“Surely what Londoners want is a Mayor who not only gives a lead – and champions the arts and culture of the city in every way – but who also keeps his government simple, doesn’t trample needlessly over the councils, and directs his intellectual energy at the core problems: transport, housing, crime.” If that’s what
This exchange between Lindsey Graham, John McCain’s right-hand man, and Jim Webb, Ronald Reagan’s navy secretary who is now an anti-war Democrat, gives you a good idea of how heated the Iraq debate is now getting in the States. Senators, who pride themselves on their Roman reserve, don’t squabble like this in public. The debate
Even as I write, the television screen is alight with the long-awaited words: “Boris to stand.” The great man is, as Coffee Housers know, the Spectator’s official candidate and there is much work to do in the months ahead to get him into the mayoral office and at the helm of the greatest city the world
Andrew Rawnsley’s column in today’s Observer on quite how much Brown and Cameron dislike each other is essential reading. As one Brown ally tells Rawnsley, ‘Gordon could only be more contemptuous of him if Cameron were a lawyer.’ How the two sides handle this enmity is going to be key to the next election result.
Further to James’s post on the dreadful Lord Malloch Brown, my column in today’s Sunday Telegraph addresses the predicament facing Gordon Brown. I doubt the PM will be remotely sentimental if the foreign minister drops another Malloch (so to speak). Watch Andrew Marr’s interview with David Miliband for a clear signal of the stakes: the
Gordon Brown’s government has gone from blunder to blunder in Anglo-American relations. First it ennobled and hires Mark Malloch Brown, a talentless UN bureaucrat known only for his hostility to America (and vice versa). Then it approves Douglas Alexander’s speech, not realising how the haughty and misjudged line about ‘build, don’t destroy’ would go down.
The Sunday Telegraph’s ICM poll is a serious blow to David Cameron, not least because it coincides with the disclosure that Tony Lit, the Tory candidate in Ealing Southall, gave £4800 to Labour. The picture of Mr Lit standing next to a beaming Tony Blair will be very hard to recover from. On the national
Sir: Charles Moore’s insinuation (Spectator’s Notes, 7 July) that following Alan Johnston’s release the BBC would now report Hamas more sympathetically is baseless. Beeb remains unbiased Sir: Charles Moore’s insinuation (Spectator’s Notes, 7 July) that following Alan Johnston’s release the BBC would now report Hamas more sympathetically is baseless. If he needs evidence he should
If Douglas Alexander’s speech yesterday–or, more accurately the spin applied to it–prompted concerned phone calls from Washington and a memo from Gordon to the cabinet to go easy with the Bush bashing, then one wonders what Mark Malloch Brown’s quite extraordinary interview with the Telegraph will prompt. Malloch Brown, Kofi Annan’s former chief of staff,
A fortnight ago we urged David Cameron to raise his game after Gordon Brown’s impressively bold start as Prime Minister. A fortnight ago we urged David Cameron to raise his game after Gordon Brown’s impressively bold start as Prime Minister. In his response to the report by Iain Duncan Smith’s social justice policy group, the
The most comprehensive coverage of the Conrad Black trial can be found at the Canadian magazine Maclean’s. For a firm defence of Black, check out Mark Steyn’s blog on the trial.
David Cameron told Jon Snow last night that in proposing tax breaks for married couples — whether straight or gay — he was ‘not moralising, not preaching’. His social affairs guru, Iain Duncan Smith, who inspired Cameron’s new family-friendly policy, made the same point earlier in the week. ‘It is not about finger-wagging or moralising.’
When I supported the Iraq war, it was certainly for the aims James mentioned. And yes, I’m feasting on humble pie now. And Stuart’s right to say that even the Republicans are deserting Bush – the House has just voted to pull out troops by Spring. So I suspect Wee Dougie’s speech will be at
Come off it, James. American did not go to war to ‘set about a phenomenally ambitious project to build democracies in parts of the world where they had never succeeded before’. America went to war to extract the blood price for 9/11. Saddam was identified with the terrorists. He was said to have weapons of
Martin Bright has an intriguing interview with Ming Campbell in this week’s New Statesman. In it, Ming confirms that he and Brown discussed the possibility of current Lib Dem frontbench MPs serving in Brown’s cabinet. Yet, interestingly, it seems that the possibility of Campbell himself taking a job was not discussed. Campbell also tells Bright
His critics called him vain, snobbish, jumped-up and vicious – all true – but Nigel Dempster was also generous (he felt uncomfortable if anyone else paid for lunch); charming (displaying exaggerated and affected old-world manners which made women redden with appreciation) and exceptionally funny (with a theatrical sense of timing when recounting a juicy anecdote).
The best suggestion by a Coffee Houser for a new author of James Bond stories was Simon Chapman who proposed The Guardian’s in-house funster, Polly Toynbee. A bottle of champagne is on its way to Simon: congratulations! Here is how we think the book might begin: DIAMONDS ARE FOR TAXING by Polly Toynbee Bond walked
If you want to know how Brand Beckham will be marketed in the States take a look at the storyboards for the ad campaign that is being launched to promote his first game for the LA Galaxy. One of the most intriguing things about Beckham’s arrival in the US, as Sports Illustrated points out, is
Life is full of little ironies. I am just off to the BBC’s Millbank studios to do some recording for The Week in Westminster. Meanwhile, I have spent much of the afternoon having acrimonious conversations with senior BBC management. The cause? The Corporation has decided to withdraw permission from Emily Maitlis, star Newsnight and News
I rarely allow myself to be “Outraged of Westminster”, but this scandalous post by Jim Shelley, the Mirror’s TV critic, has forced me to make an exception. Ricky Gervais has not “lost it” or become a “tiresome embarrassment”. Indeed, the miracle of the man is that he has managed to escape the role of David