If Douglas Alexander’s speech yesterday–or, more accurately the spin applied to it–prompted concerned phone calls from Washington and a memo from Gordon to the cabinet to go easy with the Bush bashing, then one wonders what Mark Malloch Brown’s quite extraordinary interview with the Telegraph will prompt. Malloch Brown, Kofi Annan’s former chief of staff,
A fortnight ago we urged David Cameron to raise his game after Gordon Brown’s impressively bold start as Prime Minister. A fortnight ago we urged David Cameron to raise his game after Gordon Brown’s impressively bold start as Prime Minister. In his response to the report by Iain Duncan Smith’s social justice policy group, the
The most comprehensive coverage of the Conrad Black trial can be found at the Canadian magazine Maclean’s. For a firm defence of Black, check out Mark Steyn’s blog on the trial.
David Cameron told Jon Snow last night that in proposing tax breaks for married couples — whether straight or gay — he was ‘not moralising, not preaching’. His social affairs guru, Iain Duncan Smith, who inspired Cameron’s new family-friendly policy, made the same point earlier in the week. ‘It is not about finger-wagging or moralising.’
When I supported the Iraq war, it was certainly for the aims James mentioned. And yes, I’m feasting on humble pie now. And Stuart’s right to say that even the Republicans are deserting Bush – the House has just voted to pull out troops by Spring. So I suspect Wee Dougie’s speech will be at
Come off it, James. American did not go to war to ‘set about a phenomenally ambitious project to build democracies in parts of the world where they had never succeeded before’. America went to war to extract the blood price for 9/11. Saddam was identified with the terrorists. He was said to have weapons of
Martin Bright has an intriguing interview with Ming Campbell in this week’s New Statesman. In it, Ming confirms that he and Brown discussed the possibility of current Lib Dem frontbench MPs serving in Brown’s cabinet. Yet, interestingly, it seems that the possibility of Campbell himself taking a job was not discussed. Campbell also tells Bright
His critics called him vain, snobbish, jumped-up and vicious – all true – but Nigel Dempster was also generous (he felt uncomfortable if anyone else paid for lunch); charming (displaying exaggerated and affected old-world manners which made women redden with appreciation) and exceptionally funny (with a theatrical sense of timing when recounting a juicy anecdote).
The best suggestion by a Coffee Houser for a new author of James Bond stories was Simon Chapman who proposed The Guardian’s in-house funster, Polly Toynbee. A bottle of champagne is on its way to Simon: congratulations! Here is how we think the book might begin: DIAMONDS ARE FOR TAXING by Polly Toynbee Bond walked
If you want to know how Brand Beckham will be marketed in the States take a look at the storyboards for the ad campaign that is being launched to promote his first game for the LA Galaxy. One of the most intriguing things about Beckham’s arrival in the US, as Sports Illustrated points out, is
Life is full of little ironies. I am just off to the BBC’s Millbank studios to do some recording for The Week in Westminster. Meanwhile, I have spent much of the afternoon having acrimonious conversations with senior BBC management. The cause? The Corporation has decided to withdraw permission from Emily Maitlis, star Newsnight and News
I rarely allow myself to be “Outraged of Westminster”, but this scandalous post by Jim Shelley, the Mirror’s TV critic, has forced me to make an exception. Ricky Gervais has not “lost it” or become a “tiresome embarrassment”. Indeed, the miracle of the man is that he has managed to escape the role of David
The news that Sebastian Faulks has written a Bond novel says a lot about the status 007 has achieved in the culture. On the big screen and through a ruthless process of reinvention, Bond remains a player at the multiplex. Poor Pierce Brosnan thought he was doing just fine, being tortured in Korea to the
For all my misgivings about the Cameron project, he is in exactly the right place on the family. His speech today was authentic, strong, thought-provoking and laid out clear blue water between him and Gordon Brown. As the rather pitiful performance of Ed Miliband on Today this morning showed us, Brown is uninterested in the
The former Republican frontrunner has just let his three most senior campaign aides go. These three departures signify the deep trouble that McCain’s campaign is in; he is now third or fourth in the polls and trails the fringe libertarian candidate Ron Paul in the money stakes. But he could still recover. He’s the candidate
I would like to reach across cyberspace to reassure the great Anne Applebaum. She says in Slate that “the Spectator magazine—the Conservatives’ once-faithful house organ—was ready to throw in the towel” with my cover story a fortnight ago ‘All bets are off.’ Yes, we did indeed declare that Brown is surprising the Conservatives (and us)
“All of the work that we have done has reinforced the importance of the first three years on a child’s cognitive and emotional development. The emotional brain is largely created in the first 18 months of life and its auditory map is formed even earlier, by 12 months. Furthermore, it has also been shown, alarmingly,
While the Republicans in America are quietly burying George W. Bush’s legacy in domestic policy, the Tories are embracing it. Iain Duncan Smith’s report on social policy, a labour of love if ever there was one, is animated by the same spirit of compassionate conservatism that underpinned George W. Bush’s first presidential campaign. IDS’s description of the
A brilliant topic on the Today programme – the scandal of the government science budget. A staggering £3.4bn of our money is spent on science – thus socialising what should be a completely liberalised form of human endeavour. This partly explains why so many scientists are on call to add to the chorus of global
The Spectator’s thoughts on Boris running for Mayor see Mary Wakefield’s ten point plan and the magazine’s official endorsement. We also have comprehensive coverage of the Alastair Campbell diaries. Anthony Browne, head of the think tank Policy Exchange and the former chief political correspondent of The Times, flags up and explains the key passages below;