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Christopher Martin -Jenkins, The Times’s cricket correspondent and Test Match Special commentator, has an op-ed that is well worth reading on the excessively heated atmosphere during the Trent Bridge Test in this morning’s paper. The game was definitely not played within the spirit of the game. England’s scattering of jelly beans at the crease, apparently
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A new swathe of Russians has hit town – dancing ones this time. The Bolshoi Ballet opened in swaggering style last night at the Coliseum with the full three-act version of Le Corsaire. Even paid-up balletomanes have often only seen the bravura duet from Act One. The whole thing was gloriously, unabashedly old-fashioned. The plot
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Tony Blair will not take a bow for this one, and you can bet Gordon Brown won’t give him credit. But it looks like his plan for a peacekeeping operation in Darfur is finally going ahead – pretty much as the draft whose details were released on the day he stood down envisaged. It was
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I simply disagree with those who criticised Gordon Brown’s Camp David performance in this morning’s press. He struck me as assured, and eloquent. But he has just let himself down in New York, banging on about his last-century approach to poverty reduction. He wants to give Africa the remedy he prescribes for Britain – borrowing
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“We’ll have as much spine as we possibly can, under the circumstances.” This response by Hillary Clinton to an activist calling on her to show some spine by endorsing federal funding for a needle exchange programmes is incredibly revealing of the Clinton campaign mindset. The Clintons’s electoral success has been based on this approach of
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Rachel Sylvester has a typically astute piece in today’s Telegraph on how Brown differs from both Blair and Bush. Here’s the key section: “Mr Brown is different – not just from Mr Bush but also from Mr Blair. While Mr Bush and Mr Blair see the world in black and white, Mr Brown observes more
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Criticism from Ali Miraj, a Tory activist who was an early supporter of David Cameron and sits on two of the party’s policy review groups, of the Tory party’s lack of substance is getting some ink this morning. But in a combative interview on the Today Programme, David Cameron revealed that just yesterday Miraj asked the
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Gordon Brown will be pleased by how his first press conference with George W. Bush went. There were no disasters even if Bush’s ragging of the press and boast that Brown is a ‘humorous Scot’ will rather grate on British ears. While on the plus side, Bush affirmed that Britain is America’s most important bilateral relationship.
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Ken Pollack and Mike O’Hanlon—neither of whom could be called a neo-conservative, a Bush supporter, or a Republican—have a must read op-ed in the New York Times this morning on Iraq. Their view is that: “We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the
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The death of Ingmar Bergman coincides with the re-release of his greatest film, The Seventh Seal (1957), a meditation upon death and the fear of godlessness set in the middle ages but inspired by the nuclear terrors of the Cold War. The bleakness of Bergman’s oeuvre is undeniable, but his films were not cold: there
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Gordon Brown’s op-ed in the Washington Post this morning shows how fluent he is in the language of the special relationship. (Although, Brown speaks it with a less emotional and more intellectual accent than Blair). His piece hits all the right notes and by approvingly quoting Ronald Reagan he shows Washington’s Republican elite that he
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Gordon Brown’s first Prime Ministerial visit to the United States is working well so far. He has kept his personal distance by wearing a suit and not bringing along his wife but balanced this with a statement expressing admiration for the United States and invoking the usual Churchillian rhetoric. He is not playing to the
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Perhaps the best outcome of these torrid last few weeks is that the Cameron project has been brought down to earth. After winning the party leadership against all the odds, some of the Cameroons had the idea they could walk on water, and rewrite the normal laws of politics. They thought if they said the
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David Davis’s warning to his party to show discipline and stick to the centre ground in today’s Sunday Telegraph is the best news for the other David in a while. Davis is scarcely a woolly liberal, a Soho brand manager or a tree hugger. His voice reaches parts of the party Cameron cannot reach. Well-read
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Sir: I’m very encouraged to see you doing such wonderful work supporting Boris Johnson in his bid to be Mayor of London… Why we need Boris Sir: I’m very encouraged to see you doing such wonderful work supporting Boris Johnson in his bid to be Mayor of London (Leading article, 21 July). Yes, it’ll be
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This review essay by Samantha Power, a Harvard professor who is close to Obama, on where the Bush presidency is leaving the war on terror is well worth reading. Her main concern is that the American public, with little faith in the credibility of the government’s claims, may deny even cleareyed leaders the resources they
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The waters of the River Avon, recounted the vicar of Bengeworth, outside Evesham, ‘reached almost to the keystone of the arch of the bridge, and extended up Port Street to the public pump on the south side of the street… The waters of the River Avon, recounted the vicar of Bengeworth, outside Evesham, ‘reached almost
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With Gordon jetting off to Camp David and the Simpsons movie coming out this weekend, here’s Tony Blair–he used to be Prime Minister, you know–doing a cameo on the show. Somehow, I think, that this is one invite Gordon will never get.
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George W. Bush and Tony Blair famously bonded over their mutual use of Colgate toothpaste at their first meeting at Camp David. With Gordon Brown heading there this weekend, one can’t help but wonder which product he and Bush have in common? Anyone have any ideas? One thing we can be confident of, though, is
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Doesn’t anyone spot what Gordon Brown is really up to? The great Peter Riddell isn’t convinced that he has altered the Blair reform agenda, and thinks that “changes are at the margins”. Well, you could say that. If you snap the brake cable of a car, change is at the margins – but the consequences