The Spectator

Wednesday

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Summer reading | 15 August 2007

Any Coffehousers still hunting for a holiday read should pick up a copy of Alex James's Bit of a Blur, which is keeping me company in Andalucía. For those who care, this is the second indispensable account of Nineties culture to appear (the first being John Harris's The Last Party). For everyone else, this is simply a riveting, witty and beautifully written account of a remarkable life, lived to the full and beyond. From his beginnings on the school bus in Bournemouth, via his student days at Goldsmiths (where he met a promising young artist called Damien Hirst), to the heights of global stardom as the bass player in Blur, James recalls every minute with relish, while pulling off the rare trick of laughing at its absurdity, too.

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India sixty years on

 Do read this excellent essay in the IHT about why India and Pakistan’s fortunes have diverged so much since partition. While the 60th anniversary of Indian independence, is as good an excuse as any to re-read Nehru’s wonderful “tryst with destiny” speech.

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Did the BBC play fair with the Redwood report?

The BBC’s coverage of the Redwood report has come in for much criticism, notably from The Sun and Iain Dale. Helen Boaden, the director of BBC  News, has now responded, conceding that the BBC's use of footage of Redwood failing to sing the Welsh national anthem was inappropriate but defending the substance of the reporting. Boaden lists the intros to each of the BBC’s news bulletins in the Corporation’s defence. Some of them do give the audience a good sense of the story but others do seem to put the cart before the horse, especially this one from Five Live at 11 am: "Labour has condemned the latest review of policy carried out by the Conservatives as a lurch back to the right wing of politics.

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The next step in the US-Iran showdown

Tensions between Tehran and Washington will reach new levels with the news that the US intends to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation. This allows the US to disrupt the organisation’s funding and take steps against those companies that do business with it. The Revolutionary Guard is the first governmental entity that the US has attempted to confront using these tactics. Considering the Guard’s role in key sectors of the Iranian economy, the moves challenges foreign firms who do business with Iran to decide between continuing to work there or falling foul of the US government.

Tuesday

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Vlad on holiday

Why do photos of world leaders on holiday hold such fascination for us? The shots of Vladimir Putin fishing seem to be everywhere today, I’ve spared you the one of him topless, while the New York Times has an entire collection of vacationing politicians snaps up on its site. Anne Applebaum has an entertaining column in today’s Washington Post attempting to explain why we care so much about where these folk go for the summer. Her theory is that as we now all have so many more vacation choices than before, we take far more notice of where leaders go than we would have previously. Indeed, I think an element of our interest comes from the fact that we tend to see people’s holiday choices as somehow revealing of their character.

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The shortest of breaks

The Sun reports this morning that Gordon Brown’s holidays are over. He’ll be working for the rest of the summer from his constituency in Scotland. So, Brown took a total of four hours and five minutes off before heading back to London to deal with the foot and mouth crisis. Is this the shortest holiday on record? And, what’s the best holiday one can have in four hours? Do leave your suggestions in the comments.

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What Petraeus will tell Washington

No one is more crucial to the future of the Coalition effort in Iraq than David Petraeus, the US commander there. Petraeus is seen by hawks as this war’s Ulysses S. Grant, the man who can turn around the mistakes of his predecessors and forge a victory from unpromising beginnings. This New York Times profile gives you a good taste of the pressures on him and the nature of the man. Petraeus’s testimony on Capitol Hill in September on the state of the war will be crucial in determining if Congress continues to fund the war. Interestingly, it seems that Petraeus will concentrate on the consequences of withdrawal as much as the progress that the surge is making.

Monday

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And now the end is near | 13 August 2007

Watching the Bush-Rove conference, it was impossible not to feel that this was the end of an era. The president admitted he soon be gone too; telling Rove “I'll be on the road behind you here in a little bit.” While both Rove and Bush were clearly moved by the moment. Rove’s departure signals that the Bush administration is done on domestic policy. The debate over whether he did Bush more harm than good will rumble onto into the history books. Indeed, what appeared like Rove’s greatest triumph—taking back the Senate in 2002 and increasing the number of Republican seats in the House—actually sowed the seeds for many of the problems that Bush is now reaping. The display of political muscle in that campaign was as brutal as it was effective.

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Have we turned away from the emotionalism of the Diana moment?

As the 10th anniversary of Diana’s death approaches we’re going to spend a lot of time debating whether or not the public reaction to her death ushered in a new, more emotionally open Britain or whether it was a mawkish display of grief which we all ought to be rather embarrassed about. As Jonathan Freedland points out in The Guardian there’s a political dimension to this question: “Tony Blair added to the electoral mandate he had gained on May 1 a kind of emotional mandate, forging a bond with the nation that Sunday morning when he correctly intuited the public reaction to the death of the princess - a connection that kept him riding high until the Iraq war.

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Prezza’s tale

I am almost certainly in a minority of one on this, but I suspect that John Prescott’s memoirs will be a lot more interesting than people are expecting. On all the Blair retrospective programmes, it was noticeable how frank Prescott was about how bad things had got between Blair and Brown. I also can’t help but wonder if Prescott, who is clearly--and understandably--irked by the way he’s depicted as an incomprehensible oaf with an excess of libido, might want to show just how much he had to do behind the scenes to keep the show on the road. Anyway, my question is what will the opening line of Prescott’s memoirs be? Do leave your suggestions in the comments. My only hope is that it doesn’t involve bicycles and the 11 plus.

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Heathrow needs more runways

The case for Heathrow getting a third runway is overwhelming. It is mad that the world’s third busiest airport in terms of passenger numbers only has two runways while Amsterdam’s Schipol airport, 12th on the list, has five and Charles De Gaulle in Paris, seventh, and Barajas in Madrid, 13th, have four each. On the green front, surely the fact that planes wouldn’t have to circle London for an age before landing due a the lack of landing slots would off-set much of the increase in emissions that would come from there being more flights in and out of the airport?

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‘Bush’s brain’ leaves the White House

If you want to get an idea of how important Karl Rove was to George W. Bush imagine if Peter Mandelson, Philip Gould and Alastair Campbell had all been rolled into one person who advised Tony Blair. In some ways, even this doesn’t do Rove justice as he had been with Bush long before he blipped onto the national political radar; they first met back in 1973. Rove memorably described the encounter to Newsweek thus: "I'm there with the keys and this guy comes striding in wearing jeans, cowboy boots and a bomber jacket," he recalls. "He had this aura." It was political love at first sight. There has always been an element of the nerd and the jock in the relationship between the two men, exemplified by Rove’s acceptance of the nickname “Turd Blossom.

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Karl Rove resigns

Karl Rove, the architect of President Bush’s two election victories, is resigning from the White House at the end of the month. Rove was convinced that he could re-align US politics and create a permanent Republican governing majority. But, partly through his own missteps, Rove has blown that chance. In many ways, he has never recovered from the toll that the inquiry in to the leaking of Valerie Plame’s name, where he was repeatedly questioned, took on his effectiveness. PS Do read this Josh Green piece on why Rove failed.

Sunday

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What happens when you are down

When you are ten points down in the polls everything you do is seen through that prism. So whenever the Tories announce a policy or talk about a topic, the media examine it for evidence of whether or not David Cameron is trying to shore up his right-wing or not. Everyone is looking to see if Cameron will follow Hague and Howard and tack back to the right if the polls continue to go against him.   So, news-reports—and Labour’s response--to the Redwood led economic competitiveness policy group report have concentrated not on its substance, the best analysis of which comes in the Sunday Telegraph, but on the extent to which it is designed to reassure traditionalists.

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Why we must end forced marriage

Damian Green, the Tory Immigration spokesman, sets out how the Tories plan to end forced marriages in an op-ed in The Observer today. There are some good suggestions in it, including the idea that anyone who is going to marry abroad should have to name the person they are going to wed before leaving the country. This would stop young girls from only being told that they are to be married once they have left the country. Personally, I’d also like to see the legal age for UK citizens marrying abroad raised to, say, twenty-one. Ending forced marriage is crucial to demonstrating that all UK citizens—regardless of gender, race or creed—have equal rights.

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The Brown bounce becomes the Brown boom

Gordon Brown has restored Labour’s fortunes to pre-Iraq levels, according to a YouGov poll in tomorrow’s Sunday Times. The poll puts Labour on 42, the Conservatives 32 and the Lib Dems 14. The internals of the poll don’t offer much comfort for the Tories either: 55% of voters think David Cameron is doing a bad job as Tory leader and 51% believe he would be a bad PM while 65% say Brown is doing a good job. 57% also think that Brown has got his relationship with Bush about right. (The numbers on Iraq and Afghanistan are depressing for a hawk like me, with a majority favouring withdrawal within a year in both cases.

Saturday

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Letters to the Editor | 11 August 2007

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 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.

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Blue Saturday

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 in the film 24 Hour Party People, Wilson was a jobbing Granada TV presenter who also had a passion for pop. As a musical Svengali, he is rivalled only by Epstein and McLaren, and he was more prolific than both.

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The disease and us

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 national crisis while David Cameron (who has since called off his own holiday) was lounging around on a Breton beach. That, we concede, is far-fetched, but it is not wrong to wonder whether the nation’s reaction to foot-and-mouth — which is rarely fatal in animals and causes no human symptoms whatsoever — is not a little out of proportion to the threat it poses.

Friday

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Football’s back

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 win the title. Across the road, City will start poorly but end up doing better under Sven Goran Eriksson than anyone is expecting and finish in the top half. Roy Keane’s Sunderland will, and as Newcastle fan this pains me to write, have a good season and finish in the top 7. Liverpool’s Marcus Babel will be the pick of the Premiership’s new arrivals. Spurs will flatter to deceive again.