From our UK edition
Tristram Hunt, the historian and Labour MP, has written a brilliant rebuttal to my piece in the Telegraph last week, in which I said that capitalism is hardwired in Britain’s DNA. Socialism, he says, is also hardwired into our country’s mindset. Writing for Comment Is Free, he says: ‘There is another story of Britishness a long way from the template of Cameron and the Spectator.
From our UK edition
Ed Miliband’s day today rather sums up his problems. His morning media round has all been seen through a negative prism. Nick Robinson mocks the new leader’s attempt to talk about the squeezed middle by calling it the squeezed muddle. While Ed Miliband’s declaration that he is a socialist, something he has said many times before, is not being treated as a refreshing dose of intellectual honesty but as evidence that he’s just too left-wing. A lot of Ed Miliabnd’s problems come from the fact that the media is in hunting mode. The media, as a rule, don’t like being surprised and Ed Miliband’s victory was not what it expected. So in return the media are giving him a bit of a kicking. This is, of course, a simplification.
From our UK edition
Like Satan, Sodomy and Socialism, Soccer begins with an S. Obviously, then, it's un-American and likely to corrupt these great United States. Hats off to Marc Thiessen for scrawling the most absurd anti-soccer nonsense of the World Cup. At long last we have a winner: The world is crazy for soccer, but most Americans don’t give a hoot about the sport. Why? Many years ago, my former White House colleague Bill McGurn pointed out to me the real reason soccer hasn’t caught on in the good old U.S.A. It’s simple, really: Soccer is a socialist sport. Think about it. Soccer is the only sport in the world where you cannot use the one tool that distinguishes man from beast: opposable thumbs. “No hands” is a rule only a European statist could love.
From our UK edition
I must say I had a chuckle at Alastair Campbell's tweet during the leaders' debate: "Clegg done well on style, Cameron clear winner on shallowness, GB winner on substance". I had another chuckle when Alan Johnson used the line in the post-debate analysis and now I see David Miliband congratulating Alan Johnson for using it and Miliband's comments being recirculated by eager Labourites. So who stole it from whom? For we socialists all property is theft and everything should be owned in common so I guess it doesn't really matter. But it is amusing to see how pleased everyone is with this one-liner.
From our UK edition
Ed Balls has just started on Twitter and he's already an avid user. I have always found Ed perfectly charming, but then, unlike Fraser, he has never bawled me out about anything I have written (even when I suggested he was a socialist). But when I saw the following "tweet" I thought he was demonstrating his legendary capacity for threatening behaviour: "despite glossy makeover, it's still the same old Tribune -- just like the Tories." Being able to sound menacing in a "tweet" is some skill. What was he getting at? Could he really be saying that Tribune was as bad as the Tories? Had the paper's mild-mannered editor, Chris McLaughlin committed some appalling act of disloyalty. Turns out, it's a joshing reference from Balls to his latest column.
From our UK edition
A rather impassioned piece on unemployment from Polly Toynbee in yesterday's Guardian made me realise that there are a number of people on the liberal-left in Britain thinking very hard about the implications of the global recession. "Has the horror of it all struck Westminster with full force?," asks Polly? I think they are beginning to, but the problem is that they are stuck in the politics of the late-1990s census, which had us all triangulating like mad. All the clamour for an apology from the Prime Minister stems from a desire for him to atone for all our sins. It was difficult not to embrace the market when the market seemed so cuddly. What we mistook for comforting girth turned out to be the flabby product of over-indulgence. But this is not the time for self-flagellation.
From our UK edition
I was always shocked by the level of vitriol among New Statesman and Guardian readers when a writer stepped away from the comfort zone of received wisdom and cuddly "I'm a nice person too" leftie-ness. Suggest that perhaps Hamas is anything other than a resistance movement or that people who vote Conservative might be people too and the sky falls in. Where the stock term of self-righteous abuse used to be "fascist" - remember Rick from the Young Ones? - it is now "neo-con", which consigns the target to the same ideological hell as George W. Bush. Since I've started this new blog I have not been called a neo-con. Instead, the insult of choice is "socialist".