James Forsyth reviews the week in politics From a distance, Tony Blair might be able to persuade himself that the Labour party contest now underway is the fulfilment of his dreams. The ‘brothers’ everyone is talking about are not trade union heavies but two Oxford PPE graduates who have worked their way up through the
I turned to this week’s press coverage of the latest pre-Budget economic forecasts only after a punishing battle with my motorcar. A morning’s home car mechanics left me bruised, cut, frustrated and covered in diesel, but — as it turned out — philosophically refreshed for the debate about Britain’s economic future. I drive a grey
As a would-be historian (engaged on the biography of Margaret Thatcher), I feel envious of Lord Saville. I could do with having all my hotel bills paid for 12 years, a full legal team to assist, the right to demand the presence of witnesses and £191 million. His 5,000 pages are the most expensive history
Martin Vander Weyer’s Any Other Business Santander is a port in northern Spain with a population the size of Swindon’s. It is also the eurozone’s largest banking group, an institution that has far outgrown its origins to become the owner, in Britain, of Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and the branch network of the crippled Bradford
