James Purnell yesterday confirmed that David Freud-style welfare reform will be implemented by the Government. And now Frank Field writes a comment piece for the Telegraph, warning his Labour compatriots not to get complacent on the issue. As usual, he’s well-worth listening to: “It is not the first time that Labour has trumpeted its credentials
Our Prime Minister’s been compared to quite a few (real and fictional) characters of late. Lord Turnbull got the ball rolling with his “Stalin” jibe; Vince Cable observed Brown’s transformation into Mr Bean; and the Spectator’s own Fraser Nelson saw similarities with Del Boy. And now David Hughes spots the parallels with Inspector Clouseau. So, CoffeeHousers, who does Brown remind you of?
Andrew Lansley lobs a firecracker into the tortoise-hare debate this morning; announcing that the Tories would increase health spending by an extra £28 billion a year. The pledge actually goes beyond any made by the Government, and will see health expenditure rise by 2 percent of GDP. It sends a strong message out to the
Here – for your viewing pleasure – is The Daily Politics’ footage of Ed Davey getting “cross” in the Commons yesterday:
If Mike Smithson over at Political Betting is right (and he usually is), then there was a spot of Team Livingstone skulduggery behind yesterday’s tit-for-tat poll exchange. That “new” MORI poll which gives the Mayor a 2 per cent lead over Boris Johnson? Well, it turns out that it’s not new at all. MORI actually conducted
Open House have afforded Ed Davey a plaform from which to deliver his version of yesterday’s events. Unfortunately – yet predictably – he uses it peddle the Lib Dem’s ludicrous line on Europe. One passage leapt out at me: “It’s not unusual for Liberal Democrats to be squeezed out of parliamentary debates by the other parties seeking
With anti-Heathrow-expansion protestors scaling the roof of Parliament – and sparking all kind of security concerns in the process – it’s worth asking when & whether protests cross the line of decency. It’s a question that Benedict Brogan’s certainly tackling over at his excellent blog. He takes a hard-line on the matter. Brian Haw and his ilk were yesterday
The Today Programme’s interview with Hector Sants – the chief executive of the Financial Services Authority – is well-worth listening to. His message is that the credit crunch will change banking “forever”, and that never again will money be available so cheaply. At first, the words seem doom-laden, but Sants puts a positive spin on
Fraser told us to “stay tuned” to the Lib Dems’ continuing efforts to force an “in or out” referendum, and now we’ve been rewarded with a spot of Parliamentary drama. Ed Davey – the Lib Dem Foreign Affairs spokesman – was ejected from the Commons for his angry insistence on the matter. The rest of his party then
One of the greatest American artists of the Twentieth Century was born 100 years ago today. The artist was Tex Avery (d. August 26th, 1980), and his medium was animation. At his height – in the 1940s – Avery created numerous cartoons and cartoon-characters which gleefully undercut the fluffy Disney archetype. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and
“Anti-depressants don’t work” is the message splashed across the front pages this morning, after a research team from the University of Hull discovered that: “The difference in improvement between patients taking placebos and people taking anti-depressants is not very great …. There seems little reason to prescribe antidepressant medication to any but the most severely
Why would anyone want to be the “heir to Blair”? It’s a question that’s popping up numerous times in the comments on Michael Gove’s latest piece for the Spectator. And I’m sure it enters many people’s heads when they hear either Brown or Cameron laying claim to the title. A short, simple answer might be: “because
Reading the news release, I initially thought that Gordon Brown’s “new kind of policing” – by which every household in England and Wales will be given e-mail/mobile phone details to contact “neighbourhood police teams” – sounded like a good idea. But then two figures jumped out at me. The first is the cost of the scheme – some £325
Now, as Fraser’s noted before, the official Lib Dem position on the Lisbon Treaty is a tad bizarre. Nonetheless, Nick Clegg stubbornly sets about defending it in today’s Guardian: “It’s time we pulled out the thorn and healed the wound, time for a debate politicians have been too cowardly to hold for 30 years –
After the events of the weekend, all eyes will be on Michael Martin. Will he buckle under the media’s relentless pressure? Or will he dig in his heels, and continue to stress the legality of his actions? The way things have gone so far, I’d put money on the latter scenario. The most worrying feature of
Just in case anyone still believed Gordon Brown’s “right long-term decisions” claim, then the Observer’s interview with Anne Owers – the chief inspector of prisons – should set them straight. Owers stresses that the the current prisons crisis is down to past (in)action on the part of the Government: “You wouldn’t start from here if you wanted
In the wake of Coffee House’s Brownies campaign, numerous commenters have been imploring the opposition parties to undermine Gordon Brown’s little porkies. Take, for instance, CoffeeHouser Mike O’Callaghan’s recent suggestion: “Each week Brown is allowed to provide statistical lies and seemingly gets away with it although anyone with an ounce of intelligence is not fooled. Can I suggest a tactical ploy for
With the prison population reaching an all-time high of 82,006 (only 21 places short of full capacity), Jack Straw once again begs judges to consider more non-custodial sentences. Of course, it’s embarrassing for the Justice Minister. His line is wide-open to opposition attack, and he’s condemned to repeat it until those Titan prisons are finally completed. Not
Judging by this post over at Sky’s Adam Boulton & Co. blog, the dispute between Steven Spielberg and China over Darfur has just entered the realm of the bizarre. According to Chinese Ambassador Liu Guijin, Spielberg never accepted the role in the first place, so – apparently – “there could be no question of a
David Cameron’s announcement that a Tory government would consider making forced marriages a criminal offence opens up – at the very least – a rhetorical divide between his party and the Government. Cameron’s message is unambiguous: certain immigrant traditions are unacceptable in British society. Whereas, if today’s Home Office Green Paper enshrines this approach, then it’s not coming