Paul Waugh’s got it spot on. The Muslim Association of Britain’s statement on Sudan and Darfur today is utterly disgraceful. Rather than supporting the ICC’s decision to charge the President of Sudan, Omar Hassan Ahamd al-Bashir – who has encouraged the rape and murder of thousands of civilians, many of them Muslim – with war
This is how Jeff Randall kicks off his column in the Telegraph today: “What’s the difference between Bernard Madoff and Gordon Brown? Answer: one has drained fortunes from gullible victims, plundering their income and savings to create an illusion of prosperity. The other is going to jail. Mr Madoff has thrown in the towel. His
Yes, yes, I know I commented on rumours of a Brown-Darling split yesterday, but this passage from the FT deserves pulling out, especially given Brown’s emphasis on forging a global “grand bargain” at the G20 summit: “The chancellor would love to be able to agree to a tax cut equivalent to 2 per cent of
There’s another epsiode in the Alistair Darling story today, with a hint in the FT that he may be resisting pressure from Brown to introduce a big package of (debt-fuelled) spending increases and tax cuts in the Budget: “Mr Darling, speaking to foreign journalists in London, called for the world’s 20 leading industrial and
With Brown publishing a list of ministerial interests today – some two years late, and possibly delayed by Peter Mandelson’s complex financial dealings – the Evening Standard has the scoop that around 30 figures in the Goverment employ family members at the taxpayers’ expense: “Nearly 30 members of the Government employ their family at the
In today’s Independent, David McKittrick highlights one of the most important questions surrounding the recent killings in Northern Ireland: Will loyalists seek bloody revenge? It’s encouraging that the leader of the largest loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association, answers in the negative in the Times. Here’s what Jackie McDonald tells the paper, in of
One of the most frequent claims made about the Tory poll lead is that it’s “soft”; that it’s only due to protest votes against the Government. Yet an intriguing survey by the essential Politics Home suggests that may not be the case after all. They asked over a 1,000 people who they intend to vote
One of the main reasons why Brown needs a successful G20 summit and Budget, in April, is that there are so few subsequent events which could conceivably go well for him. Take the local elections in June – according to today’s FT, the Labour party is briefing its own MPs to expect a drubbing: “Labour
Stay tuned for live coverage of PMQs from 1200. 1200: Brown stands up, and offers his condolences to the soldiers and policeman murdered in Northern Ireland over the past few days. He commemorates the peace marches in NI today, calling them “unity against violence”. 1201: First question from Andrew Miller: “When will the banks get
An incisive column from Daniel Finkelstein this morning, which perfectly sets out how difficult managing the public finances will be for the next government. This passage on public service reform is worth pulling out: “The Tories will aim, of course, to make services more efficient and to get government out of wasteful projects altogether. Yet
Today’s Times has a great double-page spread on the forthcoming G20 meeting; concentrating on how much the summit will cost, and the dim prospects for any meaningful agreement being reached. Nestled among the coverage is this quote from a “government source”: “We are by no means talking it down but I do not think anyone
Earlier today, Ben Brogan reported a telling comment from the Cabinet secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, that, when it comes to discussing the G20 summit with Washington, “There is nobody there … You cannot believe how difficult it is.” The remarks have since been withdrawn, and expunged from civil service websites. But, in spite of the revisionism,
Just returning to the theme of my earlier post, I thought I’d flag up some IFS figures which indicate how fiscally squeezed the least well-off are, even before we consider taxes, job losses and the rest. Here’s how today’s Times reports them: “The poorest tenth of the population suffers inflation more than 50 times higher
Alistair Darling’s article* in the Guardian this morning is a perfect example of why Brown’s global focus will struggle to impress voters. The lingo of international finance settlements is just too dry and disconnected from the plight of the British public. Here are some yawn-inducing excerpts: “For those most at risk, we need to increase
Just returning to this Compass / YouGov poll of Labour members which I flagged up yesterday, as some of the other results are worth noting. There’s plenty of support for ostensibly leftist measures, such as a crackdown on bankers’ bonuses and higher taxes for the well-off. But James Purnell’s welfare reform agenda also gets a
Following my earlier post, on how Brown will contribute British funds to a World Bank fund for poorer countries, I just thought I’d recommend this excellent interview with Dambisa Moyo and Richard Dowden in the latest issue of Standpoint. Fraser’s already commented on Moyo’s book Dead Aid (here, and The Spectator’s review here) but a
This from the BBC website: “Britain will contribute to a new World Bank fund for the poorest countries, Gordon Brown is expected to confirm on Monday. The fund calls on the richest nations to finance it with 0.7% of the money they have used to bail out the banks. The prime minister will address a two-day
Of all the revelations about Saturday’s brutal terrorist attack on Massereene Barracks, Co Antrim, those in today’s Times are among the most unsettling: “Armed security guards employed to protect the military base in Northern Ireland where two soldiers were shot dead did not open fire on the terrorists, even when they stood over the injured
Reporting this Compass / YouGov poll, the Sunday Telegraph concentrates on the news that Labour members think Peter Mandelson is doing a better job than Harriet Harman. Yet, to my eyes, there’s a more a striking finding in there. 74 percent of respondents think that David Miliband is doing a good job. And that after
Recommending what sounds like a prescient report by Edward Chancellor, Crunch Time for Credit? (2005), Charles Moore writes the following in his column today: “Although some of Chancellor’s work is technical, it benefits from a historian’s understanding of what people have done in reality rather than a narrower economist’s obsession with ‘modelling’. It has strong
