The Spectator

Sunday

The Spectator

Darling stumbles

Darling is losing his grip. He got his figures wrong twice on the World This Weekend and his exasperated stuttering hardly inspired confidence at a time when it is so badly needed. His job is to exude calm and savoir faire, for the benefit of anxious savers listening at home. Instead, he went on about how David Cameron was once a special adviser to Norman Lamont. Yes, the credit crunch started in America but why is the UK so exposed? This is the question ministers must answer. For years, the Tories have taken a defeatist attitude thinking Brown’s reputation with the economy was untouchable. Now is their chance. PS Cameron is now making a speech on all this at 12.30pm tomorrow. Let's see if he lands some punches.

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How the Tories could get the public to go green

The YouGov poll in Sunday Times which shows that Labour is five points ahead also contains some instructive data on the public's reactions to the policies suggested by the Tory Quality of Life policy review group. Whenever there is a genuine combination of carrots and sticks proposed there is popular support for the ideas. So, 80 percent of people favour raising taxes on gas guzzling cars while reducing those on low emission vehicles. Equally, 83 percent support lowering stamp duty on energy efficient homes. By contrast, 70 percent oppose charging people to park in supermarket car parks and 54 percent disagree with the idea of putting VAT on short haul flights.

Saturday

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Letters | 15 September 2007

Lift sanctions on Iran Sir: The resolution of the Iranian nuclear crisis is breathtakingly simple, were sanity to prevail (‘Iran will be next’, 8 September). Iran does not need an atom bomb to attain the status of a regional superpower: the size of her population and territory, her vast natural resources, her access to the Caspian Sea and dominance of the Persian Gulf confer that status upon her. If the sanctions imposed by the Americans and the Security Council were to be lifted and, simultaneously, Iran agreed to an international inspection of her nuclear installations, Iran’s moribund economy would be revived at the same time that fears about her nuclear military ambitions would be assuaged. The alternatives are too terrifying to contemplate. Parviz C.

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Why John Reid is stepping down

Earlier today, like many people around Westminster, I received a text message from John Reid letting me know that he will be standing down as an MP at the next election. As sorry as I am - John was an invigorating presence on the parliamentary and Whitehall scene, and one of the few ministers who fully grasped how the world changed on 9/11 - the news does not come as an enormous surprise. For a start, he is blissfully happy in his marriage and had always talked wistfully of a time when he would be able to devote himself fully to his wife ('I'm a happy bastard, me'). But he is also a politician with a pitiless capacity to judge when the game is up.

The Spectator

How government and the Bank of England exacerbated the credit crunch

The credit crunch is global. So why has there only been a run on the banks in Britain? Alistair Darling suggests Northern Rock is a mere domino in a chain which started in America. But John Redwood’s blog points out that the first domino was knocked over by the clumsy fingers of the Labour government. Only in Britain did the central bank refuse to boost liquidity by lending at a non-penalty rate (unlike the ECB, the Fed, the Norwegians, Swiss, Russians etc).   The next bit sounds nerdy, so was the ERM crisis so stay with me. Exacerbated by the BoE’s intransigence, the de facto cost of bank borrowing, three-month LIBOR, has risen from 6% to 6.85%. These costs will be passed on to customers.

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Might Brown’s tea-time stunt backfire?

On Thursday I thought that Gordon Brown had pulled off a masterstroke by inviting Margaret Thatcher to tea at Downing Street, but now I’m not so sure. Marina Hyde’s column is a good guide to the shifting reactions to it and is well worth reading. As Hyde writes, “This piece of gesture politics - even that description flatters - reveals nothing more nor less than a total contempt for the voter. What is the slackjawed electorate supposed to divine from this cynical dumb show? Perhaps that Gordon is above anything so unseemly as ideological difference, or that some sort of tea-based transubstantiation has given him new prime ministerial gravitas, or that it's OK to vote for him if Maggie will allow him into her exclusion zone....

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Only a Lib Dem could get it this wrong

Sir Menzies Campbell's call for a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU is a desperate bid to preserve party unity on the eve of what may be his last conference as Lib Dem leader. No less than Harold Wilson in 1974-5, he seeks to avert a party split by backing a plebiscite. The trouble is that the question Ming wants to pose - In or Out - is a complete irrelevance (except for Ukip voters). The controversy over the re-heated EU Constitution, now stripped of grandiose language but substantially the same as it was in 2004, has nothing whatsoever to do with membership of Europe. It is about trust and Labour's unambiguous pledge in its 2005 manifesto to hold a referendum on the Constitutional Treaty (or Reform Treaty as it is now relabelled after the deal struck this year).

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Vote for honesty

The long quest to find a purpose for the Lib Dems is the modern equivalent to the probably apocryphal story about the child asking his mother about Lord Randolph Churchill: ‘What is that man for?’ The long quest to find a purpose for the Lib Dems is the modern equivalent to the probably apocryphal story about the child asking his mother about Lord Randolph Churchill: ‘What is that man for?’ As the third party meets in Brighton for its annual conference, the heart sinks at the prospect of more debates on tedious political marginalia. But Sir Menzies Campbell should abandon his present reservations and heed those of his colleagues now encouraging him to push for a referendum on the EU reform treaty by joining in the parliamentary ambush of the ratification process.

Friday

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The pick of the weekend’s films

If you’re planning a visit to the cinema this weekend, I recommend you bypass the  cold, albeit visually impressive, ‘Atonement’, in favour of  Julie Delpy’s first effort as an actor, writer and director, ‘2 Days in Paris’.  The premise is simple: a couple round off a tour Europe by spending two days with the girl’s parents in the ‘city of love’, hoping to inject fresh life into their flagging relationship.  Not everything goes according to plan as the boyfriend, played by the relatively unknown Adam Goldberg grows increasingly troubled by his girlfriend’s past and swelling number of ex-lovers.

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Old is the new new

The old Latin rite of Mass is officially reinstated today. It’s not easy to explain the significance of this to non-Catholics (or even to Catholics under the age of 50), but it’s as though Rome had closed all the great cathedrals of Europe and stripped them bare and had now decided to re-open them and reinstall the art treasures. The junking of the old Mass almost 40 years ago was quite simply an act of vandalism. That is not to say (as my extreme extremist friends do) that the new Mass is invalid. Many of the abuses of the 1970s have been abandoned, and gimmicky celebrations are now largely confined to churches presided over by ageing trendies in unfashionable suburbs.

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Bush on Iraq

President Bush’s speech on Iraq last night showed how reliant he now is on others for credibility on Iraq. Take the two key paragraphs that set out the shift in policy: “Because of this success, General Petraeus believes we have now reached the point where we can maintain our security gains with fewer American forces. He has recommended that we not replace about 2,200 Marines scheduled to leave Anbar province later this month. In addition, he says it will soon be possible to bring home an Army combat brigade, for a total force reduction of 5,700 troops by Christmas. And he expects that by July, we will be able to reduce our troop levels in Iraq from 20 combat brigades to 15.

Thursday

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Gordon’s new ad message: I’m not Tony

Back in May, the American pollster (and Spectator contributor) Frank Luntz advised Gordon Brown to make a virtue out of his reputation for being boring. The Prime Minister has today taken this advice. The new Labour logo is to be “Not flash, just Gordon”: precisely the right message. But this message will work best in the immediate aftermath of Blair’s departure while people still think “thank God that grinning charlatan has gone”. In the long run, I suspect they will miss the charisma. So if this has indeed been chosen an election logo, it suggests it will be needed sooner rather than later while the “just Gordon” mantra remains a novelty.

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Brown invites Thatcher into his ever expanding tent

Margaret Thatcher is taking tea with Gordon Brown, Ben Brogan has the scoop. This is just about the last thing that David Cameron needs today as he tries to defuse the Gummer Goldsmith report. He’s now bound to get questions about whether he feels snubbed and if he’ll be inviting her round for a cuppa at CCHQ and if not why not. (Regulars at Lady Thatcher’s parties have long noted Cameron’s conspicuous absence and those close to her are amazed at his failure to court her.) The invitation shows how far Brown is prepared to go to establish himself as a national, not party, figure.

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Did the anti-war movement just save the Iraq mission?

When you hear people talk about the importance of the NetRoots in left-wing politics in the US they’re largely talking about MoveOn.org which was founded to try and get the country to move on from the Monica Lewinsky affair and the Clinton impeachment. It has now become a powerful voice in Democratic party politics and is one of the most strident anti-war organisations. In recent years, it has devoted most of its energies to opposing the Iraq mission. But MoveOn might just have ensured that America does not leave Iraq prematurely. This week it greeted General Petraeus with an ad (see picture) asking if he was General Petraeus or General Betray Us.

Wednesday

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Toby Young’s new column starts this week

Do not miss Toby Young’s new weekly column Status Anxiety, starting in tomorrow’s magazine. As any fule kno, Toby is the laureate of metropolitan angst so it seemed only fair to give him a weekly slot in which to fret publicly. His first despatch from the psychic borderlands of West London is a beauty, too, addressing his disastrous decisions in the property market. All this, a wife, three kids, Boris’s mayoral campaign, and a movie of his own life to worry about (Simon Pegg plays Toby, by the way). Watch this space: it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

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The coming Lib Dem leadership battle

A book has just landed on my desk with Chris Huhne’s beaming, discoloured face on its cover. The LibDem environment spokesman is carrying a placard saying “green taxes now”. So yes, it seems the Liberal Democrat leadership contest has begun. My political column tomorrow is on the LibDem wake/conference next week, and how it will likely descend into a fringe meeting dogfight between Huhne and Nick Clegg. Both feature in this book, which appears to be a leftwing equivalent of the Orange Book (whose market-orientated solutions appalled LibDem membership). This time, it seems leadership hopefuls must demonstrate leftist credentials, which they are doing here.  I do feel for Ming.

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Who would follow Musharraf?

On the list of things that should keep us up at night, Pakistan has to be pretty high. It is a phenomenally unstable state with nuclear weapons. Much as I worry about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Pakistan is currently the country that terrorists would be most likely to get a bomb from. So I was actually rather reassured to read this piece in The Atlantic which argues that if Musharraf does fall, something which his own increasingly erratic behaviour is making far more likely, he won’t be replaced by some Taliban-lite figure but merely by another unsavoury, gradualist moderate. “On paper, it looks like a pretty frightening entity.

Tuesday