A few things that bug me about this whole tax-cutting debate… 1) Even Lord Forsyth’s suggestion of £21 billion worth of cuts is a tiny sum when you remember Brown will this year spend £553bn of our money – rising to £682 billion in 2011/12. Any Tory cut must be put in this context, or
The news that Jenna Bush, the president’s daughter, is engaged and likely to get married long before the family leaves the White House raises some delicious questions of both protocol and politics. The guest-list is sure to be pored over for its meaning and given the Bush family’s tendency to mix the political and the
It’s not possible to be neutral about Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York and now a Republican presidential candidate. You either love him or hate him. The novelist Kevin Baker does not love him. In the August issue of Harper’s Baker gives Giuliani a pretty thorough hiding, in a cover piece (subscription required) headed
Ever since John Redwood’s proposals first began to be floated, the Tories have been accused of lurching to the right. On the Today Programme this morning, Alistair Darling predictably accused the Tories of planning 21 billion pounds worth of spending cuts. While in The Independent today, Colin Brown writes that: “The more Shadow Chancellor George
Today’s papers report that Tony Blair is hoping to pocket £8 million for writing his memoirs. Sadly for the Tories, the book is years away from publication and so won’t see the light of day before the next election. Indeed, if it going to be a genuine account of what happened I doubt that it
Stuart Reid suggests that if we really want to pay a fitting tribute to Elvis thirty years on from his untimely demise we should put up Lawdy Miss Clawdy. So here it is:
Predictably, people are trying to derail the Tory nominating process for London Mayor. It’s an open primary, so the process is open to abuse—with the £1.50 charge unlikely to deter the committed. These attempts at sabotage make it essential that those who actually want the best candidate selected do vote. London deserves a proper contest
George Osborne, who unfairly has been taking much of the flak for the Conservatives’ current woes, has an interview in The Guardian today in which he attacks Brown for failing to spread prosperity out across the country from London. Osborne is, rightly, trying to tie Brown to the failures of the Blair years such as
David Beckham’s attempt to crack America continues apace. Last week, The New York Daily News reports, Beckham was given a private tour of the White House. His presence sparked confusion amongst those staff members not familiar with Brand Beckham, with the president’s private secretary asking him if he was a relative of Bush’s or a
Any Coffehousers still hunting for a holiday read should pick up a copy of Alex James’s Bit of a Blur, which is keeping me company in Andalucía. For those who care, this is the second indispensable account of Nineties culture to appear (the first being John Harris’s The Last Party). For everyone else, this is
Do read this excellent essay in the IHT about why India and Pakistan’s fortunes have diverged so much since partition. While the 60th anniversary of Indian independence, is as good an excuse as any to re-read Nehru’s wonderful “tryst with destiny” speech.
The BBC’s coverage of the Redwood report has come in for much criticism, notably from The Sun and Iain Dale. Helen Boaden, the director of BBC News, has now responded, conceding that the BBC’s use of footage of Redwood failing to sing the Welsh national anthem was inappropriate but defending the substance of the reporting. Boaden lists
Tensions between Tehran and Washington will reach new levels with the news that the US intends to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation. This allows the US to disrupt the organisation’s funding and take steps against those companies that do business with it. The Revolutionary Guard is the first governmental entity that
Why do photos of world leaders on holiday hold such fascination for us? The shots of Vladimir Putin fishing seem to be everywhere today, I’ve spared you the one of him topless, while the New York Times has an entire collection of vacationing politicians snaps up on its site. Anne Applebaum has an entertaining column
The Sun reports this morning that Gordon Brown’s holidays are over. He’ll be working for the rest of the summer from his constituency in Scotland. So, Brown took a total of four hours and five minutes off before heading back to London to deal with the foot and mouth crisis. Is this the shortest holiday
No one is more crucial to the future of the Coalition effort in Iraq than David Petraeus, the US commander there. Petraeus is seen by hawks as this war’s Ulysses S. Grant, the man who can turn around the mistakes of his predecessors and forge a victory from unpromising beginnings. This New York Times profile
Watching the Bush-Rove conference, it was impossible not to feel that this was the end of an era. The president admitted he soon be gone too; telling Rove “I’ll be on the road behind you here in a little bit.” While both Rove and Bush were clearly moved by the moment. Rove’s departure signals that
As the 10th anniversary of Diana’s death approaches we’re going to spend a lot of time debating whether or not the public reaction to her death ushered in a new, more emotionally open Britain or whether it was a mawkish display of grief which we all ought to be rather embarrassed about. As Jonathan Freedland
I am almost certainly in a minority of one on this, but I suspect that John Prescott’s memoirs will be a lot more interesting than people are expecting. On all the Blair retrospective programmes, it was noticeable how frank Prescott was about how bad things had got between Blair and Brown. I also can’t help