The Spectator

Friday

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Will Brown go early to avoid the voters’ verdict

Andrew Porter has a must-read story on the chances of an early election in the Telegraph this morning. He reports that Brown will not decide whether to call an early election until after the Labour conference. Interestingly, Labour advisers seem to believe that an election called this year would be a ‘mandate poll’ which would allow Brown to run on his plans for the future. While if Brown delays, he’ll have to fight a verdict campaign that would require him to defend Labour’s record in office since 1997. I’m not sure that the split is this neat but it does seem that the chances of an early election are once more on the rise. If the Labour lead is in double digits after Bournemouth, then the speculation will reach fever pitch.

Thursday

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US Defense Secretary doesn’t know if it was right to invade Iraq

If you want an idea of how far the Iraq debate has shifted since 2003 consider this exchange between David Brooks, The New York Times columnist, and Robert Gates, the US Secretary of Defence appointed by President Bush in late 2006 after he finally got rid of Donald Rumsfeld: “I don’t think you invade Iraq to bring liberty. You do it to eliminate an unstable regime and because sanctions are breaking down and you get liberty as a byproduct,” [Gates] continued. I asked him whether invading Iraq was a good idea, knowing what we know now. He looked at me for a bit and said, “I don’t know.” This is an interesting shift as it used to be an article of faith for the Bush administration that it would do it all over again.

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Ming places Lib Dems decisively to the left of Labour

 Ming Campbell’s speech to conference just now removed any doubt about where the Lib Dems fit on the political spectrum. In a passage criticising Gordon Brown he charged that “New Labour remains Blue Labour” and throughout Campbell sought to place himself to the left of Labour. Overall, the speech was strong with well-delivered jabs at both Brown and Cameron. His joke about Cameron that “Margaret Thatcher would have to concede: He turns if you want him to. The laddie's all for turning” should get him some good play on the evening news. While his litany of Brown’s failings was powerfully delivered.

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What Cameron is missing

It was great to see Baroness Thatcher on such good form at the Rudy Giuliani dinner last night and with some choice words about the decision to bail out Northern Rock. I suspect David Cameron is quite pleased she doesn’t do public speaking any more. She told me a few months ago that “you can’t have stability without tax cuts,” a wonderful inversion of the current Tory mantra. Notice how Giuliani (and Fred Thompson) crosses an ocean to be pictured with The Lady an opportunity which Mr Cameron has conspicuously failed to avail himself of. His loss. When I saw Conservative Home’s Tim Montgomerie amongst the dinner guests, I decided not to rush to blog. As I suspected, his entries tell you all you need to know about the evening.

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Has Britain failed Zimbabwe?

On Wednesday night, The Spectator and Intelligence Square hosted a debate on the motion of whether or not Britain has failed Zimbabwe. You can listen to the whole debate via this link and have your say by voting here. The motion in the hall was carried by 455 votes to 203. The Spectator’s theatre critic Lloyd Evans reviews the debate here.

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THE SPECTATOR VERSUS THE GOVERMNENT: NOW HAVE YOUR SAY

It has always seemed to me that the controversy over the EU Reform Treaty and the Government’s refusal to hold a referendum was more about honesty and transparency than sovereignty and European integrationism. That was the essence of The Spectator’s call last week for a popular vote, under the headline “Vote for Honesty”. I am amazed that a Government so supposedly committed to restoring trust and building a “new politics” based on consultation, dialogue with the electorate and Citizens’ Juries can be so cavalier about ditching its pledge in the 2005 manifesto to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution.

Wednesday

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Listen live

You can now listen to the inaugural Spectator / Intelligence Squared debate via this link. The motion is ‘Has Britain failed Zimbabwe.’ Update: At the debate the motion was passed by 455 votes to 203. You can vote here.The Spectator's theatre critic Lloyd Evans reviews the debate here.

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Gordon has reason to fear Cherie’s pen

Following on from Fraser: if I was Gordon, the news that Cherie is writing her memoirs would be one pre-conference headline I would not be happy about. The Campbell diaries were quite openly and systematically edited to avoid embarrassment to Prime Minister Brown. I would be amazed if Tony Blair’s autobiography is an exercise in score-settling. First, as I wrote in my Sunday Telegraph column at the weekend, the two men are getting on better than they have for many years. The arch-Brownite Ed Balls, once a ferocious critic of the ex-PM, has been telling colleagues that he hopes his new report on the prospective economic regeneration of the Palestinian territories will be of help to “Tony” in his new role as Middle East envoy.

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Coming soon: Cherie Blair’s memoirs

You have to hand it to her. Cherie Blair has beaten her husband to it, and signed a book deal. Blair hasn't event started writing up his memoirs, but there's cash to be had so the "bolshie scouser" (copyright T. Blair) is wasting no time. Read all about it at The Bookseller. Can any Coffee Housers help her our with possible chapter headings?

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Join the debate

Tonight, The Spectator and Intelligence Squared are hosting the first in a series of debates. This evening’s topic is Zimbabwe and an all star cast of speakers will be debating the motion ‘Britain has failed Zimbabwe’ at the Royal Geographic Society here in London.  If you can’t make the debate in person, never fear. We’ll be broadcasting it live on the site via this link from 6.45 pm onwards and a recording of the debate will be available to listen to from 9pm. Lloyd Evans, The Spectator’s theatre critic, will also be penning a review of the event which we’ll be posting on the site later this evening. Once the debate has finished, you can have your say by voting in our poll on the question which is available here.

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These polls really are awful for the Tories

The details of the polls this morning make for even grimmer reading for the Tories than the headline figures. Populus reports that, astonishingly, Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling’s lead over David Cameron and George Osborne on the economy has actually grown in the past ten days from 34 points to 38. While the ICM poll finds that Labour is now ahead on all nine key issues. The lead on the economy is a whopping 25 percent and the Tory advantage on health, which was always more a function of dissatisfaction with Labour’s handling of the NHS than anything else, has now disappeared to be replaced by a 13 point Labour one. To round things off, anti-Tory sentiment still persists.

Tuesday

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Tories down by eight in new ICM poll

The latest poll news isn’t good for David Cameron. ICM has the Tories eight points behind Labour and Cameron with the worst personal ratings of all the party leaders. The Lib Dems will be cheered to find themselves hitting that psychologically important 20% mark while Labour will be buoyed by reaching the 40% level. Grim as this news may be for the Tories, and the word is that there is more bad news to come, there is no need for panic. The Northern Rock crisis has probably killed off any remaining prospect of an Autumn election—if the Tories couldn’t make the idea that Brown is going now because everything is about to collapse stick after the events of the past few days then they don’t deserve to win—which means that politics becomes a long game once more.

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What to read in The New York Times

As Clive noted earlier, the whole of the New York Times will be free online from midnight tonight. I’d thoroughly recommend that you take the opportunity to start reading David Brooks, his column runs on Tuesday and Fridays.  As well as being America’s most perceptive conservative commentator, Brooks writes absolutely fascinating stuff about the brain. Here’s something from this Friday’s column on the declining importance of IQ: “One of the classic findings of [how IQ can be affected by the social environment] was made by H.M. Skeels back in the 1930s. He studied mentally retarded orphans who were put in foster homes. After four years, their I.Q.'s diverged an amazing 50 points from orphans who were not moved.

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How do you solve a problem like Ming?

Last night’s Newsnight interview with Ming summed up the problems the Lib Dems face. First of all, Ming only got 15 minutes at the end of the show compared to the full length, star attraction treatment that Brown and Cameron got. Second, the interview revolved around the Lib Dem’s leadership troubles—a trend Campbell exacerbated by choosing to quibble over every piece of polling data his inquisitors challenged him with. Third, Ming’s performance was poor. (Although, to be fair, he was much better on the Today Programme this morning.) The conventional wisdom is that the Lib Dems can’t afford to get rid of two leaders inside a parliament; especially as an election still might just be called before the turn of the year.

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Is Bush senior sending a message on behalf of his son?

An intriguing development in the US presidential race, Bush senior just came very close to endorsing John McCain. McCain is currently on a ‘No Surrender’ tour designed to reenergise his candidacy based on his staunch support and advocacy for a strategy that might actually succeed in Iraq. At a stop in South Carolina, the McCain team unveiled an effusive video message from Bush 41. Now, they were quick to clarify that this was not a formal endorsement.

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The Namier de nos jours

Last night, The Spectator hosted its first book launch at our new home in Old Queen Street. And how apt that it should be in honour of The Triumph of The Political Class (Simon and Schuster, £18.99), by our very own Contributing Editor, Peter Oborne. You can read some of the arguments advanced in this splendid book in this week's Spectator - a cover piece which has already ruffled many a ministerial feather. Peter is emerging as the Namier de nos jours: a meticulous and fearless analyst of the social and political structures of our time, as well as a fearless truth-teller.

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Darling’s rocky guarantee

The government’s unprecedented decision to guarantee every bank deposit in the country should be enough to stop the queues outside Northern Rock branches and any further meltdown in the financial system. However, no one has covered themselves in glory during this episode. Adam Applegarth, the chief executive of Northern Rock, has delivered a master class in how not to handle a crisis, The Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority have between them dropped the ball and the government has looked far from sure of itself. Indeed it is noticeable how despite Alistair Darling’s shaky performances, Gordon Brown has still kept away.

Monday

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Free advice to Ming: Don’t declare yourself a failure

Mike Smithson has an interesting piece up at Political Betting arguing that if the Lib Dems are to be taken seriously by the media they need their very own Campbell or Coulson. Certainly, when you read about Ming Campbell declaring in a conference QandA “Well of course I'm a failure” the case for some proper media handling seems inarguable. (Yes, I know it was a joke—but when you’re in Ming’s position you don’t make such statements even in jest). So what I was wondering was, if you were Lib Dem press chief what would you tell the party to go big on? Personally, I think they should be hitting Brown hard on Northern Rock. As Tim Montgomerie points out, Cameron is constrained in what he can say without being labelled an opportunist and a scare monger.

Sunday

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Ming on the back foot

The YouGov poll in the Sunday Times has got the Lib Dem conference off on the wrong foot for Ming Campbell. The poll finds that only four percent of voters think that he is the most impressive of the three party leaders. Even among Lib Dem supporters, Gordon Brown outscores Campbell and 65 percent of Lib Dem voters think that they would be better off with a younger leader. While the party’s overall rating of 15 percent shows that it has lost a third of its support since the last election. As Fraser writes in this week’s magazine, the conference has effectively turned into a venue for the two young pretenders, Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg, to showcase their talents: Huhne is doing 13 fringe events and Clegg eight.