Sorry Alan, you can’t beat the real thing
Alan Milburn is one of my favourite politicians. But even he won’t persuade me to drink Pepsi. As he likes to say: “We’re not daft”.
The Spectator
Wednesday
The world’s new banker
Bob Zoellick, George W. Bush’s pick to replace Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank, is a safe choice. Zoellick was long regarded as one of the few safe pairs of hands in the Bush administration and having served at both Treasury, State and as US Trade Representative he’s got an ideal resume for the Bank.
Tuesday
Watching with auntie
Though I cannot in all honesty pretend that I shall be staying in to watch this televisual feast, the BBC is surely on to something in its celebration of the children’s television it has offered over the decades. There is something quintessentially British about what we offer our kids on telly – as any parent
Royal Reality TV
If the rumours are to be believed, Sarah Ferguson will be a judge on the next series of the US reality TV show Project Runway. Maybe, Rod was right: Kate was just too posh for the Windsors. Hat Tip: New York Magazine
Dressing the part
What a difference deportation makes. On the right is a picture of Sheik el-Faisal, the Islamofascist who was finally sent back to his native Jamaica last weekend after serving time in Britain. Here, he dressed in a Muslim skullcap and robe – but as soon as he stepped off the plane in his native Jamaica,
Spinning a yarn
Entertaining to read in today’s Standard more details of the row between Alastair Campbell and Cherie Blair over the forthcoming Campbell Diaries. This relationship has had its ups and downs in the past – most spectacularly over Cherie’s connection with Carole Caplin and Peter Foster. But Alastair, I imagine, will be delighted. It was becoming
G
When Günter Grass confessed last year that he had been in the Waffen SS it took everyone by surprise. It seemed like a cynically timed admission coming after he had won the Nobel prize for literature and before his autobiography came out. That slightly odd feeling isn’t shaken by this long essay in the New Yorker
Monday
Cameron creates a meritocratic martyr
No question about it: when a frontbencher breaks ranks flagrantly, a party leader who hopes to be seen as strong must sack him. Many people agreed with Howard Flight’s remarks about tax cuts in 2005, but Michael Howard had no option but to fire him. So it was only a matter of time before the
An American Tragedy
It’s Memorial Day in the United States today, the official beginning of summer. Fierce Americans mark the day by beating their war drums; gentle Americans by beating their breasts. The newspapers, as usual, are full of improving homilies and exhortations. But this year there is something different, something inspiring and humbling. In the Washington Post
Where does Brown stand on FOI?
The media section of today’s Guardian has a very telling piece on how the PM in waiting’s closest allies are at the heart of various efforts to dampen down the effects of freedom of information act. Yet, at the Hay on Wye festival Brown promised that the bill to exempt MPs from Freedom of Information
Sunday
Not going quietly
Tony Blair’s piece in the Sunday Times echoes some familiar themes of his. But the language seems blunter than usual, perhaps because it is not broken up by the Prime Minister’s verbal mannerisms. He pronounces that, “We have chosen as a society to put the civil liberties of the suspect, even if a foreign national,
Saturday
Letters to the Editor | 26 May 2007
Is it right to aspire? Sir: According to your leading article, ‘The Tory party is a party of aspiration or it is nothing’ (19 May). If this means that the Tory party is a party in the interest primarily of that ambitious minority which wants to rise in the world, then I should like to
Why Gordon will go soft
This review of Gordon Brown’s book on Courage from Blair’s pollster Philip Gould is absolutely fascinating. This is his take on Brown’s chapter on Bobby Kennedy’s career: “its fascination for Brown, is Kennedy’s metamorphosis from “hard” to “soft” courage in the course of his later life, moving from tough-guy enforcer to open, empowering and empathetic
Don’t cede ground to the far right
It’s Saturday afternoon, and I can’t quite shake the chill that came over me when watching Friday’s Newsnight. They were still on how Margaret Hodge suggested giving Brits priority over immigrants for council houses. They had Keith Vaz MP attacking her – and for the defence, Nick Griffin, head of the BNP, debating like a
Punk, it’s over
When I became Editor of the Spec, I mentioned to one interviewer that “Pretty Vacant” by the Sex Pistols was my favourite pop record. This, most entertainingly, was declared by some in the blogosphere to mark, definitively, the death of punk. Last night’s Ten O’Clock News included an item on punk’s 30th anniversary, including an
Delusions of grandeur
Here is what Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, told a Fabian Society and Progress debate for the Labour deputy leadership contenders on 16 May: ‘For our party audience, if you said, yes, we will ban those grammar schools where they exist at the moment, it would get a round of applause. The reason why the
Friday
Weekend Wisdom
“A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his heart; his next, to escape the censures of the world.” Joseph Addison, The Spectator, July 20, 1711
Keep Trafalgar Square Green
When I heard that they had covered Trafalgar Square in grass my reaction was that it was a ghastly gimmick. But having seen it, I’ve got to admit that it looks fantastic. Even though the weather hasn’t been the best in London these past few days, it has created the best type of summer-time
Reading Wagner
I’ve been having a Wagnerian time of it lately, organizing a festival of events to coincide with the Royal Opera’s performances of the Ring cycle in October. On Wednesday I was deep in the Nibelheim-like bowels of the Royal Opera House, recording extracts from Wagner’s letters with Simon Callow. He read with the most spine-tingling
Time for Elgar to go global
One of the guests at our third Elgar concert at The Spectator’s offices in Old Queen Street last night shrewdly pointed out the oddity that the great composer does not seem to travel as well as, say, Vaughan Williams. Listening to Madeleine Mitchell (violin) and Nigel Clayton (piano) perform the sublime Violin Sonata (Op. 82)
