The Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has a comment piece in today’s FT in which he defends his decision to recognise the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia by drawing parallels with the West’s recognition of an independent Kosovo. But whatever the rights and wrongs on that front, it’s hard to read Russia’s defiance of the
Russia’s formal recognition of the “independence” of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is one of the most aggressive moves it could have made in the geopolitical chess game it’s playing with Georgia and the West. For starters, it increases the likelihood of future military conflict. The worry now is that any Georgian involvement in the breakaway regions will be used by Moscow as an excuse to mobilise its forces once again,
The number of times that the Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili has spoken with world leaders during the recent crisis in the region… George Bush: 9 times Nicolas Sarkozy: 20 times Angela Merkel: “several” times And… Gordon Brown: once As the Telegraph story reporting this puts it, “The revelation is likely to reinforce the image of Mr Brown as a
A poll in today’s FT finds that the public are – by and large – blaming Brown and his government for the current state of the economy. Over three-quarters of respondents thought that the government “bore at least some of the blame” for the current downturn, whilst 56 percent thought that ministers had “a lot, or complete,
Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which – provided your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency – you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no
Let’s leave this one running until the end of Wednesday… Online Surveys & Market Research
Last week, the ONS revealed that the UK economy is most likely in recession. And today Charles Bean, the new deputy governor of the Bank of England, warns that that downturn could “drag on for some considerable time”. Every scrap of gloom adds weight to the argument – resurrected over the weekend – that the Tories
Iain Dale – among others – has already picked up one particular passage from Gordon Brown’s interview with the Mail on Sunday today. It contains such a bizarre quote from our PM that it deserves repetition here: “The growing pressure on him appeared to show during an interview with The Mail on Sunday, in which he refused to answer questions
After the news that the UK economy is most likely already in recession, the hare and tortoise debate of a few months ago looks set to return to Tory politics with a vengeance. In today’s Telegraph, Lord Forsyth and John Redwood say that the Tories need to think about an alternative to “sharing the proceeds of growth”, and
With a protracted recession on the cards, and with the Tories storming into larger and larger poll leads, one question is increasingly important: what would a Tory government do to fix the economy? So far, their grand plan has been to “share the proceeds of growth”. It’s always been a nebulous concept, but now – as Iain Martin points
The subhead to this Telegraph story sums it up: “Gordon Brown has defied expert forecasts, the Bank of England and even his own Treasury to predict privately that the economy will start recovering within the next few months.”
So, Sir Digby Jones – the trade minister, and the first non-politician to be appointed to Brown’s ‘government of all the talents’ – has told the BBC that he’s going to quit his role before the end of this year. It’s hardly surprising news – he was alleged to have confirmed the same to a private
I popped along to the History Channel debate ’50 Things You Need to Know About British History’ last night. ‘Twas an excellent event – more than capably chaired by Iain Dale, and with an engaging panel consisting of Diane Abbot, Douglas Murray, Dominic Sandbrook and Polly Toynbee. The catalyst for discussion was the list I’ve
Dominic Grieve has kindly agreed to a Q&A session with Coffee House. So, post your questions for him in the comments section below. And, in a week-or-so’s time, we’ll pick out the best ten and put them to the shadow home secretary. He’ll get back to us all a few days later. And the commenters whose questions
The latest economic growth statistics – which show that growth in the second quarter of 2008 stood at a less-than-impressive 0 percent – deny Brown one of his proudest boasts; that the UK economy’s enjoyed “63 quarters of successive growth”. Annual growth remains positive at 1.4 percent, though, so I expect he’ll replace it with something
Another day, another data loss scandal. The culprit this time? The Home Office – or rather the private consultancy firm entrusted by the Home Office with the details of over 100,000 criminals, and which subsequently misplaced the memory stick they were contained on. Not that that absolves Jacqui Smith – or others in her department
There are two things that the West should now do in relation to Georgia. The first is to help preserve the fragile truce that now exists between Georgia and Russia. That means that Western policymakers have to be involved, encouraging and prominent. They should not shy away from using the carrot and the stick, in
It’s been a week since we asked CoffeeHousers to put forward their questions for Eric Pickles. We’ve since picked out the best five, which have now been put to the shadow communities secretary. He’ll get back to us in a couple of days. The CoffeeHousers whose questions were chosen can e-mail me on phoskin @
We’ve introduced a new feature to Coffee House – the Sunday Essay. Each Sunday, we’ll post an essay by one of our readers, on any political, cultural or sporting topic. The first of these essays appeared a couple of days ago – you can read it here. If you’d like your writing to be considered,
A great post by Mary Dejevsky over at Open House, questioning just what David Miliband has been doing during the conflict between Russia and Georgia. Yes, our Foreign Secretary has issued a statement on the issue, but some of his colleagues – such as Des Browne and Jim Murphy – have been far more prominent on