Uk politics

Thursday

James Forsyth

The Today Programme has its Hague cake and eats it too

From our UK edition

The Today Programme this morning demonstrated the problem with putting out an official statement on your private life: it makes the media feel that they have official sanction to discuss the matter. There were three separate discussions of Hague’s statement on the programme this morning. In a classic case of the BBC trying to both have its cake and eat it, one of the segments spent several minutes debating whether they should be talking about the matter at all. Hague’s problem is that the press is now obsessed with this story; it isn’t going to let it go even after this extraordinarily personal statement.

Peter Hoskin

“The worst-written memoir ever twittered by a serious politician”

From our UK edition

That's how Bruce Anderson sums up Tony Blair's book in a caustic piece for the magazine. Here's the whole review for the benefit of CoffeeHousers: 'It is bizarre. As he often demonstrated in the House of Commons, Tony Blair knows how to use words. He could also have mobilised a team to help him write his memoirs. Instead, it is all his own work, and the words mutinied. This book is not just badly written. it is atrociously written. For almost 700 pages, Tony Blair stumbles between mawkishness and banality. Prime ministers send soldiers into combat. Some of those soldiers are killed. That is a subject which would lead the least sensitive of men to reach into their souls and craft language out of emotional depth. This is Mr Blair's version.

Peter Hoskin

Coulson under the spotlight again

From our UK edition

The New York Times Magazine's article about phone hacking at the News of the World comes, it must be said, a little out of the blue. It's over a year since the story last exercised printing presses in the UK – and a year, too, since David Cameron's communications chief, Andy Coulson, was hauled in front of MPs to explain what happened under his editorship of the paper. Back then, he distanced himself from the dubious methods of some Screws reporters, saying that he was neither aware of, nor complicit in, any phone hacking. And, in the absence of any countervailing evidence, the process left Coulson with a few light bruises, but no real scars. But today's article contains material that could put the heat on Coulson once again.

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson

Tony Blair, freelance statesman

From our UK edition

Say what you like about Blair, but he is something of a political entrepreneur. He detects a gap in the market and fills it: he did with New Labour in the mid-1990s. And he detects a trend in the globalised world: a system where governments don't matter so much and power is held by a global elite. This, CoffeeHousers, is what he's up to with his memoirs. He is presenting himself in new incarnation, a statesman without a state, able to move without being tied down to an electorate. There's a very revealing passage in his book where he talks about Condi Rice: “She is a classic example of the absurdity of people with experience and capacity at the highest level not having big political jobs after retirement from office,” he writes.

Peter Hoskin

Hague statement on Christopher Myers

From our UK edition

William Hague has just released this statement: “I feel it is necessary to issue this personal statement in response to press and internet speculation over the last ten days.

 Earlier this year a Sunday newspaper began questioning whether my marriage to Ffion was in trouble, and last week another media outlet asked whether there was a statement about our supposed separation. This seemed to be linked to equally untrue speculation surrounding the appointment of Christopher Myers as a Special Adviser.

 Christopher Myers has demonstrated commitment and political talent over the last eighteen months. He is easily qualified for the job he holds.

David Blackburn

The education battle opens

From our UK edition

Michael Gove has announced that 32 schools will open as Academies at the start of the new term. More schools are set to open over the next academic year, but it is a disappointing figure. However, it could’ve been worse – I’ve heard rumours that as few as 10 schools would adopt Gove’s reforms. The figure of 32 is at the upper limit of recent estimates knocking around Westminster. Disappointing it may be, but slow progress is unsurprising. These are radical steps and teachers are hesitant in the face of change. Blair’s original academy reforms were frustrated in part by teachers and governors eager to preserve the status quo. However, first Blair and now Gove are committed to an attritional struggle with the recalcitrant Educational Establishment.

Ed Howker

Blair: the sex scenes

From our UK edition

Not just a Prime Minister, not just a global statesman, in A Journey Tony Blair also demonstrates he knows how to treat a girl: CHERIE: "I DEVOURED HER LOVE" "…that night she cradled me in her arms and soothed me; told me what I needed to be told; strengthened me; made me feel that I was about to do was right … On that night of the 12th May, 1994, I needed that love Cherie gave me, selfishly. I devoured it to give me strength. I was an animal following my instinct, knowing I would need every ounce of emotional power to cope with what lay ahead. I was exhilarated, afraid and determined in roughly equal quantities." ANJI HUNTER: "SEXY - WITH DEVASTATING EFFECT" "Anji was my best friend.

David Blackburn

The Mirror backs ‘The Special One’

From our UK edition

The ballot has opened and the Mirror has joined the mounting chorus in favour of David Miliband. They say of Miliband: ‘We believe he has the intellect, talent and experience to take on the Tories - and eventually become PM.’ Their timing is odd, given that Fleet Street and Westminster are currently captivated by Tony Blair’s memoir. But it is also a neat coincidence that Blair’s journey ends on the day that his apparent heir’s begins. As Tim Montgomerie notes in today’s Times (£), the Tories fear David Miliband because he is the only Labour leadership candidate who asks: ‘What would Tony do?’ It goes deeper than that.

Ed Howker

Blair’s contempt for the left

From our UK edition

In tomorrow's papers the reviewers will compare 'A Journey' to those "real-life" misery memoirs that seem to be publishing catnip. It is not inaccurate to conclude that this is tale of one man's struggle in an abusive relationship, and all the more unstatesmanlike for it. The tiny details of the relationship between TB and GB fascinate me. Brown is the one, Blair admits, who coined the soundbyte "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" for example. However, by far the most interesting aspect of the book is Blair's barely disguised hatred of the Labour left and, most of all, the left-wing intellectuals. So here, very quickly are some of his key quotes about today's leading left-wing Labour figures. Tony Blair, it is reasonable to conclude, does not like the Labour Party one bit.

Peter Hoskin

Tony Blair’s advice for Labour: be more like the coalition

From our UK edition

There's a remarkable self-certainty about what we've seen of Tony Blair's book so far. Sure, there are the fleeting moments of doubt and insecurity: the drinking that was becoming less a pleasure and more a habit, for instance.  But, apart from that, the dominant motif is how His Way was the Right Way. And so, he was right to keep Brown on as Chancellor. He was, it seems, right to prosecute war in Iraq – even if the WMD intelligence was "mistaken". And his chapter on Northern Ireland is written up as a ten-point action plan for future peace processes after future conflicts. Make no mistake, this isn't a bad thing in itself.

Peter Hoskin

Tony Blair’s memoirs: the first extracts

From our UK edition

Even the literary critics have to wait until tomorrow for the Blair memoirs – but the book's contents are slowing spilling out onto the Internet this evening. A series of extracts has just been published on the official website, and the Guardian has extensive coverage, including an interview with the man himself. So far, there's nothing too surprising. Blair, for instance, lays into Brown – but adds that it would have been wrong to sack him as Chancellor. And he declines to endorse a candidate for the Labour leadership, beyond offering a handful of veiled criticisms of Ed Miliband. Coffee House will have more tomorrow.

Tuesday

David Blackburn

Britannia ruled the waves

From our UK edition

As Pete wrote this morning, the plan to share aircraft carriers with France is controversial. It seems that concerns over sovereignty, job losses and differing strategic interests reduce to the one issue that no government has addressed: the protectionist system of defence procurement, which hampers the operational effectiveness of our armed forces. Typically forthright, Douglas Carswell identifies the problem: ‘Seems like protectionist defence procurement isn’t quite giving us sovereign capability the way we were promised, eh? Had we ordered much of the new carriers to be built overseas, we could have had them at a fraction of the £5 billion cost.

Peter Hoskin

Labour needs a Byrne rather than a Balls

From our UK edition

And Westminster's Idle Question of the Day is: will Ed Balls be made shadow chancellor under a Miliband leadership? There are good arguments both for and against the proposition – and most of them are made in this blog post by the Guardian's Nicholas Watt. Even Blairites, he says, are warming to the idea of Balls running Labour's economic policy. But if it's to happen under David Miliband, then the two men would have to reconcile their different views on tackling the deficit. Under Ed Miliband, the reconciliation would have to be more personal than economic. Neither, I suppose, is impossible. But as all this speculation whirls around Balls, I do wonder why Liam Byrne's name hasn't been mentioned more often in connection with the role.

Peter Hoskin

The Blair memoirs loom over Labour’s leadership struggle

From our UK edition

A day before the ballot papers get sent out, and the grey corpse that was the Labour leadership contest has suddenly leapt into a crazy jig. Ed Balls is slamming the "soap opera" of the Mili-rivalry, while calling for more social housing. Andy Burnham is insisting that he's still in with a chance of winning. Alan Johnson has - with a nod to Jose Mourinho, of all people - labelled David Miliband as "the special one". And as part of his rebranding exercise the former Foreign Secretary has even starting making fairly amusing gags. Welcome to the Twilight Zone. But it's not just the prospect of imminent voting that is animating the contenders.

Peter Hoskin

The stars of the spending review

From our UK edition

Insightful work by the FT's George Parker, who traces the choreography of the spending review in an article for the paper today. What's striking is how much the coalition expects to achieve by what Parker calls "peer pressure". Ministers who get through their spending settlement quickly and successfully will be held up as examples to their colleagues, and will be drafted into the the "star chamber" to cast an axeman's eye over other departments' plans. Ken Clarke, we are told, "can hardly wait". According to Parker, the process is already producing its darlings. Jeremy Hunt has exceeded the Treasury's demands by identifying 50 percent cuts in the budget for running his department.

Peter Hoskin

A totemic austerity measure

From our UK edition

As austerity measures go, the plan to share aircraft carriers with France is totemic stuff. Not only could it save the Exchequer a heap of cash – by reducing the need for two replacement carriers – but it also says a lot about how our government wants to operate in the world: multilaterally, flexibly and, perhaps, with less emphasis on military force. Divvying up one's navy with another country does not suggest a strident foreign policy. Indeed, future operations would have to be planned and conducted with the aid of phonecalls to Paris. Of course, this will likely be a controversial move.

Monday

Madsen Pirie

The role of libraries

From our UK edition

New government statistics show that libraries are less popular than ever, with a drop over 5 years of nearly one-third in the number who visit them. Over 60 percent of adults do not use them even once a year. Libraries seem vulnerable. With government striving to make economies and councils made to cut budgets, libraries could see their spending cut dramatically. Libraries face a downward spiral in which councils try to make savings by cutting hours, letting some staff go, and closing some facilities altogether. Libraries then become less convenient to use, and usage figures decline even further. There are alternatives. Although libraries mostly loan popular bestsellers and do-it-yourself books to adults, they also introduce children into the world of reading.

Peter Hoskin

Darling exhumes Cameron’s Big Mistake

From our UK edition

Amid all the feverish commotion about cuts, it's easy to forget that it took the Tories until November 2008 to ditch Labour's spending plans - and, indeed, that it was barely a year ago when George Osborne first mentioned the c-word in public. Even David Cameron admits that this delay was his biggest mistake. It weakened his party's claim to foresight, and gave them less time to embed a new narrative about the economy before the election. So it's noteworthy that Alistair Darling exhumed this mistake on the airwaves earlier, telling the Beeb that "the Tories supported [our spending plans] until the end of 2008." This may sound like a cheap shot at Cameron and Osborne, but I expect we'll hear more of it in coming months.

Peter Hoskin

Old Labour, New Labour – or just Same Labour?

From our UK edition

Whatever happened to Peter Mandelson's regard for Ed Miliband? A year-and-a-half ago, the Ennobled One was thought to have marked out MiliE as a future Labour leader. But, today, he pulls out the verbal chainsaw and sets about tearing him down. The younger Miliband, Mandelson implies in an interview with the Times (£), would lead Labour into an "electoral cul-de-sac," because, "to suggest that we should be concentrating on our core current voters … is by way of saying that we want to remain a minority party." And, just in case we didn't get the message, he adds: "we're not looking for a preacher as our leader." Although Mandelson doesn't say as much, it all adds up to an endorsement for the other Miliband brother.

Sunday

David Blackburn

Don’t mention the NHS

From our UK edition

As Tim Montgomerie notes, cuts are becoming more real. Yesterday, the government axed NHS Direct, the telephone health service. Actually it hasn’t been axed but replaced by the more cost effective ‘111’ service. Removing the sacrosanct letters ‘NHS’ from the title of any body is anathema to the opposition, who have mobilised a frantic defence over the past 24 hours, so predictable and I can barely contain my indifference. Twitter has exploded in a fit of righteous indignation; Ed Balls, without a hint of irony, is using words like ‘callous’ and ‘ill-thought policies’; and Andy Burnham’s talking about Andrew Lansley’s ‘vindictive mission to break up the NHS’.