed concern. Today, the Iranian
Andrew Marr asking Gordon Brown if he was on anti-depressants was a real surprise. When I first heard that Marr had put this question to Brown, I thought there was a possibility that Labour aides had let it be known that the Prime Minister would like the chance to shoot down these rumours. But Brown’s
The Conservative party’s seizure of the progressive agenda and the rhetoric of liberal democracy suggests that Cameron intends to build a broad coalition. But how large would the Tories’ tent be? Peter Mandelson reveals that he would have no trouble “serving his country” under a Conservative government. ‘In an interview with The Sunday Times magazine, the
Jack Straw has announced that the BNP edition of Question Time will be aired on 22 October and that he will be Labour’s choice to take on Nick Griffin. Great news for the BNP. Labour should have sent a street fighter, not a desk general. Jon Cruddas is far and away the best BNP baiter
From the Department of Getting Away From It All. How far away from a branch of McDonald’s is it possible to get? What, in other words, is the McFarthest Spot? Weather Sealed offers this map of the continental United States coloured by distance from a branch of the Golden Arches. As expected, McDonald’s cluster at
I’m interviewing David Cameron tomorrow, for the next edition of the magazine. When Boris was a mere journalist, he said that writing interviews was like trying to make a mosaic out of a truckload of gravel – you ask questions, some trigger interesting responses, others not so much. So the writer sits with a heap
I must admit that I’m taken aback that Andrew Marr asked Gordon Brown if he was on anti-depressants in his interview with him this morning. (For the record, Brown said that he wasn’t). Do Coffee Housers think the question was appropriate?
I would like Britain to keep its independent nuclear deterrent, largely because I don’t trust the French. I would also like the USA to have a very large amount of brand new and extremely efficient nuclear weapons – those really big ones that can destroy the earth – and China, Pakistan, North Korea and Iran
Today’s papers give us an idea of what Labour’s new dividing line with the Tories is going to be. Labour will find money for eye-catching but not too costly initiatives such as the cancer pledge that the papers have reported on this morning. These pledges will be financed by taking money from the less sexy parts
Throughout Labour conference, the Tories will be trying to promote the message that the conference shows Labour is on the way out. Expect the Tories to pump out lots of statistics about how the number of delegates attending is down, how there are fewer commercial stands, lobbyists and the like. The other thing the Tories
Apparently the Labour Party is selling tickets to sit behind Gordon Brown during his leader’s speech for a bargain £130 a pop. At the same time they are struggling to fill the seats for their gala fundraising dinner in Brighton. Things are getting desperate. Already, last year in Manchester, the exhibitors’ hall was dominated by
I do miss not being behind the counter at CoffeeHouse as much now that I’ve moved back of shop. You don’t get much BNP debate in the mainstream media – which is, of course, part of the problem. So I thought I’d respond to the comments from my recent post via another post. Jeremy
Ok, ok, this will be my final post today on a Labour interview, but it’s worth highlighting the Guardian’s chat with Ed Balls. Breakfasting CoffeeHousers may not make it past the opening image of the Schools Secretary, “half-naked on a desolate main road in Knowsley,” so here’s the key passage from later in the article:
Another post, another interview with a Labour figure. This time it’s John Prescott’s conversation with Michael Savage in the Independent. Prescott puts in a fiery performance, and lashes out at almost everyone and everything within his party. I’ve pulled out some of his attacks below, for the benefit of CoffeeHousers: On the Labour Party: “There
Remember when Alan Johnson said he doubted that he would have been “good enough” to lead the Labour party? Or when he claimed that his defeat by Harriet Harman in the deputy leadership race had killed the “little bit of ambition” he had left? Well, the tune has slightly changed since then. In today’s interview
The news that Iran has a second, secret nuclear installation can hardly be considered a surprise. Nor, alas, is there anything surprising about Charles Krauthammer’s reaction to Barack Obama’s decision to make nuclear proliferation an issue at the UN General Assembly: What did he accomplish? Nothing. This is really quite surreal. As we speak, the
President Barack Obama & First Lady Michelle Obama welcome Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to the G20 dinner on September 24, 2009 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Photo: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images. My latest piece for the Daily Beast takes a look at the grimly entertaining Silvio Berlusconi: Were you to be so unwise as to combine the
Here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the past week Fraser Nelson argues that the BBC and mainstream political parties need to think very carefully about how they will handle Nick Griffin on Question Time. James Forsyth sees the Lib Dems’ incoherence embodied in Nick Clegg, and says that the Tories are
I was a panelist on Question Time last night, and it started me thinking about how they will handle the BNP episode – which I expect fairly soon. Make no mistake, a Question Time slot is as big for the BNP as winning seats in Europe. When I was on the campaign trail with them
It’s the question that won’t go away for Gordon Brown: should he – will he – take part in a televised leaders’ debate? On this weekend’s Straight Talk, Andrew Neil takes the opportunity to quiz Ben Bradshaw about his views on the matter. Here’s how the Culture Secretary responds: “I don’t think [Brown]’s got anything
James has already highlighted the New Statesman’s interview with Gordon Brown, but it’s worth flagging up this passage as well: “Again and again, throughout our interview, Brown refers to the next election as being about ‘big choices’, not the small issues, which he says the Conservatives would prefer. ‘What was the latest thing? The cost
Brown’s pursuit of Obama through the UN canteen has finally paid dividends: PoliticsHome is reporting that Barack Obama will hold bilateral talks with Gordon Brown later today. After yesterday’s negative headlines, Obama was always going to make a gesture that indicated how much he valued Brown; but from the Prime Minister’s point of view, the