The Spectator

Monday

The Spectator

Brown writes the Tories out of the script

From our UK edition

For me, the most striking feature of Brown's speech was what was missing from it: not the election date but the Conservative Party. You would not think that less than a year ago most senior Labour figures feared that David Cameron's appeal to switchers in marginal seats was so strong that a hung Parliament was the best they could hope for. Now, in private at least, the same ministers debate the scale of the majority which they now confidently expect, whenever the election is called. Brown barely deigned to mention the Conservative Party or to pay David Cameron the compliment of launching a full-frontal attack on him. Instead, he spoke, as Fraser predicted last week, as the father of the nation.

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Gordon Brown’s speech

From our UK edition

2:40pm: So far, Brown is trying to lay out a third way between equality of outcome and opportunity pitching New Labour as the party of aspiration and community. Brown’s delivery is relaxed and confident and he is managing, just, not to talk in his trademark machine gun blasts. 2:45pm Brown talks about a 10 year plan for education and how every student leaving school at 18 will now have a qualification. Low-income pupils will be financed from 16 through to the end of their university degree. This, says Brown, will be a symbol of a society not divided by class but united by aspiration. Aspiration and talent are clearly the words of the day; carefully chosen, one imagines, to appeal to Middle Britain.

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What Brown’s speech will tell us about his election plans

From our UK edition

The word is that Gordon Brown’s speech will not mention when he might go to the country. Indeed, judging by his rather tetchy performance on the Today Programme this morning he appears to regretting letting the speculation reach such a fever pitch. But his address will still give us plenty of clues to his thinking. If it is stuffed with, to borrow a phrase, eye-catching initiatives with which he can be personally associated such as this deep clean of hospitals and a reversal on 24 hour drinking, which he hinted heavily at this morning, then it will suggest that he really is going to go. But if he sets out a more long term vision then he is likely waiting until the spring. One other shift worth noting is that November 1st seems to be emerging as the new favoured autumn date.

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The Sun rains on Brown’s parade

From our UK edition

The one cloud on the Bournemouth horizon for Gordon Brown this morning is the vigorous campaign that the Sun has launched today for a referendum on the EU treaty formerly known as the constitution. The front page of the paper declares, “Never have so few decided so much for so many.” Inside, the first seven pages are devoted to the issue with the Sun warning that Britain “faces the greatest threat as an independent sovereign state since the dark days of World War II.” There follows a pledge to fight this cause “right up to the next election.” As Tim Montgomerie notes, this campaign might give Brown pause about going to the country in the autumn; especially as the final negotiations on the treaty would take place so close to polling day.

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Brown previews his big speech

From our UK edition

Today is G-Day, and Gordon is doing the rounds of the broadcasters before his big speech this afternoon. Up against Sky's Adam Boulton, Brown led off, as he did on Marr yesterday, on the "personalised" NHS - although when Adam mentioned that this very New Labour approach to health reform had been welcomed by Peter Mandelson at a meeting last night, the PM could barely muster a nod of disgusted recognition. On election timing, he was positively sharp in response to Adam's perfectly legitimate questions: "The first person I shall talk to is The Queen and not Sky TV." Let's remember that promise if, by chance, the date is actually announced in due course on the front page of a red-top newspaper. At any rate, the PM is conspicuously leaving open his options.

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Might there be some controversey in Bournemouth after all?

From our UK edition

                We’ve just posted the second instalment of Jon Cruddas’s conference diary in which he reports that a deal agreed by the Labour National to Executive avoid any votes on contentious policies that could embarrass the leadership at conference might be unravelling.

Sunday

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More good poll news for Brown

From our UK edition

The case for Gordon Brown going to the country in October just keeps getting stronger.  A poll in tomorrow’s Sun puts Labour on 42%--8 points ahead of the Tories, an increase in the lead of 3 points since the start of the month. (The indispensable Conservative Home has details). While the Sunday Times reports that Labour’s internal polling has them up by a massive 14% if the election were to be held now.  I’ve always been sceptical about the likelihood of Brown calling an election so soon as it undercuts one of his key assets, the perception that he is a serious man who is just interested in getting things done.

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The new Labour split

From our UK edition

In the conference hotel bar, there is but one subject under heated discussion, and it is, like treason, a matter of dates. The old Blair-Brown conference clash (RIP) has been replaced this year by a rather different sort of division: the Octobrists versus the Mayites, the 'go now, Gordon' camp versus the 'wait and see' crew. I suspect that this divide within the conference is nowhere more vivid than inside the capacious brain of the PM himself. He is, we know, capable of great resolve, boldness and theatricality: witness his granting of independence to the Bank of England, and his formidably choreographed entrance as Prime Minister.

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Jon Cruddas’s conference diary

From our UK edition

All week, Jon Cruddas will be writing a conference diary for us from Bournemouth. We’ve just posted his first entry in which Jon explains why the Labour party is parting like it is 1996 all over again and why he suspects that his wife might not have voted for him for deputy leader.

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Fisking Darling

From our UK edition

The Labour Party conference is already turning out to be a stage where a fictional narrative of events is being established and Alistair Darling’s speech was no exception. Here is a small list of correctives.   1) “Record of economic growth not achieved by any other economy” Um, the UK has had the worst growth in the English speaking world since 1997. Most developed countries have grown faster. See theOECD growth tables for proof.   2) “Youth unemployment is down by 90% in Dorset and that is what a Labour government has delivered”. Um, youth unemployment has (scandalously) risen under Labour across the UK (see here).   3) He claimed Bournemouth has a 1.5% unemployment rate.

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Will Brown take the October plunge?

From our UK edition

Two moments stood out for me in Gordon's Andrew Marr interview: when the PM discussed the health service, not only personalised but capable of delivering to patients the "doctor that they want, the GP at the time they want" he was echoing his recent tea-guest, Margaret Thatcher (I want to go to the hospital of my choice, on the day I want, at the time I want.) Not much comfort for public sector workers there. Second, when Marr expertly pressed him on election timing, Brown let slip the extent to which he is now absorbed by this matter. Asked about Callaghan's famous decision not to go to the country in 1978, Gordon smiled and said there are "so many historic analogies" - revealing that he has indeed been consulting his extensive historical library for precedents.

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What to watch for in Bournemouth

From our UK edition

Gordon's first Labour conference as Prime Minister begins today: it could conceivably be his last. Just as last year's gathering of the party in Manchester was dominated by Tony Blair's farewell and the prospects for smooth transition to the Brown regime, the proceedings in Bournemouth will be consumed by a single question and one that will almost certainly not be mentioned on the conference floor: the timing of the election (see Andrew Rawnsley's typically shrewd analysis of the pros and cons of an early poll in today's Observer). As absorbing as this question undoubtedly is - will he? won't he?

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Which Blairite will spill the beans on Brown?

From our UK edition

After the censored purity of the Campbell diaries, the Blair era memoirs competition finally looks like becoming a race to the bitchy bottom. Jonathan Powell's autobiography is to have the splendid title "Great Hatred, Little Room". I'm told it will focus on Northern Ireland rather than No. 11. But from the second greatest Brown hater in No. 10 (Cherie being the first) it has much potential.

Saturday

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Letters to the Editor | 22 September 2007

From our UK edition

No call for a referendum Sir: Your leading article overstates the case for a referendum in the UK (15 September). It would be interesting to know how many newspapers thought there should be a referendum on the decision to go to war with Iraq, or other far-reaching decisions that Parliament takes, such as on counter-terrorism or euthanasia. We live in a parliamentary democracy where our legislature is entrusted to take decisions on behalf of the people. Eurosceptics routinely bemoan the loss of parliamentary sovereignty, but the calls for a referendum would ironically neuter Parliament at the time when it should be centre stage. Furthermore, hysterical complaints about the submergence of the UK into a United States of Europe are far-fetched.

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The terracotta PM

From our UK edition

Number Ten has been sending a steady stream of visitors to the British Museum to see its exhibition of the First Emperor of China and his terracotta army. Quite right, too: the show is simply stunning, one of the wonders of our time, and an experience you dare not miss (see Andrew Lambirth's review here and go here to book tickets). Rudy Giuliani was at the exhibition last week, no doubt planning his own terracotta Delta Force should he become President. And I have no doubt that Gordon Brown, who opened the show, has found much to admire in Qin Shihuangdi (r.

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Douglas Alexander admits Cameron is asking some of the right questions

From our UK edition

                  In a Guardian interview this morning, Douglas Alexander let something interesting slip. Amidst the usual rubbishing of the opposition, Alexander says this about David Cameron: “Over the past 18 months he raised a lot of expectation by asking a lot of questions that people in Britain are asking, but in the past few weeks he has disappointed by failing to answer those questions with credible policies." What’s interesting about this is that Alexander is essentially admitting that Labour is vulnerable on various issues. The challenge for the Tories is to come up with the kind of policies that can capitalise on these weaknesses.

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Ian Gilmour RIP

From our UK edition

Less than a year since the death of Frank Johnson, the Spectator has lost another of its family. Last night, the death of Ian Gilmour, who was our proprietor and editor from 1954 to 1959, was announced, and all at the magazine grieve for his passing and send our condolences to his family. In later life, Ian was best known as a staunch and eloquent critic of Thatcherism, whose book, Dancing with Dogma, impressed even those, such as myself, who disagreed with its central thesis. But he was also a crucial protagonist in the history of the Spectator and his carpet - worn down by the pacing of Alexander Chancellor - was a feature of the editor's office for many years.

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There may be trouble ahead

From our UK edition

Extraordinary measures are sometimes necessary to quell the madness of crowds. When Diana, Princess of Wales’s mourners threatened to vent their angry grief on the institution of monarchy itself, it became necessary for the Queen to speak directly to her people. Extraordinary measures are sometimes necessary to quell the madness of crowds. When Diana, Princess of Wales’s mourners threatened to vent their angry grief on the institution of monarchy itself, it became necessary for the Queen to speak directly to her people. As the run on Northern Rock gathered momentum on Monday and panic-stricken depositors threatened to vent their anger on the government, there were only two possible responses.

Friday

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Labour conference coverage on Coffee House

From our UK edition

From Sunday, Coffee House will have extensive coverage of the Labour Conference. Jon Cruddas, who ran such a strong campaign for the Labour deputy leadership, will be writing a conference diary for us; giving us his thoughts on what's going on in the hall and on the fringe.  We’ll also have reports on all the developments in Bournemouth from Matthew d’Ancona and Fraser Nelson and a review of Gordon’s big speech from Lloyd Evans.

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Who should carry the can for the bank run?

From our UK edition

If you’re trying to figure out who should be blamed for the whole Northern Rock debacle, do read Martin Vander Weyer’s column today. As Martin argues, Northern Rock is in large part responsible for the mess it got itself into to while the Financial Services Authority also deserves blame for sitting on its hands after it became aware of the potential problem. But the crisis has also demonstrated that the regulatory system that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling set up in 1997 is not fit for purpose.