If you can divert your attention away from the Ashes for a second, then I’d recommend you read John Rentoul’s fascinating interview with Michael Gove in today’s Independent on Sunday. The two most eye-catching passages concern Gove’s “ultra-Blarism” and his thoughts on foreign policy. The Blairism first: “And when I ask if it is wise
Brace yourselves, it’s leadership speculation time again. A story in the Mail on Sunday alleges that Alistair Darling has been attacking Brown in private – “I am trying to talk sense into that man…” – before adding this: “Last night there were claims that backers of Home Secretary Alan Johnson – widely seen as the
The Tories will be pleased. After the #welovetheNHS brouhaha of the past couple of weeks, a ComRes poll in tomorrow’s Independent on Sunday gives them a healthy lead on the NHS. In response to the statement “The NHS would be safer under Labour than the Conservatives,” 39 percent of respondents said they agreed, while 47
So what overarching theory do Cameron & Co. believe in now? Is it Phillip Blond’s “Red Toryism”? Are they still invigorated by “libertarian paternalism”? Or have they struck on something else? This week’s Bagehot column in the Economist gives us a useful overview of all the -isms the Tories have gone through recently, before landing
Fantastic, thought-provoking stuff by Matthew Parris in the Times today, as he looks back on the past 12 years of Tory opposition and asks: “Just what did they achieve?” His response is generally unfavourable: that, until more recently, the wilderness years have largely been wasted years. And he highlights the Tories’ inability to take on
Here at Coffee House Towers, we frequently point out the risks with the Tories’ pledge to keep on increasing health spending in real terms. As I suggested last week, the two main problems are that it plays up the Brownite idea that spending is a good thing in itself, and it could force the Tories
There will be few more moving entries in the NHS debate than Ian Birrell’s article in the Independent today, and I’d urge all CoffeeHousers to read it. Birrell recounts his attempts to get his disabled daughter treated in the system, and the result is a catalogue of ineptitude, frustration and – even – deception. One
I’ve just got round to reading the Economist’s interview with David Cameron, and this passage jumped out at me: “If a fiscal squeeze is on its way the Tories will want to win a mandate for it. ‘Getting the deficit under control will make or break my government,’ he admits. Accordingly, more fine print will
Oh dear. The Twitter wars are continuing apace, now that David Cameron has risen to John Prescott’s challenge of a debate on the NHS. The mediators are the Manchester Evening News, who have just published Cameron’s response to Prescott on their Twitter feed. So what is it? Erm, this: “The real question is why won’t
Guido went there, and the newspapers decided to follow. After the political blogosphere’s favourite son outed Kevan Jones as the minister behind the attempted smear campaign against Richard Dannatt, the defence minister gets namechecked in all of this morning’s publications. Jones is, naturally, distancing himself from the accusations – but there are intriguing hints that
I’m not sure how I missed Hamish McRae’s latest column in my morning dash through the papers but, now I’ve seen it, I’d recommend it to all CoffeeHousers. Why? Well, it’s the bottom line on the debate about limiting high pay that has been rumbling on for the past few days; a cogent reminder of
So, Sir Patrick Cormack has proposed a solution to the expenses row: doubling MPs’ pay to around £130,000 and then banning all allowances, save those which pay for staff and the maintenance of a constituency office. The general response has been dismissive – a “Tory grandee” sparking “outrage” – and both Labour and the Lib
There’s an intriguing story in today’s Telegraph about how the Tories plan to “decapitate” – that is, target and win the seats of – certain Labour ministers come the next election. The list is said to include Alastair Darling, Ed Balls and Jack Straw. Here’s what a “senior shadow cabinet source” told the paper: “Certain
It’s frequently pointed out that our involvement in Afghanistan is based more on a political consensus than a public one. Deep swathes of the country want to get out troops out of harm’s way – but many in Westminster feel that the job needs seeing through to the end, to help prevent the spread of
I’ve just got back to my desk after watching David Cameron in conversation with Nassim Nicholas Taleb – the author of The Black Swan, and one of those folk hailed as a “prophet” of the Crash – over at the RSA. Although, to be honest, “conversation” might be stretching it. Until it came to questions
So the Times reveals something we all half-knew already: that Alistair Darling dug his heels in when there was talk of him being ousted from the Treasury during the last reshuffle. Here’s the lowdown: “Alistair Darling remained as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the June reshuffle after telling Gordon Brown that he would leave the
There’s little denying that the planets aligned just right for Gordon Brown last week: a Tory in cahoots with those dastardly folk on the “American right”; a chance to defend that popular cause, the NHS; and all wrapped up in a funky new medium which the papers love to write about. But there are signs
So far as political stories are concerned, the Sunday papers are surprisingly action-packed. Few are more eye-grabbing, though, than this item on p.2 of the Sunday Times, headlined “Tory benefit cuts may raise jobless to 4m”. Sounds bad, huh? But, when you read the full thing, it turns out that the Tories may have had
I know most CoffeeHousers have more than had their fill of Peter Mandelson stories, but it’s worth reading the quotes from an interview with him in today’s Times. Why so? Well, because they distill some of the main attacks Labour will aim at the Tories over the coming months. The central charge is that –
Osborne’s interview with the Guardian is mostly getting coverage for his attack on “unacceptable” banking bonuses. But I reckon a passage about the Tories’ commitment to ring-fence the health budget from spending cuts may be more significant: “Only health and international development have been ring-fenced – though today, when it comes to health spending, [Osborne]