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In his interesting and positive account of Gordon Brown’s visit to America, Matthew d’Ancona reveals that Brown’s thinking on the causes of terrorism has ‘shifted’ since the recent so-called Islamist ‘doctors’ plot’ to set off car bombs in the West End and at Glasgow airport. Why’s Brown so slow? Sir: In his interesting and positive
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I do not know whether, as was so often claimed, Tony Wilson, who has died aged 57, was a genius. But, as music mogul, club entrepreneur, loudmouth and zealous Mancunian, he was certainly one of the most important and remorseless figures in British popular culture of the past 30 years. Immortalised by Steve Coogan’s performance
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Given the boost in the opinion polls enjoyed by Gordon Brown following the recent floods, a cynic might wonder whether the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Surrey has been staged in order to give the Prime Minister an excuse to break off his holiday in Dorset and earn brownie points by taking control of a
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The football season kicks off tomorrow and with England so far on the back foot in the cricket that they’re in danger of stepping on their stumps, it will be a welcome distraction. For what it’s worth, here are a few predictions—do leave yours in the comments. Manchester United will play fantastic football but won’t
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Simon Barnes has a lovely tribute to the retiring England spinner Ashley Giles in this morning’s Times. Giles had a bit of a rough press as he was nearly always used in purely negative ways by his captain. While he irritated the purists as he wasn’t a great spinner of the ball. But, as Barnes,
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It seems the silly season is extending to financial markets. I have yet to hear a convincing explanation about how the credit crunch is supposed to be such a disaster for the companies quoted in London and New York – yes, its bad news for American homeowners and a few of the more speculative private
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Gerard Baker has a great column in The Times this morning about how Gordon Brown is trying to play it both ways on relations with America. Baker dubs it the bat’s piss strategy, in memory of the Monty Python sketch of that name. But as Baker notes there will come a time when Brown will
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George W. Bush’s speech in May 2003 declaring major combat operations in Iraq over while a banner behind him proclaimed “mission accomplished” was, with the benefit of hindsight, unfortunate at best. (Even at the time it was clear that the fighter pilot-style entrance was a little excessive.) But Bush’s words could have been so much
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Robert Putnam’s new work on diversity is sure to set the cat amongst the pigeons. The Boston Globe summarises the findings of The Bowling Alone author thus: “the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In
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The Bush clan will be gathering in their New England retreat this weekend and they will be joined, as Irwin Stelzer hinted they would be, by Nicolas Sarkozy, who is also holidaying in New England. Sarkozy is pulling off the opposite trick to Gordon Brown. While Brown has distanced himself stylistically from Bush but not
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Do watch the opening segment from yesterday’s edition of Newsnight on what the Iranians are up to in southern Iraq. It gives you a very good idea of what the Iranian game plan is and how they plan to benefit from a British withdrawal. Even if Newsnight did rather spoil it by then having John Bolton
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The contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is entering a decisive phase. The first primary is now only five months away and Hillary retains a commanding national lead, even if things are closer in the early states. So Obama needs to start taking chunks out of Hillary’s numbers soon if he is not going to
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A small, but telling, example of the nature of the regime that will be hosting the 2008 Olympics comes in James Fallows’s latest missive from China. “CNN International began its report talking about what is obviously the main deal-breaking threat to the Olympics: the air. The correspondent had gotten far enough into the story to
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Thank God for the Act of Settlement (1701). It keeps us focused. In the past week newspapers have been focusing on poor Peter Phillips, tenth in line to the throne, who is engaged to Autumn Kelly, a Canadian Catholic. If she does not abandon her religion, he will have to renounce his right to succeed
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Drew Westen, the super smart American political scientist who wrote for The Spectator a few weeks back, has extracts of his new book on why leaders need to connect on an emotional as well as intellectual level in G2 today. Westen makes a good case; there’s no doubt that much of the Republicans’ electoral success
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This morning’s Today Programme had an item on the Foreign Office Minister Mark Malloch Brown that’s well worth listening to. Malloch Brown has quickly become the most controversial of Gordon’s appointments. His desire for a “more impartial” foreign policy, for Bush and Brown not to be joined at the hip and his endorsement—albeit while still
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A ballot initiative in California could have more impact on the 2008 presidential race than any of the back and forth that is going on between the candidates at present. Currently California gives all its presidential votes—and it has more of them than any other state, 55 of the 270 you needs to be elected
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Here’s the Guardian’s website reporting William Hague’s defence of David Cameron today: “Speaking at a press conference in central London, Mr Hague also dismissed claims that Mr Cameron was failing to bolster Tory support in the north. He said the party had raised more money from northern donors in the first seven months of this year
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Was the industrial revolution a product of downward social mobility? That’s the argument of a forthcoming book by the American historian Gregory Clark. His thesis is that as the rich had more children that survived than the poor, the population of England was by 1800 overwhelmingly made up of the descendants of the economic upper
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The Washington Post this morning has a sobering account of the situation on the ground in Basra. The paper reveals that the US government has expressed concerns about the impact of the British pull back on the rest of Iraq at the highest levels to the British. While a senior US intelligence official tells the Post,
