The Spectator

Where will Gordon go first?

Benedict Brogan’s always excellent blog has an interesting post on the question of what Brown’s first foreign trip as leader will be. As Brogan notes, if Brown goes to Paris and Berlin he risks looking like the new kid in the class eager for approval from his peers—a danger that has been heightened by Sarkozy

A friendly mistake

“We’ve gone on holiday by mistake”. So says Richard E Grant’s unforgettable character in Withnail & I. The other day I was trying to get on to Facebook to list myself as one my wife’s friends and write something nice – an innocent enough objective, I thought. Somewhere down the line – not quite sure

The Tony n’ Dave show, catch it while you can

A few thoughts from the penultimate Cameron v Blair show. The Prime Minister has a new phrase, “the end of waiting as we know it,” which doesn’t mean waiting has ended at all. He’s sharply reduced the number waiting over six months. But the median inpatient wait for an NHS operation is 5.4 weeks, exactly

Checking up on progress

At PMQs today, David Cameron raised the whole question of what had happened to the information sharing measures which were supposedly going to be put in place after the Soham murders to protect children from paedophiles. For some background on the matter, do read this article by Tessa Mayes which details just how slowly the process

Brown’s team

One of the most significant disclosures about the incoming Brown regime is the news today that the next PM will bring Jeremy Heywood back into Number Ten as head of domestic policy and strategy. After working for Norman Lamont and Ken Clarke, Heywood was Blair’s private secretary between 1999 and 2003, and was one of

Iraq on the brink

The news that the Shiite mosque in Samara has been hit by terrorists is extremely worrying. It was the attack on this site in 2006 that prompted one of the most devastating waves of sectarian violence since the fall of Saddam. Over the next few days, we will find out if civil war in Iraq

You won’t have Tony to kick around anymore

Enoch Powell famously said that “For a politician to complain about the press is like a ship’s captain complaining about the sea.” For Tony Blair to complain about spin is like… well, words fail me. But the Prime Minister had plenty of words about how the wicked media has corrupted the message of the virtuous

Blair’s red lines

Mark Mardell has a handy guide to the negotiations on the EU Constitution. He identifies four red lines for Blair and Brown. • Calling it a constitution, or any mention of flags or anthems. That battle was won ages ago.• The idea that this is “a consolidating treaty” – Blair wants it to be “an

Richard Rorty-one kind of Tory

Richard Rorty – who died last week – was a playful thinker and a serious philosopher. In his time he attracted attacks from the committed left – and the equally convinced right. Great big clunking fists came at him from both directions and on both sides of the Atlantic – so he must have been getting something

For God’s sake

God has had a hard time of it lately, what with Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens weighing in to see who can be the most aggressive Alpha Atheist. Then again, He has been coping pretty well with heavy duty theological attack for – well, since Adam and Eve. But I see no reason why God

Brown’s mind is made up on Iraq

When you hear that Gordon Brown is engaged in “fact-finding”, you can assume with complete confidence that he has made his mind up on a subject – whatever it is – and is now holding a “review” to validate his conclusion. Ask poor Derek Wanless, who was hauled in to put intellectual flesh on Gordon’s

The Sarko revolution

History continues to be made in France following Nicolas Sarkozy’s election as president last month. Yesterday’s first round parliamentary elections were an absolute triumph for his centre-right UMP party, which annihilated the Socialists. Prior to Sarkozy’s election, the UMP party and government were deeply unpopular; the turnaround since has been truly remarkable and probably unprecedented

Debating life

The abortion debate continues, but with the continued absence of the key statistic. How many pregnancies in this country end in an abortion? In my experience, people guess at around 10% or lower. In fact it’s is one in four in England (26.1%) and one in three in London (33%). It’s hard to consider these

Their rules

This primer in the New York Times on what jihadis consider to be the rules of war is fascinating. Seemingly the only restrictions are that, with the exception of Iraq, you can’t kill in the country where you live unless you were born there and that you have to get consent from your parents for

Letters to the Editor | 9 June 2007

Malan is an anti-racist Sir: As a South African liberal, I regard both Rian Malan and Ken Owen with the highest affection and respect. However, Owen is completely wrong and Malan completely right in the matter of the South African government’s approach to Robert Mugabe. Owen is talking nonsense when (Letters, 2 June) he suggests

Fond farewells | 9 June 2007

I caught the end of the Darcey Bussell farewell after an evening at the birthday party of Blair’s departing head of communications, Ben Wegg-Prosser, an event attended by many of the ur-Blairites who were there from the very start in 1994. Watching the tearful ballerina dodging flowers thrown by the adoring fans, the curtain calls,

Vlad the Blackmailer

‘We will have to get new targets in Europe,’ Vladimir Putin said in an interview last week. ‘Which weapons will be used …ballistic missiles, cruise missiles or some completely new systems — that’s a technical matter.’ The apparent purpose of this outburst was geopolitical blackmail. Ostensibly at least, the Russian President was warning George W.