The Spectator

Thursday

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From Rousseau to Blears

"The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during election of members of parliament; as soon as the members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing." So wrote Rousseau of our system of parliamentary representation. It is to address this sense of absolute disenfranchisement in the years between elections that Hazel Blears will today announce plans to give local people a say over local budgets. Democracy, the new Communities Secretary will tell the Local Government Association, "should be a daily activity, not an abstract theory". Three cheers to that sentiment. The plan is apparently for a series of pilot pojects which will give local voters the chance to express their views directly on specific spending proposals.

Wednesday

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Official: Spectator backs Boris

   No more than a formality, of course, and the least I can do as the great man’s successor in the Editor’s chair. As a Londoner, I know he would do a brilliant job, and the awesome city state that is 21st Century London needs a man of his stature at the helm, not a newt-loving, Mullah-appeasing, nasally-challenged whiner like Red Ken. I hereby declare Boris to be the official candidate of The Spectator for the position of London Mayor. To adapt the greatest of all city statesmen, Pericles: Boris does not imitate, but he is a model to others.

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Will Boris run?

Nick Robinson doesn't take fliers. The more calls I make on this Boris for London story, the more true it seems: wheels are indeed in motion. Perhaps what he needs is encouragement. He'd certainly have my full support - no prizes who'd win a Red Ken v Steve bleeding Norris contest. So what do Coffee House readers think? Should we start a petition?

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Two views on the Fourth

The late David Halberstam—author of The Best and the Brightest—has a posthumously published essay in Vanity Fair on Bush’s misuse of history. He charges that the Bush administration lives in “a world where other nations admire America or damned well ought to, and America is always right, always on the side of good, in a world of evil, and it's just a matter of getting the rest of the world to understand this.” Ironically, I don’t think the Bush administration would actually dissent this much from that analysis. Just consider this op-ed in today’s Washington Post by Michael Gerson, the man responsible for Bush’s most memorable speeches but who has now left the White House, on the meaning of the 4th of July.

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Boris for Mayor?

Nick Robinson is suggesting that Boris Johnson may run for London mayor. I can tell you that Boris was unofficially sounded out at the Tory summer party last year, and resolved he didn't want to give up his superb, safe and beautiful Henley seat (which they told him he'd have to do). As of last month, he was asked again and hadn't changed his mind. But in light of the tragic news of Nick Boles’ illness, might things have moved on? I doubt it. But I'll keep you posted.

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Flagging up a problem

Strange to see Gordon Brown dropping the phrase "war on terror" while asking (through today's Sun) that we all fly Union Flags to show war-style defiance against terrorism. I admire his spirit, but he can't have it both ways. Flags grew out of the walls in America post 9/11, and it is this spirit which Mr Brown wants to inculcate in Britain. The problem is that the flag in the drawers of The Sun's readers is white with a red cross on it. Thanks to Labour's policy of Scottish devolution, English identity is clearer now in England than ever before. It's not something I welcome: like many expatriate Scots I'm very fond of the Union Flag. But I’d be interested to see how many red white and blue flags there are outside those owned by prom-goers or official buildings.

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A Doctor of Culture

Further to my post on John Simm, it seems to me that Doctor Who, once the home of Daleks and wobbly cardboard scenery, is now becoming the nation’s cultural showcase of all the talents. The news that Kylie is to feature in the Christmas special could be dismissed as a one-off gimmick to drive up ratings at the most competitive time of year. But the recruitment of the preternaturally wonderful Catherine Tate to the show as a full-time assistant to the last surviving Time Lord – well, that is something else entirely. I was amongst those who thought that Tony Blair’s sketch for Comic Relief with the comedienne in her guise as schoolgirl Lauren (“Am I bovvered, though?”) reflected well on both of them.

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Brown, constitutional conservative or radical?

Gordon Brown’s constitutional proposals receive a generally good press this morning. Interestingly, everyone has decided to concentrate on the bits they like rather than the bits they don’t: The Sun fronts Brown’s call for the flag to be flown from public buildings, Jonathan Freedland praises the radicalism of the proposals while Simon Heffer is impressed by their conservative emphasis on the primacy of Parliament. Freedland explains the thinking behind the changes thus “Brown reckons that the surest way for a politician to win back the public trust is to give away power...If people can be persuaded to believe once more in the legitimacy of government, then Brown can get on with deploying it as a tool for political change.

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The portfolio of all the talents

Much has been said, and rightly, about the battle of the titans over schools and children’s policy which will now ensue between Ed Balls and Michael Gove, elevated to the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet respectively in the past week. Ed, as well as being Gordon’s right-hand man, is an impressive act himself with a serious intellect and a greater sense of humour than has yet been realised. He will need it against Michael, who was a star of my years at Oxford, and has remained at the top of whatever game he has chosen since then: he is also right about the war on terror, which comforts those of us who detect a pragmatist, dullard drift in Tory foreign policy. He has what it takes to lead the party in due course.

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The odds MI5 is working against

“As many as four of the NHS terror cell suspects were already known to security services, it emerged last night,” reports The Daily Mail this morning. This revelation is bound to set off a debate about whether MI5 has bungled or not. But before you jump to conclusions, consider what Fraser Nelson wrote after it became public that Sidique Khan had crossed MI5’s radar before 7/7:  “When the next terrorist attack hits Britain (and everyone who assesses the risk speaks of ‘when’) the names of the attackers will probably be found on an MI5 database. If the service is doing its job properly, it will have logged every young person who visits a suspicious Pakistani camp. But tracking all these people is beyond the remit of a free country.

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Don’t blame foreign policy, blame the world view

Asim Siddiqui has a powerful op-ed in the Guardian today on the futility of blaming foreign policy for terror attacks. As he writes: “And once we've left Iraq, will they be satisfied? Of course not. Their list of grievances is endless: Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kashmir, Palestine, Burma ... so long as the world is presented as one where the west is forever at war with Islam and Muslims there is nothing we can do to appease the terrorists and those who share their world view. Instead it is this extremist world view that must change.“ Do read the whole thing.

Tuesday

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Measuring up the campaign teams

My apologies to George Osborne. Daniel Finkelstein's blog points out that young Gideon does have election experience from his days in the 2001 campaign, not none as I unkindly said. I still think Douglas Alexander is a formidable counterpart as election maestro: I've never had a conversation with wee Dougie that hasn't involved election mechanics. But perhaps the Tories can buy in expertise from outside? I hear Lynton Crosby is in town tonight. Maybe he's for hire again....

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It’s not good out there

It's a bit rough out there. Every day brings a flood and dry cleaning bills. Anglican bishops taking time off from gay-obsessions tell us the rain is all our fault and God's judgement on our careless ways. For which relief much thanks go to Bishop Jones of Liverpool (and the Mersey Delta). But it was an ostentatiously Anglican poet, T S Eliot, who told us in the Four Quartets that the river was a 'strong brown god'-one of those implacable and unappeasable forces which just recur in cyclical fashion. Shit happens-and moves in mysterious ways its wonders to perform. Usually it arrives in Bangladesh rather than Britain- but it's all a good reminder of a common vulnerability to nature. 17th century diarists are full of laments about wet summers and ruined harvests.

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Cheap radicalism

Gordon Brown’s justification for his constitutional meddling is that “the best answer to disengagement from our democracy is to strengthen our democracy.” Which begs the question of why are people disengaged from politics? If I had to take a stab at explaining why, I’d say it is some combination of the following: the lack of ideological distance between the parties, campaign techniques that ignore all but the swingiest of swing voters and politicians denying what they just said and MPs being used as lobby fodder. Now, there is nothing in these proposals to deal with any of these problems. Admittedly, you can’t mandate clear blue water between the parties. While, no party is going to unilaterally disarm in the race for marginal seats.

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Follow the talent

If anyone was wondering what the political parties think the key battleground of the next few years will be, just look at the people taking on the children, schools and families brief. Gordon Brown has placed his right-hand man Ed Balls in charge of this new department. Shadowing him will be Michael Gove, the pick of the political talent in the shadow cabinet.

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Who’ll be the first to fall foul of the smoking ban?

Today’s Sun report on the after party for the Diana concert, says that: "Harry became one of the first people in the country to break the new smoking ban—as he lit up in the indoor VIP arena less than 24 hours after the law came in."All of which begs the question, who will be the first public figure to be done under the draconian smoking ban? Personally, my money is on Pete Doherty.

Monday

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A new tack for the Tories?

David Cameron’s choice of Sayeeda Warsi to shadow Hazel Blears, further illustrates how far the Tories are moving away from a hawkish position on the war on terror. Here is what she said soon after 7/7: "We must start engaging with, not agreeing with, the radical groups who we have said in the past are complete nutters," she said, suggesting a process akin to the Northern Ireland peace process that brought Sinn Fein into peaceful negotiations. "We need to bring these groups into the fold of the democratic process. As long as we exclude them and don't hear them out, we will allow them to continue their hate," said Ms Warsi, who lives in Dewsbury, Leeds, home to Mohammad Sadique Khan, one of the London suicide bombers.

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Tories turn ever further away from neo-conservatism

Dame Pauline Neville Jones recently gave evidence to Paddy Ashdown’s Iraq Commission. With today’s news, her testimony makes for fascinating reading. Here’s the key section of her remarks: "I think liberal intervention jolly difficult, jolly difficult, and we should be careful I think about being terribly gung-ho about the duty to protect, though the duty to protect is an important concept. There are other ways of protecting and undertaking your duty to do it without getting to the reaches of liberal intervention. I think you have to take into account the tolerance of democracies, you know, for the use of their armed forces too.