More from The Week

Saturday

The Spectator

Unyielding hope

One of Robert F. Kennedy’s favourite passages of poetry was drawn from Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’: ‘Come, my friends,/ ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world./ Push off, and sitting well in order smite/ The sounding furrows… strong in will/ To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.’ On 4 November, the American people decided unambiguously to embrace that spirit of hope. Like Ulysses in the poem, John McCain embodied the doughty virtues of the veteran warrior. But it was the chance to ‘seek a newer world’ — the mesmeric promise of ‘change’ — that America voted for in its overwhelming endorsement of Senator Barack Obama.

Saturday

The Spectator

Riders on the storm

It is one of the peculiarities of a recession that it cannot officially be acknowledged until, often, it is already history. This week, we learned that the economy shrunk 0.5 per cent in the third quarter of 2008. It will not be until January, however, when two quarters of negative growth have been recorded, that Gordon Brown will finally reach his statistical Stalingrad, and we will officially be in recession. It is futile for anyone to talk now about ‘avoiding’ recession. We can no more avoid recession than we can avoid the Beijing Olympics, or anything else which started last summer. Yet that hasn’t stopped the Prime Minister this week trying to convince us that he can somehow avoid the statistically inevitable.

Kate Chisholm

Powerful prose

To the British Academy last week for a heartening prizewinning ceremony. No gongs, no red carpet, no dangerous stilettos on this occasion — not even a fabulous cheque to dole out to the winners. But instead tributes (and modest money) to the work of two writers — Adam Beeson and Stephen Wyatt — who have crafted original work for radio. The prizes are given each year in memory of two great radio men, the comic writer Peter Tinniswood, who made his name on TV but transferred, and the script editor and drama guru Richard Imison, who brought so many great writers over to the listening medium including Samuel Beckett, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, Tom Stoppard and Harold Pinter.

Saturday

The Spectator

Schoolboy errors

In December 1998, as Peter Mandelson resigned from the Cabinet for the first time, he and Tony Blair spelt out a modern doctrine for responsible political conduct. ‘We came to power promising to uphold the highest possible standards in public life,’ Mandelson wrote to Blair. ‘We have not just to do so, but we must be seen to do so’ (italics added). The then Prime Minister replied: ‘As you said to me “we can’t be like the last lot”.’ This, rather than any technical breach of the rules, was why Mr Mandelson had to go ten years ago, when his secret £373,000 home loan from Geoffrey Robinson was disclosed.

The Spectator

The Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year Awards | 25 October 2008

The final full week of nominations for The Spectator’s Readers’ Representative Award has brought forth nominations for two female MPs on opposite sides of the abortion debate, Diane Abbott and Nadine Dorries. Kate Smurthwaite applauds Abbott for tabling an amendment to the Human Fertilisation Embryology Bill which would allow women in Northern Ireland to have abortions. Smurthwaite says, ‘This would end the situation where 6,000 women a year are forced to save, borrow or steal £600 to £2,000 to travel to England to gain access to abortion services. It takes the bold view that a woman’s right to choose is just that — her right, and proposes that it apply uniformly to all women in the UK, ending 40 years of injustice.

Saturday

The Spectator

The Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year Awards | 18 October 2008

The financial crisis is affecting the nominations for the inaugural Spectator Readers’ Representative with Vince Cable receiving more support than a semi-nationalised bank. Dr Peter Roberts sums up the sentiments of many when he proposes Cable on the grounds that he is ‘the only British politician who has emerged with any credit from the recent (and continuing) debacle’. A. Warmington nominates that supposed man of the hour Gordon Brown for ‘the deft footwork and brazen chutzpah whereby he now is claiming credit for fixing the banking crisis and being the Great Helmsman guiding us through these choppy waters — whereas in reality he is saddling us all with mountainous debts for decades to come’. Daniel Hannan, MEP, has his supporters.

The Spectator

Keynesianism isn’t the answer

From their vantage point in the celestial senior common room, John Maynard Keynes and John Kenneth Galbraith must be observing current events, if not with pleasure, then at least with the satisfaction of those whose ideas have unexpectedly been retrieved from history’s wastepaper basket. Having watched financial markets repeat the spiral of recklessness, delusion and collateral damage that he first observed in 1929, Galbraith will no doubt have recalled his condemnation of ‘the euphoria of self-conceit’ and his view that free-market economics were never more than a rationalisation of vested interests by a greedy elite.

Saturday

The Spectator

The Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year Awards | 11 October 2008

Nominations continue to roll in for the inaugural Spectator’s Readers’ Representative. This week saw several MPs nominated for their campaigning work. Richard Hamilton proposes Nadine Dorries. Hamilton commends Dorries for addressing the issue of term limits for abortion with a ‘tenaciousness and passion that caught the public’s attention in a remarkable way’. He applauds her for explaining how the 1967 legislation has resulted, against the intent of the original act, in half a million abortions being carried out each year and for her courage in carrying on in the face of hostility from her opponents. Iain Duncan Smith is nominated by Adrian Fry.

Irwin Stelzer

Politics | 11 October 2008

Gordon Brown’s critics are confused. For months they have been accusing him of dithering, of timidity, of being unable to make the bold moves that are needed if his government is to get a grip on the unfolding problems in the financial sector and, now, in the economy as a whole. Now that he has shown more than a bit of both decisiveness and courage by bringing Peter Mandelson back from what most fair-minded people recognise is a credible stint as European trade commissioner, the critics have shifted gears. Mandelson is not the man to help craft policies with which to fight the emerging economic crisis because... well, because he is Peter Mandelson.

The Spectator

A necessary evil

The Spectator on the Government's £50 billion bailout Though largely forgotten now, the headlines ten years ago this week had an uncanny resemblance to those of the past few days. There was an emergency bail-out, demands to slash interest rates, bankers warning that the world’s economic system was in danger of systemic collapse — countered by disgusted voices warning that nothing good would come of using taxpayers’ cash to prop up failed financiers. The only difference was the scale. The bail-out of the collapsed hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management in 1998 cost US taxpayers $2.3 billion. This week’s bail-outs will cost US taxpayers $700 billion and British taxpayers £50 billion.

Saturday

The Spectator

The Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year Awards

Nominations for the inaugural Spectator’s Readers’ Representative award are now open. The entries received so far show that there are at least some elected officials who have earned both the trust and respect of their constituents. Oliver Mitchell puts forward Dr Julian Lewis, part of the shadow defence team. Mitchell, 19, met Lewis at the Festival for Heroes event and was touched by the interest that Lewis took in him. Mitchell concedes that his view is biased but says ‘were more MPs able to make so positive an impression in one chance meeting, the faith in politicians of the public and armed forces might be restored’.   Gary Powell nominates Anne Milton, the MP for Guildford.

The Spectator

The leader we need

The latest news in the financial crisis is that, after weeks of blame-calling by all parties — generally misdirected, as Dennis Sewell argues in our cover story — a single culprit has at last been identified. It is human nature — that incorrigible force which makes us want too much of a good thing when it is within easy reach, and makes us dangerously complacent about risk when the going is good. It was human nature that made bankers behave irresponsibly when their judgment was warped by the temptation of giant bonuses; it made homebuyers and credit-card holders overreach themselves when they were offered too much cheap credit; it made politicians overborrow and encourage market folly when they thought it would buy them electoral popularity.

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson

Politics | 1 October 2008

The champagne ban was non-negotiable: David Cameron did not want any of his aides drinking bubbly at the Conservative party conference. Not that they needed much telling. The mood was already so sombre that some Tory staffers were decanting cans of beer under the tables of the Hyatt Hotel in Birmingham to avoid bar prices; they were later caught by the manager. What was first intended as a celebration had become a wake, mourning the prosper-ity era which the Conservatives had originally planned for. They must now prepare for an economic war. The Pol Roger was flowing defiantly at The Spectator’s reception on Monday night, but was used mainly to treat shock.

Saturday

The Spectator

A novice with the right ideas

For all its stunts, vacuities and plain deceptions, there was something undeniably compelling about Gordon Brown’s conference speech in Manchester. Here was an old stager, battered and bruised, giving his all to what may be his last such performance as Labour leader and Prime Minister. Even as he claimed to deplore the cult of political celebrity, he chose this moment to deploy, for the first time, all its most cunning tricks and sleights of hand. Leave aside the nasty jibes at David Cameron’s family photo-ops and class background. There were two particular attacks to which the Tory leader must respond in his own conference address on Wednesday. The first came early in Brown’s speech.

Wednesday

Tamzin Lightwater

Tamzin’s Guide to the Conservative Party Conference

Sunday What more compassionate way to open than by allowing Mrs Spelperson to lead us in prayer at an inclusive service for all faiths and none at Birmingham’s historic yet modern town hall? (Some of us need to pray harder than others of course, especially those who might have broken parliamentary expenses rules, but we’ll say no more about that now.) To give things an urban edge, our special music guest stars will perform hip hop hymns. As you know, Dave has always been a big fan of gangsta rap. Can’t wait to hear ‘I Vow to Thee, Emcee, My Country’! In the conference hall: ‘Get To Know Birmingham’ with Andrew Mitchell, our very own Brummie! (It’s true.

Saturday

Fraser Nelson

Politics | 20 September 2008

When Number 10 said that Gordon Brown’s leadership had not been discussed in the Cabinet on Tuesday morning, it sounded a bit odd. After all, every other gathering of Labour MPs in the land has been talking of little else: how much more humiliation lies ahead, and when the end might come. So it came as no surprise to learn that the spin doctors’ claim was untrue. In fact, the issue did come up in Cabinet, raised by none other than the Prime Minister himself — and in the most extraordinary terms. After Mr Brown had gone through the motions of discussing government business (not something anyone is much focused on these days), the PM declared that people should indeed have their say on his leadership.

The Spectator

Long live capitalism

Detached amusement might describe the reaction of many people to the sight of well-paid Lehman Brothers employees being escorted off the bank’s premises, carrying their personal possessions in champagne boxes tucked beneath their arms. Displaying either greed or financial acumen to the last, one newly unemployed banker managed to buy himself 30 bananas to use up the credit on his girovend card while he still had the chance. But amusement is far from the most appropriate response; we have the right to feel anger at the way bankers have collectively managed to trash their industry. For those who, like this magazine, have been staunch defenders of free markets and light regulation, this has been a challenging week.

Saturday

The Spectator

Fannie, Freddie and Gordon

Last week, at a cost of a billion pounds or so, the Chancellor announced a package of measures to boost the housing market, including a temporary raising of the stamp duty threshold and some tinkering with shared equity schemes and social housing budgets. In response, the pound — already depressed by Alistair Darling’s observation that Britain now faces arguably the worst combination of economic circumstances in 60 years — fell a little further. Lord Lamont, the last chancellor to resort to a stamp-duty holiday in the face of a house-price collapse in December 1991, pointed out that the device did no good at all for the housing market or his own reputation.

Saturday

The Spectator

Make your excuses and go

Politicians, like novelists, are obsessed by posterity. Practitioners of the here and now — tomorrow’s headline, the latest poll, the next electoral hurdle — they nurse secret and often vainglorious hopes that their greatest plaudits will come in the future. Before New Labour swept to power in 1997, senior Blairites used to joke about the need to get ‘their betrayals in early’. Now, 11 years later, as the government disintegrates painfully and publicly, Cabinet ministers are rushing to get their side of the story across, to make excuses, and to pass the buck. Few political interviews have been parsed so closely or caused such an instant storm — financial and political — as Alistair Darling’s cri de coeur in Saturday’s Guardian.

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson

Politics | 3 September 2008

There is something wonderfully Scottish about the way in which Alistair Darling made his move against Gordon Brown. Rather than stage a dramatic ambush in the Commons, as Geoffrey Howe did to Margaret Thatcher, the Chancellor invited a newspaper interviewer to spend two days with him at his family home in the Outer Hebrides. From the safety of his croft, he went on to deliver a series of extraordinary observations which not only reverberated around Westminster, but moved financial markets and changed the political game. For the record, the Chancellor revealed that he regards the economic conditions facing Britain as ‘arguably the worst they’ve been in 60 years’. (He later corrected himself: he meant 70 years.