Us politics

Tuesday

Freddy Gray

The Jeb Bush family nostalgia tour isn’t working

Remember when Tony Blair begged Labour supporters not to go for Jeremy Corbyn? Remember how well that turned out? Yesterday in South Carolina, USA, George W. Bush did something not too dissimilar. He didn’t copy Blair’s ‘even if you hate me’ line. Instead, Dubya urged his party, which is seemingly hellbent on destroying itself, to go back to the future. He encouraged them to pick another Bush, namely his brother Jeb. It seems like madness. Everybody knows that Jeb Bush’s candidacy has from the start been crippled by his name. Americans don’t want another Bush in the White House. Republicans may not be quite as hostile towards George W. as Labour grassroots

Sunday

Freddy Gray

Did Donald Trump go too far against Jeb Bush last night? Probably not

If Jeb Bush is to have any chance of winning the Republican nomination in 2016, he needs a ‘media moment’. He needs an exchange of arguments or insults with Donald J. Trump in which he indisputably comes out on top. If you listen to Team Bush’s boosters, that moment happened last night. But they would say that. Trump and Bush clashed fiercely over foreign policy and the legacy of Jeb’s brother, George W. Bush. And the crowd booed Trump. Trump said that the Bush II administration had lied over Iraq. ‘They said there were weapons of mass destruction,’ he said. ‘There were none and they knew there were none. There were no

Thursday

Chris Mullin

Diary – 11 February 2016

While browsing in Barter Books, the wonderful secondhand bookshop in Alnwick that is fast becoming a national institution, I came across a volume of Piers Morgan’s diaries, covering his two years in the United States, judging America’s Got Talent and taking part in Celebrity Apprentice (the Alan Sugar role being played by one Donald Trump). I cannot claim to have been all that keen on Morgan ever since I discovered that in the mid-1990s, when he was an agent of Murdoch, he penned a note to Tony Blair demanding that he silence ‘idiots like Mullin shouting their mouths off about “loathsome tabloids” and my owner’. As you might expect, the

Wednesday

Freddy Gray

The irony of Bernie Sanders: why American kids love the 74-year-old socialist

Manchester, New Hampshire ‘Anybody here got any student debt?’ asks Bernie Sanders halfway through his speech at a rally in a small university on Monday. He then starts conducting a fake auction. ‘What are some of the numbers you got? You? 35,000. You? 55,000? Who else? A young lady here… 100,000 dollars. You win! I don’t know what you win, but you win!’ The students all hoot and chant. ‘Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!’ Sanders cracks an avuncular smile, then starts talking again about how rich the rich are. It’s hard not to like Sanders. It’s hard not to ‘Feel the Bern’, as the mantra goes. He is 74 years old, and

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Populism rules: Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump triumph in New Hampshire

Manchester, New Hampshire Populism won tonight in New Hampshire. Rage against the elite won tonight in New Hampshire. Class warfare came out on top. Bernie Sanders, who wants a ‘political revolution’ to tackle ‘the billionaire class’, thrashed the former First Lady, Hillary Clinton. Donald J. Trump, the billionaire who tells everyone that only he can stop the elite buying Washington, thumped all his rivals. The consolation for both party old guards is that New Hampshire is a strange old state. The Clinton campaign was expecting defeat tonight — even a heavy defeat. In fact, having spent the last few days here, I was unable to see much of a Clinton push. Hillary did some big events, but

Tuesday

Freddy Gray

US election 2016: New Hampshire primary – as it happened

New Hampshire The Spectator’s deputy editor Freddy Gray is currently in New Hampshire. Here’s his report from the evening as the results of the primary came in. 3.13am Things slowing down now, folks. Thanks for reading. Story of the night is Bernie Sanders, just, and the Donald’s mind-blowing win a close second. A goofy 74 year old socialist just destroyed Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, and is tearing the Democratic party apart. And a 69-year-old billionaire is eviscerating the Republican party. Trump looks invincible, but the Cruz campaign is not to be underrated. Hillary has had a bad night, but she may have just about saved her candidacy with a stronger than usual

Mark Gettleson

Will the New Hampshire primary see the return of ‘the crazy’?

As the first results of the Iowa caucus began to come through, a remarkable prospect dawned on US election analysts. There finally seemed to be a way out of ‘the crazy’ that had dominated the Republican race since early summer, following the launch of Donald Trump’s campaign. And what a nine months it has been: the Great Wall of Trump (which Mexico will pay for), his myriad of burn-book-worthy enemies, the rise and fall of Ben Carson, and Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a man even more loathed by the GOP establishment than the New York tycoon. But finally, the Iowa caucuses – that long-standing thorn in the side of both

Sunday

Freddy Gray

Oh dear. Marco Rubio had a shocker in Saturday’s debate

Poor Marco Rubio. At the vital moment, he seems to fluff his lines. In the final months of 2015, America’s lumpencommentariat kept predicting ‘Marco’s moment’. For months, such talk sounded like nothing but hype. Then the Iowa caucuses happened, and Rubio finished a much-stronger-expected third. Finally, his time seemed to have come. Rubio  emerged as the pragmatic choice; the man to prick the Trump bubble; the man to knock out Ted Cruz. The Republican establishment had their man. Phew! Then came last night’s big debate in New Hampshire — and Rubio was awful. As expected, Chris Christie — a failing candidate with nothing to lose — went after him in the early exchanges. Rubio seemed ill-prepared, even a bit scared. “You

Saturday

Charles Moore

Marco Rubio is the only candidate who understands America’s global role

Last week, I was in the United States, where the media are even more subject to groupthink than their British equivalents. Fox News, supposedly the conservative voice, is really much more conformist than it pretends, and specialises in noisy opinion more than real news. The only person I met who got the Republican caucuses absolutely right was Chris Ruddy, founder and CEO of Newsmax, the conservative cable channel which claims to be in ‘42 million US homes’. He told me he thought Cruz would beat Trump and the real winner would be Marco Rubio. So it proves. It is interesting that in a campaign in which all the candidates shout about

Friday

Brendan O’Neill

Feminists want to ‘protect’ Hillary Clinton. Do they realise they are doing her dirty work?

‘Do you really not like Hillary Clinton, or are you just sexist?’ Cosmopolitan actually asked that question last week. Claiming that much anti-Clinton commentary is ‘gender-specific’, with Hillary frequently described as ‘dishonest’ or ‘shrill’, the mag asked Clinton’s critics to search their souls to see if they really do oppose Clinton the politician or just hate women in general. Americans who would rather chew tin foil than vote for Hillary: are you misogynists or what? Cosmo’s implicit branding of Hillary’s critics as sexists — all of them? All those millions of people? — is only the latest stab by the Hillary fanclub to chill criticism of their leader. Never has feminism

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Why is Jeb Bush still running?

Washington, DC The Bush family hates to lose. Yet Jeb Bush — child of one president; brother of another — must know that, barring a miracle, his bid for the White House has failed. In fact, it has been a disaster. Bush started out as overwhelming favourite. He had the Grand Old Party top brass behind him. He had all the money a candidate could wish for. But his candidacy just would not take off. His biggest problem, as everyone knows, is his name. After Iraq and the financial crash, the Bush brand is toxic. Bush tried reinventing himself as ‘Jeb!’, but that was a naff PR stunt. Jeb! was monstered

Tuesday

Freddy Gray

With Hillary Clinton’s hopes in the balance, will Joe Biden now enter the race?

What now for Hillary Clinton? The rumour in Washington last week was that, given her weak position in New Hampshire and the never-ending saga of her emails, if she lost in Iowa, Vice-President Joe Biden would enter the race and spare the blushes of the Democratic establishment. Well, Hillary didn’t lose. But she didn’t win either. She effectively drew with Bernie Sanders in last night’s caucuses in Iowa. Which leaves her candidacy in limbo. Does she still have the confidence of the Democratic machine? Now that Hillary’s hopes are in the balance, will Biden at last take the plunge and declare his candidacy? It is understood that, if he entered the race, Biden would have

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Donald Trump loses, Marco Rubio surges — but don’t forget who actually won last night

The experts knew all along: Donald Trump was never going to win. You can’t trust those caucus and primary polls. Calm down, everybody. The great winner is actually a loser. He couldn’t even beat someone as unattractive as Ted Cruz. If only things were that simple. The truth is that Trump, with no serious ‘ground game’ to speak of in Iowa, came second. It is more than possible that his campaign will now disintegrate. It’s also possible that he will find a way to bounce back and press home his enormous poll lead in New Hampshire next week. But even if Trumpmania does now vanish in a great puff of orange smoke, his candidacy has

Monday

Freddy Gray

Can Marco Rubio win tonight?

Marco Rubio wins tonight in Iowa — by coming third. That, I suspect, will be the on dit among the commentariat this evening in America. And it might not be wrong. According to the latest polls, Rubio is the only candidate to have gained momentum in the run up to today’s caucuses. If the polls aren’t off — big if, I know — he should emerge as the only viable ‘establishment’ candidate that can stop Trump or Cruz. He will emerge as the hope of the rational versus the irrational, the pragmatist’s choice against the stupid and crazy. At least that’s how the ‘narrative’, as strategists like to call it, could develop. (There are reasons to think President Rubio could be

Sunday

Alex Massie

Barack Obama doesn’t talk about Britain? That’s a good thing.

As was often the case, Oscar Wilde was clever and witty but mistaken. There are worse things than being talked about but not being talked about is one of them. For evidence of this we need do little more than consult this graphic compiled by our friends at Politico. Derived from an analysis of more than 2,000 speeches made since he became President, it shows how often various countries have been mentioned by Barack Obama. You will notice that the United Kingdom does not feature. This is a very good thing indeed. Of course, it has not been treated as such by some. See this, eh? So much for the so-called

Friday

Freddy Gray

The absent Donald Trump didn’t lose last night – which probably means he wins

So, did Donald Trump outfox Fox? Shunning the crunch TV debate four days before the opening Iowa caucuses, setting up a rival show with CNN, and thumbing his nose at the most powerful right-of-centre media organisation in the world looked at first like madness. Then it looked like genius. And then, meh, well, who knows? At his rival Veterans event, Trump’s speech was bizarre as usual. “I’ve got to be honest I didn’t want to be here tonight,’ he said. ‘But you have to stick up for your rights when you are treated badly’. It’s difficult to know if Trump believes that his spat with Fox anchor Megyn Kelly —

Thursday

Freddy Gray

Donald Trump will be the elephant not in the room during tonight’s Republican debate

It’s easy to get carried away about televised political debates. But tonight’s Fox News/Google Republican Party showdown really could be a significant moment in American history. By ducking the debate, and picking a fight with Fox, Donald Trump appears ingeniously to have sucked all the media oxygen out of the event. All the headlines continue to be about Trump, and Fox can expect a ratings drop. The elephant in the room will be the elephant not in the room. Still, with less than four days to go until the opening Iowa caucuses, Trump’s absence presents a major opportunity for Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, the second and third-placed candidates in the

Saturday

Freddy Gray

Can Donald Trump be the ‘establishment’ candidate? Yes, he can

It sounds ridiculous, I know. The Grand Old Party, the party of Lincoln, could never want Donald Trump. Everybody knows that the ‘elite’ wants Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush. Trump, with his crazy brew of vulgar populism and economic nationalism, is not their guy. The trouble is, as I wrote in my Spectator piece this week, Trumpmania has been knocking the Republican National Committee’s preferences flat — and the establishment candidates are doing a brilliant job of cancelling each other out. Some party bigwigs are therefore coming to terms with the idea of Trump. Major players behind Romney’s 2012 campaign are now reportedly ‘trying to find their way into Trump’s

Friday

Ed West

Donald Trump is capitalising on America’s declining middle class

While watching MPs in the House of Commons debate banning a politician they find disagreeable, my first thought was to wonder how this chamber once ruled one-quarter of the globe. If Trump becomes president we could not ban him from visiting; if he doesn’t, he doesn’t matter anyway. Either way, having controversial or even obnoxious opinions does not make someone a danger, and we do not need ‘protection’ from them. It is all the more embarrassing when you consider that this country has hundreds if not thousands of genuinely dangerous extremists living here. I’m not sure what to make of this; my instinctive reaction to Trump is that he is rude and

Wednesday

Brendan O’Neill

Spot the difference: Trump wants to ban people; people want to ban Trump

The shamelessly censorious MPs and petition-signers who want Donald Trump banned from Britain are basically saying: ‘Oh my God, he wants to ban people from entering America! This is so outrageous we must ban him from entering Britain.’ Can these people hear themselves? The thing they claim to find repulsive in Trump — that he fantasises about forcefielding his nation against people who have allegedly dodgy ideas (Muslims) — is the very thing they aspire to do. The Trumphobes share Trump’s intolerance of funny-thinking foreigners. They denounce The Donald, but when it comes to being tolerant, open and not a mind-policing, border-enforcing irritant who shuns any outsider who thinks a