Today sees the launch of an intriguing new international group, The Elders. It is a collection of aging, diplomatic all-stars who will join forces to push issues up the international agenda. The cast is pretty stellar: Nelson Mandela and his wife, Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, Muhammad Yunus et al. The whole idea makes sense–even if
From the always entertaining Beau Bo D’Or
George W. Bush’s former speechwriter Michael Gerson takes a swing at Rudy Giuliani in today’s Washington Post saying that the Republican president Rudy resembles is not Reagan but Nixon. Gerson lays out how Giuliani is on the wrong side of Catholic teachings on everything from abortion to torture and claims that, “No one inspired by the social
Boris mania has, understandably, rather crowded out coverage of this Thursday’s Ealing Southall by-election. But the result will be key to the political mood over the summer. If the Tories get within 3 figures of Labour, it will ease the pressure on David Cameron that has built as Labour’s lead has widened. It will show
Mike Read, the former Top of the Pops presenter who was touted as a possible Tory Mayoral candidate, has announced today that he’s backing Boris. If Coffee Housers see any other Boris endorsements send them along to us.
If you want a handy primer on why so many people think we’re slipping into a new Cold War, read Fraser Nelson’s cover story on the Russian arms build up under Vladimir Putin. As Fraser points out, while we’ve been fixated on the Middle East, Putin has been preparing the ground for an aggressive restoration
It has been a blistering first 24 hours for The Candidate. But who would have thought that Day Two would begin with the passing of such a significant Non-Electoral Milestone – the condemnation of Boris by the Guardian’s in-house funster and Coffee House’s choice to write the next Bond novel, Polly Toynbee? In a column
The key to Barack Obama’s phenomenal fund-raising success, $58.6 million raised so far, is that he is working both ends of the spectrum equally hard. He is playing the grassroots card for all its worth by registering anyone who buys so much as bumper sticker as a donor and has raised more in small donations
As Boris steps up to the plate, a word in praise of the man who is now advising him and would, barring an illness, be running as a first-class candidate for London Mayor himself. Nick Boles is one of the best and the brightest of the Cameron Conservative Party, very much in its in innermost
“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