With only ten days to go, the great mystery of the Blair era remains the PM’s failure to push Bush harder – or at all – on post-war reconstruction in Iraq. I gather Hillary Clinton regards this is a completely inexplicable failure on the part of her old ally (while understanding his need to stay
Blair’s conscience Sir: Charles Moore may be correct that Mr Blair wishes to become a Catholic on relinquishing office (The Spectator’s Notes, 9 June). Whether this is appropriate or not is another matter. Throughout his time in Parliament Mr Blair has failed consistently to follow the unequivocal teaching of the Church — on the protection
The FT has a story today about how Nicolas Sarkozy is touting one A. Blair as a possible president of Europe. I actually think this is distinctly unhelpful for the government, it will be much harder for it to resist calls for a referendum if it looks like Blair is one of the big beneficiaries
Salman Rushdie’s knighthood is bound to be criticised in some quarters, but, in its way, it is a historic moment, a collective rite of recognition for an author who paid a terrible personal price for his readiness to write candidly about the problems, confusions and vibrant possibilities of our post-colonial, mixed-up, multi-faith world. Midnight’s Children
In describing his relationship with the press, Thomas Jefferson said that he had been ‘used as the property of the newspapers, a fair mark for every man’s dirt’. Yet the third President of the United States was also a zealous champion of press freedom. ‘Were it left to me to decide whether we should have
Slate has a fun, little piece up on a possible ending to the final Harry Potter story. I expect we’ll see a lot more of these before the book comes out on the 21st of July. Indeed, William Hill are even running a book on who might kill Harry Potter with Voldemort the favourite at
In the whole debate over Iraq, this number struck me as important: 77% of Americans think that it is likely they’ll be all out civil war in Iraq if US forces leave. The strongest argument against leaving Iraq is that civil war would follow and it is reassuring to see that the US public accept
The indispensable OpenEurope has just done a guide to the leaked Merkel memo which appears in The Times today. So it’s official: this is a stitch up. The German presidency makes clear the substance of the old constitution will be enacted, but under different language. As I say in the cover piece, this is a
Having finally caught up with the Labour deputy leadership Question Time, I think that the bookies have it right: Alan Johnson must be the favourite. He was head and shoulders above the other candidates last night with the possible exception of Hazel Blears, though her 1st year Hermione Granger-style enthusiasm could grate with voters in
Garsington Opera on a warm, damp Thursday evening. I’ve been chairing a pre-performance talk on La donna del lago between the conductor David Parry and Rossini scholar Philip Gossett, and now I’ve been given a seat in the orchestra pit to watch the show, as the auditorium is completely sold out. Somewhere behind me, out
It is hard to see anything good coming out of this brutal civil war in Gaza right now. But Martin Indyk, US ambassador to Israel under Bill Clinton, sketches out a positive—and possible—end-game in the Washington Post today : Whatever transpires, Gaza has become Hamas’s problem. It’s a safe bet that the real attitude of
For some time, New Labour has been looking for a fresh-sounding name for the post-Blair era. I have heard “New New Labour” (too daft), “Neo-Labour” (too close to “neo-con”), “New Labour-Plus” (David Miliband’s formula), “Real Labour” (code for “Old Labour”) and even just “Labour” (code for “can we stop all this branding stuff please?”). On
Mostly I am feeling too depressed about what’s happening in Gaza to even find words to comment on it. Civil war has been looming for so long, and yet I kept hoping against hope that it wouldn’t actually break; that somehow, something would change to divert things from their inexorable path. For once, on this
If the Blairs are rather down about leaving Downing Street, they should consider this: Bill Clinton raked in more than $10 million from his various speaking engagements last year. Tony might soon be joining those friends of his from school and university who, as he once said, “ended up so rich.” Indeed, maybe he should be
The fact that the violence in Iraq has not reached the point of no return after yesterday’s bombing of the mosque at Samara is reassuring. John Burns, the New York Times’ incomparable Baghdad correspondent, has a must-read on why the reaction to-date has been so muted. If the situation remains calm, in relative terms, through
The Times reports today that the Cabinet has held a whip round for leaving presents for Blair and Prescott and that they’ve got £1,600 to spend on the two of them. What should they give Blair apart from a card saying thanks for the majorities? The gift can’t be too extravagant as that would upset
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
“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
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
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