Us politics

Today’s announcement on a proposed new National Crime Agency (NCA) is a key element in the government’s ambitious police reform agenda.  Recent political attention has focused on changes to police pay and conditions and budget reductions, but the structural reforms that Theresa May and Nick Herbert are pursuing matter more in the long-term.  And before it is dismissed as another attempt to create a “British FBI”, the background and rationale for the NCA is worth exploring. The NCA is much more than a rebranding of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) – the troubled organisation set up by Charles Clarke.  Instead it is one part of a major recalibration of

Sarah Palin will be in town soon and she hopes to meet Mrs Thatcher. She told the Sunday Times: “I am going to Sudan in July and hope to stop in England on the way. I am just hoping Mrs Thatcher is well enough to see me as I so admire her.” However, it seems that the admiration is not mutual. The Guardian’s Wintour and Watt blog reports an old ally of the Lady’s saying: “Lady Thatcher will not be seeing Sarah Palin. That would be belittling for Margaret. Sarah Palin is nuts. “Margaret is focusing on Ronald Reagan and will attend the unveiling of the statue (in Grosvenor Square).

You may have noticed that Barack Obama came to the country on a state visit this week. But he wasn’t the first US President to be extended an invitation from the Queen, oh no. George W. Bush beat him to that particular honour in 2003. Here are a couple of Spectator pieces from the time, the first the magazine’s leader column, the second by Peter Oborne: Don’t burn Bush, The Spectator, 15 November 2003 The Queen’s state carriage has carried some pretty rum types over the years. Nicolae Ceauscescu took a break from murdering his countrymen to take a ride down the Mall in June 1978. In 1994 it was

Remember Herman Cain? The former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza who scored a surprise win at the first Republican presidential primary debate earlier this month? Well, the latest Gallup poll is out today, and shows him on 8 per cent amongst potential primary voters: essentially tied for third behind Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. This is the first poll conducted since Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump and Mitch Daniels all declared that they would not seek the nomination, and is also the first of Gallup’s to include Cain’s name. 8 per cent may not sound all that impressive, but it is when you consider that just 33 per cent of respondents know

And the Word of the Day is “we”. Both David Cameron and Barack Obama deployed it liberally in their joint press conference just now, as they ran through all the mutual pleasantries and backslapping that attends these events. “We have discussed the two things we care about the most,” flushed Cameron, “getting our people jobs, and keeping our people safe.” From there on in it was first name terms — “thank you, David” — and claims about the strength of our two countries’ special, essential, unique relationship, etc. With the sun blazing down on the garden of Lancaster House, I’m sure the photos will turn out nice. Cameron appeared to

Five years have passed since Alan Greenspan stepped down from the most influential banking job in the world. (Now that’s how to leave at the right time.) Described in books, interviews and profiles too numerous to mention as ‘the most powerful regulator/person on earth’, he served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve for 19 years. For reasons of sheer longevity, perhaps Greenspan deserves to be called the architect of the modern global economy more than any of his elected contemporaries. So it’s not insignificant that, by the accounts of his friends back in 1950s New York, Greenspan was something of a fruit-loop as you will discover tonight if you watch

The visit of President Obama on Tuesday has not yet inspired rapid British soul searching about the ‘special relationship’, not by comparison to David Cameron’s trip to America last July at any rate. After an awkward beginning, the Obama administration has been at pains to stress that America’s alliance with Britain is inviolable even in a changing world. The administration’s deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, said “there’s no closer ally for the US than the UK” last week. But like all close alliances, the two parties have their differences. The Sunday Telegraph reports on a strategic divergence in Libya, where Britain apparently wants greater American leadership and the US

David Cameron has a good relationship with Barack Obama, which will be on display when the US president visits Britain shortly. They speak regularly and frankly and their senior advisers are in near-constant contact. The idea that the Lib Dems would foist a more “Love Actually” policy onto the coalition has come to naught. Yet Britain’s influence in Washington has waned. This is no fault of the Prime Minister. In fact, his personal diplomacy has probably slowed-down the process. Instead it has to do with structural changes in the US: the coming to power of a “pacific” President, the importance of US-China ties, the emergence of the Tea Party. As

Barack Obama’s budget plan has become a political debating point on this side of the Atlantic. Ed Balls set the ball a-rolling in an article for the Guardian this morning, which effectively claimed that the President isn’t planning to cut the deficit as quickly as George Osborne is. “The truth is that it is Osborne himself who is isolated,” is how he pugnaciously put it. But the Tories’ Matthew Hancock has since responded — on Coffee House, as it happens — arguing that, actually, the Obama Plan is simpatico with what Osborne is doing. By way of hovering above the red-on-blue scrap, we thought we’d put together a comparison of