Daniel McCarthy

Daniel McCarthy

Daniel McCarthy is a US columnist for The Spectator and is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review.

Saturday

Daniel McCarthy

The hawk in No. 10

Will Cameron play the Bush to Obama’s Blair? Eight years ago an American president led a passive British prime minister into a war both countries would regret. David Cameron is eager for history to repeat itself, with the national roles reversed. While Barack Obama dithers, Cameron demands tough action against Libya — with a western-imposed no-fly zone seemingly uppermost on his mind. ‘Do we want a situation where a failed pariah state festers on Europe’s southern border,’ he asks, ‘potentially threatening our security, pushing people across the Mediterranean and creating a more dangerous and uncertain world for Britain and for all our allies, as well as for the people of Libya?

Saturday

Daniel McCarthy

Mr Tea

The last time Republicans retook control of Congress, in 1994, the face of the revolution belonged to the party’s leader in the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich. This year the standard-bearer is a less obvious figure: Rand Paul, the newly elected junior senator from Kentucky. Not only is Rand not part of the leadership, he is the son of Ron Paul, a maverick former presidential candidate who is considered a pariah within his own party. But this is an outsider’s hour in American politics, and the younger Paul is everywhere hailed as the paragon of the Tea Party revolt. That revolt has been directed as much against the Republican establishment as against Barack Obama and the Democrats.

Saturday

Daniel McCarthy

The trouble with tea parties

For many Tory voters, a change of government on 6 May will not be enough. What Britain needs, they think, is little less than a revolution — against skyscraping taxes and personal debt, a corrupt parliament, and a surveillance state that is stripping away liberties as old as Magna Carta. In short, Britain needs what America has: tea parties, a grassroots movement willing to take to the streets in protest against state power. Daniel Hannan and his Freedom Association lit the fuse for such a rebellion, or so they hoped, in February with a Brighton tea party. And Hannan is not alone, there are signs everywhere of a longing for a populist backlash.