At the New Republic, Gabe Sherman has a fun piece about the rise and rise of Politico, DC’s in-house paper for political intrigue and gossip. There’s plenty to consider: Politico is essentially a web-paper that carries ads in a small circulation print edition circulated on Capitol Hill and K Street. At the moment – though
An excellent post from Blimpish, making the point that while Labour governments tend to be elected with great enthusiasm, voters are usually more cautious when choosing Conservative ministries. It was only in 1983 that Thatcher won her landslide (Reagan, of course, emulated her example in 1984). And as he says, you don’t need to win
Here’s today’s nominee for Most Deluded Man in Britain (Non-Government Division): Wigan head coach Brian Noble believes Super League clubs should be buying up rugby union’s big stars. The former GB coach is advocating the scheme in order to bring more British and Irish talent into the sport. “Every club should be given a remit
George Monbiot raises a complaint one has seen several times lately: Had Heathrow’s third runway been debated only by English MPs, the proposal would have been resoundingly defeated; it was approved by 19 votes, after 67 MPs from the other nations were induced to support the government. They can support such measures without any electoral
The Conservatives new approach to localism – or subsidiarity – deserves a couple of cheers. It is at least a step in the right direction. Just as well since, allied with Tory education policy and, one might argue, some burnished environmental credentials, this “New Localism” is supposed to be the “Big Idea” animating a renewed,
I take my hat off to Katty Kay. Writing at the Daily Beast she comes up with a novel criticism of the Obama administration: it’s too fond of sports metaphors. Seriously. This, apparently, is “insidiously sexist” and consequently unfair to female political reporters trying to understand how the White House is approaching any given matter.
A statement of the obvious perhaps, but a welcome one nonetheless given that it’s hard to see how Stella Rimington, as a former head of MI5, can sensibly be caricatured as a weak-kneed, soft-on-terrorism simpleton: “Since I have retired I feel more at liberty to be against certain decisions of the Government, especially the attempt
Like King Canute, Marie Antoinette is a much-misunderstood and, generally speaking, a much and unfairly maligned figure. Disappointingly, this time the guilty party is my old boss Iain Martin. For shame. Iain hazards that Peter Mandelson’s suggestion that everyone try and keep their heads in these turbulent times since there is “no value in creating
James fears that Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms may be in trouble if he can’t win enough Republican support to convince centrist voters. In other words, he’ll be too much beholden to the left-wing of the Democratic party. Well, perhaps. But centrist voters in 2009 are rather to the left of where they were in 1993,
Brother Bright gives some of his reasons for hoping that Labour will prevail at the next election here. As a good man of the left, one would expect no less from him. And he’s right, I think, to suppose that we’d be facing many of the same problems had David Cameron and Georgie Osbourne been
As if determined to prove my point about the absurd excesses of the GOP’s love for Winston Churchill, consider this entertaining snippet culled from the pages of the Washington Post: But Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), the House minority whip who led the fight to deny Obama every GOP vote for the plan, is studying Winston
LONDON, ENGLAND – FEBRUARY 16: Photojournalists stage an act of mass photography outside New Scotland Yard police station on February 16, 2009 in London. The event aims to highlight the threat of an amendment to the Counter Terrorism Act that could be used to prevent press photographers taking pictures of the police. (Photo by Oli
So Obama has said he doesn’t feel the need for his presidency to be reinforced by the presence of a British-government-owned bust of Winston Churchill in the Oval Office. As my friend Tim Shipman reports, the bust, loaned to George W Bush after 9/11, is now in the care of the British Embassy in Washington.
It’s an ill-wind that fails to blow in any silver-lined clouds and the current financial difficulties are no exception. It seems that Sir Allen Stanford, the Texan financier determined to “crack” the American “market” with Twenty20 cricket may be in a spot of bother himself. I’m going to guess that having people suggest you could
From Andrew Rawnsley’s (must-read) column yesterday: A member of the no contrition tendency in the cabinet says: “Gordon apologise? Bugger that. No way. People don’t want to see him wringing his hands. They don’t want him to get into this psycho-babble. They want him to get the job done.” Is this actually true? I mean,
Several readers take me to task for not substantiating the suggestion that Geert Wilders is, as I put it, a “boor and a bigot”. This, apparently, is a “shoddy tactic” and absent any substantiating evidence I should “withdraw the comment” and, asks Francis, is Wilders “really worse than your average Socialist”? Wilhelm, meanwhile, wonders if
Just in case you had any doubts that cricket is the worst-run sport in the world, further proof comes from today’s farce in Antigua. Even by cricket’s lofty standards this is a disgraceful shambles. England were embarrassed in Jamaica; the entire sport is embarrassed by this nonsense. Ian Botham has just recommended moving the game
The sad thing is that you can no longer consider this sort of thing surprising: Security cameras have long been a fact of Scottish life, viewed with relief by many communities and with suspicion by civil libertarians. But what if they were listening to you as well? It has already happened in Glasgow. A Dutch
Peter is quite right. Both in his own analysis of the Geert Wilders fiasco and in recommending Philip Johnston’s excellent piece in the Telegraph. It’s worth remembering, reiterating even, that Wilders was, we are told, in Britain just two or three months ago. That visit went un-noticed and passed off without controversy as would this
In his Prospect piece on “Red Toryism” (of which more later) Philip Blond refers to “Cameroonian conservatism” and he’s hardly alone in talking about “Cameroonianism” and the so-called “Cameroons” who follow Dave. Who chose these labels? And why? I mean, the perfectly sensible – and real! – word “Cameronian” already existed. Is it because no-one