Daniel Finkelstein

Why did they choose Jim Broadbent to play Denis Thatcher? You see, The Iron Lady can make a great boast. The central performance is extremely convincing. So convincing that you get lost in it. You don’t end up watching the film, thinking ‘God, that performance by Meryl Streep is excellent.’ You just accept that she is Margaret Thatcher and wonder whether it is appropriate to intrude into her privacy. In other words, the very fact that we start worrying about privacy is tribute to the performance. But Jim Broadbent does, well, a very good Jim Broadbent impersonation. I like Jim Broadbent impersonations. But not in the middle of a film about Margaret Thatcher.

Martin Scorsese’s new documentary about George Harrison, Living in the Material World, hasn’t been going long when its subject says something that made me laugh out loud, and at the same time explained all that followed. Speaking of his first attempt at writing music — a song called 'Don’t Bother Me' — he said he thought he’d have a go, because he figured that if John and Paul could write songs, how hard could it be? It’s always been the mathematics of The Beatles that has puzzled me, the sheer improbability that someone as brilliant as Paul McCartney should have teamed up with someone as good as John Lennon and then asked George Harrison to be their guitar player. What are the chances?

To: Peter Mandelson From: Daniel Finkelstein Re: What Labour should do now I was, naturally, flattered to be informed that you would like me to provide you with a memo of advice on how Labour should cope with its predicament. As I explained to your assistant, I do not have much of a history of helping out the leadership of the Labour party. He said that this did not matter, as neither did the Prime Minister. As for you and me, we haven’t spoken much these past 20 years. So I am relieved to discover that you regard such long periods of silence as perfectly natural in a friendship. In 1997, as you may possibly recall, we were on opposite sides of a campaign. I was working for John Major, you for Tony Blair. You, ahem, won.

In the wake of Cameron’s decision to drop his pledge to match Labour spending, Fraser Nelson and Daniel Fin kelstein of the Times trade rhetorical blows over the issue that is gripping and troubling the Conservative party as it adjusts to the transformed economic context Dear Fraser, I feel we really need to have a word about tax. It was something you said that set me off. Something you used to underpin your argument that the Tories need to start announcing tax cuts. Could I detain you for a moment, and ask for an explanation? Perhaps you remember your words. ‘The Tories were daft to focus so much on borrowing — it’s inevitable in a recession. The question is whether you use the deficit to spend or relieve taxes.