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Given that Tony Blair misled Britain on the way into war in Iraq, Gordon Brown had better be very careful not to mislead us on the way out. Are Iraqi forces really able to take on the militias of the warring Sadr and Hakim families? That’s what we’re told, but look at these two quotes
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Boris is back: back Boris! Here at 22 Old Queen Street, the blond bombshell’s Spectator support team are punching the air. It wasn’t that we let the nay-sayers get to us, or that we ever, for a moment, fell for all that guff about him not being serious – it’s just that now we have
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Moments into Gordon Brown’s speech about a new kind of government, it is already clear what the speech is about: copying David Cameron. Addressing a group of voluntary organisations, he has already talked about “top-down solutions” no longer working; the revolution he is announcing is precisely the revolution Cameron has been talking about for months.
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There is nothing new in Gordon Brown’s taste for citizens’ juries and new forms of consultation – the cornerstone of his speech on the “New Politics” today – although his plan to review the Speakers’ Conference will repay careful study as part of what will clearly amount, in the end, to a substantial package of
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Gordon Brown’s interview in the Daily Telegraph sums up how Brown thinks he can appeal to small ‘c’ conservative voters. He talks, as he did on the Today Programme this morning, heavily about service; telling the Telegraph that, “The only purpose of being in politics is to serve your country. If you are not able
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There is a must-read account of George W. Bush’s private mood in the New York Times this morning. Robert Draper, who has interviewed the president for a new book coming out next week, reveals that Bush is more introspective than he appears in public. Bush tells Draper, “I’ve got God’s shoulder to cry on, and I
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What would Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington, the coolest of heads, have made of poor William Shawcross’s overwrought emotional plea that we must stay on in Iraq as a kind of act of faith (‘Britain must stay in Iraq’, 25 August)? A menace of our making Sir: What would Field Marshal the Duke of
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This is the last weekend before the US presidential primaries kick into top gear. At the moment, Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton are comfortably leading their respective fields. But a subway series is far from certain. Hillary might find that the electorate develop an acute case of Clinton fatigue if tawdry scandals begin to dominate
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The Populus data James mentions has been a major factor in soothing nerves within the Tory ranks. I had been told about these figures on two separate occasions by Shadow Cabinet members, but asked not to use it. The data is central to Operation Don’t Panic, Cameron’s main mission since returning from Brittany. Within some
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Tony Blair — remember him? — was better at diagnosis than cure. ‘I think most people would say that in virtually every aspect of their life things are better than they were 30 or 40 years ago,’ he told the Sunday Telegraph in November 2005. Tony Blair — remember him? — was better at diagnosis
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Over at the always thought-provoking Open Kingdom blog, Anthony Barnett makes an interesting point about class, you knew that good only English obsession had to get an airing today, and the rise of emotionalism in the country. Barnett writes that, “At its best (there were also worsts) upper-class behaviour was about good judgement providing the steel
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Matt’s cover a few weeks back illustrated how the Royals had absorbed the lessons of Diana’s life and death. There is little doubt that Diana has had a huge impact on the monarchy–which is, as Matt notes, in a far more secure state today than it was in the mid 1990s–but I wonder if she
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Come on guys. You are being a little harsh. It may not be “normal” to mark the anniversary of a death – but nothing about Princess Diana’s life or death was normal. Prince William and Harry had to share their mother with the entire world. No easy task. Watching today’s Service of Remembrance made me
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Thinking back to the events of ten years ago, it is quite remarkable how Blair’s statement grabbed the mood of the nation. Watch this clip and note how Martin Lewis, who up to that point had been sombre but not grief-stricken, choked up summarising Blair’s remarks. In time the public came to resent Blair for
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As the excitement about today’s Diana memorial service grows, take a look at Fergus Shanahan’s plain-speaking column in the Sun. He makes the perfectly valid point that the anniversaries of deaths are rarely, if ever, celebrated: there are no services, for example, to mark the passing of the years since Churchill’s death on 24 January
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The Britannica blog has been running a rather good forum on Diana and the cult of celebrity. Theodore Dalyrmple’s contribution challenges the sentimentality that has come to surround her in death. “In the orgy of demonstrative pseudo-grief that followed her death, Mr Blair said that the people had found a new way of being British.
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David Miliband and Des Browne take to the Washington Post this morning in an attempt to rebut claims from various US military and intelligence figures that the British have lost the South of Iraq. The key paragraph of their piece reads: “Commanders on the ground expect that Basra province will in months, not years, be judged
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Rosemary Righter’s column in The Times today is trenchant stuff. She calls Diana’s death the “best thing that could have happened to the Royal family”, which seems rather strong even to a Diana-sceptic like myself. (One can only admire, though, her response to her editor when he asked her what all the messages on the
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“For diplomacy to work, we need to dial up our political and economic pressure – not just our tough talk. Iran’s troubling behavior depends in large part on access to billions of dollars in oil and gas revenue. That is why I introduced the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act last May, to build on a movement
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David Ignatius has an intriguing piece in the Washington Post today saying that the Bush administration made a big mistake by not interfering in the Iraqi elections back in 2005. Back then it was viewed as crucial that America did not try and rig the process. Indeed, the conventional wisdom was that the defeat of America’s favoured