The Spectator

Wednesday

The Spectator

And now the end is near

From our UK edition

And so the cavalcade of farewell parties proceeds towards the terminus of June 27 and Tony Blair's last bow. Last night, it was the turn of Lord Levy to say goodbye as the PM's Middle East envoy at a reception in the garden of Lancaster House. Mr Blair paid fulsome tribute to his old ally, diplomatically describing him as an adjunct to the traditional Foreign Office (they had other names for Levy there), but declaring, with the boldness of the man about to leave office, that he was an adviser without equal.

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Brown to bring Lib Dems into the cabinet?

From our UK edition

Today’s Guardian reports that Brown is considering bringing a Lib Dem or two into the government. My gut reaction is that the Lib Dems would be fools to accept the offer, it would be far better for them to sit tight and negotiate from a position of strength in the hung parliament we’re likely to have after the next election. If they joined Brown’s cabinet now, it would make it far easier for the Tories to campaign against them as Labour patsies at the next election. Then again, being the first Liberal Cabinet Minister since Sir Archibald Sinclair must be an appealing thought.

Tuesday

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The next Reagan?

From our UK edition

Fred Thompson, the man many are hailing as the saviour of the Republican party and who you probably know best from his roles in Hunt for Red October, In the Line of Fire, Die Hard 2 and the TV show Law & Order, is in London right now and I went to hear him speak this lunchtime at Policy Exchange. It is immediately obvious why so many politicos are attracted to a Thompson candidacy: he has presence, a Reaganesque demeanour and a great voice—John McCain likes to joke that if he had Fred Thompson’s voice he’d be president. These assets have propelled him into second place in the polls for the Republican nomination despite the fact he hasn’t even announced yet. But the question with Thompson is, whether there is anything more to him than these qualities.

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The only reason to knight Rushdie

From our UK edition

I can’t really comment on Salman Rushdie as a literary figure, since I tried and failed three times to get beyond the opening 50 pages of Midnight’s Children.  I can comment on him as a public figure, however, having followed his career attentively since the fatwa of 1989.  I supported Mrs Thatcher’s response of cutting off diplomatic relations with Iran and giving Rushdie unlimited protection:  I even wrote to my MP saying the government was pusillanimous in failing to prosecute those demonstrators who called for his execution. Yet I never could stand the man, and found his gracelessness and ingratitude overwhelming at the time and since.

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Ageism Watch

From our UK edition

The departure of Nick Ross from “Crimewatch” is a sad victory for the worst kind of criteria now being applied in television. Nobody disputes the importance of appearance on screen – it would be odd if it were otherwise – but Ross is scarcely senescent and looks a pretty sprightly 59 year old. Having dined with him once, I can attest to his charisma and brains. He talked with great animation about the book which he will now, presumably, have time to write on law and order. But, if the Standard is right, and he was shown the door because of his age, the BBC is asking for trouble. Its licence is paid by an ageing population; and trust in the familiar and the experienced is at the heart of the Corporation’s mandate.

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Blair, Brown and the tussle in Brussels

From our UK edition

Two days to go and already the European Union summit is promising to be a cliffhanger. Will Blair sign? Will the Poles and the Czechs save him, and veto? No10 appears to be furious that Gordon Brown is holding out the prospect of a referendum and says there will be none “because we will not sign up to anything that breaches our red lines.” Yet I hear the Chancellor’s red lines are different: he doesn’t want a permanent EU president (especially one that may be called T Blair) and no EU foreign minister either. He’s right: this is the real test. Already, Mr Brown may be a better champion of British interests in Europe than Blair ever was.

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The Downing Street divide

From our UK edition

This front page story in The Guardian about the Blair Brown relationship is essential reading for anyone who thinks that the whole Blair Brown feud is something got up and exaggerated by the ‘feral’ media. It has yet more examples of just how dysfunctional the relationship at the very top of the government was and more on Cherie Blair’s dislike of Gordon. My favourite quote in the article is this one from Brown, relayed by Clare Short, about Blair’s supposed offer to hand over the premiership if Brown would let him take Britain into the euro: “"It's improper and anyway he breaks his word".

Monday

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Why we laughed

From our UK edition

The death of Bernard Manning marks the end of an era in comedy and will force liberals once again to wrestle with the question: why was a man who ought to have been offensive so bloody funny? Answer: Because he was bloody funny. That’s it. That’s all there was to it. Those who think he was obsessed by race – his prejudice, such as it was, reflected his age, rather than his inherent nastiness - simply underestimate the comic brilliance and range of the man. Try: "I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas with a note on it saying, toys not included." Or: “I went to see Pavarotti sing last week. Terrible, miserable man. He doesn't like you joining in, does he?” RIP.

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The shame of Abu Ghraib

From our UK edition

This New Yorker piece by Sy Hersh on the Pentagon's indifference to the investigation into the Ahu Graib torture scandal makes for depressing reading, although the general in charge of it does come out as a honourable man. Donald Rumsfeld’s total contempt for reality still has the capacity to shock despite all that we already know about his arrogance and incompetence. One also wonders how we've ended up, and I say this as someone who thinks that the motivations behind the Iraq War were essentially noble, in a situation where we’re reading sentences like this, “[Major General] Taguba said that he saw “a video of a male American soldier in uniform sodomizing a female detainee.

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Citizen Cameron

From our UK edition

Why Tooting Broadway? Of all the places in London, why would David Cameron choose this decaying corner of South London to launch his new agenda? It is in the public memory thanks to the opening credits of Citizen Smith, where Wolfie Smith started out shouting “power to the people”. And just a few yards away, the man introduced by Francis Maude as “Britain’s next elected Prime Minister” stood to give us his thoughts. Inside the hall (from where I am blogging), almost everyone is white. Outside, almost no one is.  I was actually approached in the street when I walked past, by an usher who reasonably deduced that white people in suits were lost journalists.

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Throwing the baby out with the bath water

From our UK edition

It seems that as part of the Cameroon mid-course correction, they’ll no longer be talking about being the heir to Blair. I think this is a big mistake, but I accept that I’m probably the only person outside W11 to believe this. Gordon Brown will ruthlessly demagogue any Tory plan for public service reform as really a scheme to privatise /disband / eviscerate the NHS/ state schools / the welfare state (delete as appropriate), the heir to Blair rhetoric provided crucial insulation against these charges and mitigated against the fact that the electorate still don’t really trust the Tories on these issues. It also put the ball firmly back in Brown’s court; challenging him to prove that he wasn’t the ‘roadblock to reform’ etc.

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The dangers of doing policy in public

From our UK edition

David Cameron’s rebalancing speech is getting strong reviews from Conservative Home, The Telegraph and Iain Dale. The speech is certainly more conciliatory towards his party than much of what Cameron has said recently. There’s no ‘swallow your medicine’ passage in it while the emphasis on marriage will be music to the grassroots’ ears. But I still think there’s trouble ahead for the Tories. Throughout the speech, Cameron emphasises that the policy groups will report soon: this is when the problems will start.

The Spectator

Cameron’s new pitch

From our UK edition

A big day for David Cameron. His speech on what divides the Conservatives from Gordon Brown is billed in the Telegraph as the speech of his leadership. Their political correspondent has plenty of advance material, the most interesting line of which is ''We get the modern world, he [Brown] doesn't". This is Dave's strongest pitch: not that he is the "heir to Blair", or that Gordon is a control freak (both of which may be true) but that this young Tory leader has a stronger instinctive feel for what modern Britain needs and wants than his veteran opponent. It's a smart pitch.

Sunday

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The pro-European case against a Constitution

From our UK edition

Denis Macshane, Blair’s former Europe minister, has an interesting piece in the Observer making the pro-European case against a grand constitutional-style treaty. He argues that Europe is working as it is and that an endless debate about structures will destroy this momentum. His conclusion: “If Blair's last European hurrah is the production of a neat amending treaty, smaller in implication than any of the EU treaties Margaret Thatcher or John Major signed and ratified, he will have done his country, his Europe and Labour's hopes of staying in power a final service.

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A special failure

From our UK edition

With only ten days to go, the great mystery of the Blair era remains the PM's failure to push Bush harder - or at all - on post-war reconstruction in Iraq. I gather Hillary Clinton regards this is a completely inexplicable failure on the part of her old ally (while understanding his need to stay at Bush's side). The Observer has a good account of what Blair did and didn't know.

Saturday

The Spectator

Letters to the Editor | 16 June 2007

From our UK edition

Blair’s conscience Sir: Charles Moore may be correct that Mr Blair wishes to become a Catholic on relinquishing office (The Spectator’s Notes, 9 June). Whether this is appropriate or not is another matter. Throughout his time in Parliament Mr Blair has failed consistently to follow the unequivocal teaching of the Church — on the protection of the unborn child, for instance, on experimentation on human embryos and on civil partnerships. His government was particularly vicious in handling the hierarchy and Catholic adoption agencies over the Sexual Orientation Regulations.

The Spectator

Blair for president of Europe?

From our UK edition

The FT has a story today about how Nicolas Sarkozy is touting one A. Blair as a possible president of Europe. I actually think this is distinctly unhelpful for the government, it will be much harder for it to resist calls for a referendum if it looks like Blair is one of the big beneficiaries of the agreement. The whole narrative of a conspiracy against the people will be strengthened by the suggestion.

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A novel knighthood

From our UK edition

Salman Rushdie's knighthood is bound to be criticised in some quarters, but, in its way, it is a historic moment, a collective rite of recognition for an author who paid a terrible personal price for his readiness to write candidly about the problems, confusions and vibrant possibilities of our post-colonial, mixed-up, multi-faith world. Midnight's Children is still the best exploration of the pressures of these themes, and The Satanic Verses tackled the phenomenon of Islamism long before 9/11 and starred a Bollywood actor long before Shilpa won Big Brother. Click here for an article in which I argued that the Rushdie Affair was the moment the long war really began. Arise, Sir Salman - and congratulations.

The Spectator

Are we bothered?

From our UK edition

In describing his relationship with the press, Thomas Jefferson said that he had been ‘used as the property of the newspapers, a fair mark for every man’s dirt’. Yet the third President of the United States was also a zealous champion of press freedom. ‘Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government,’ he wrote in 1787, ‘I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter.’ It is safe to say, on the basis of his speech at Reuters this week, that Tony Blair does not share Jefferson’s analysis. The outgoing Prime Minister has been at his most impressive when phlegmatic and philosophical about the media.

Friday

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How will Harry Potter end?

From our UK edition

Slate has a fun, little piece up on a possible ending to the final Harry Potter story. I expect we’ll see a lot more of these before the book comes out on the 21st of July. Indeed, William Hill are even running a book on who might kill Harry Potter with Voldemort the favourite at 2/1. Personally, I have a suspicion that Harry might just make it through.