Politics

The reaction of three of the most influential commentators on the left to the Queen’s speech is instructive. Michael White in The Guardian suggests that it was less important than people think as Gordon Brown will probably go until 2010 before calling an election meaning that there will be time for one more full legislative programme before the government goes to the country.  Jonathan Freedland is far from enthused by the speech but argues that there could be merit in aiming to do a few things on a certain theme and then getting them done. But as Freedland acknowledges if government is purely managerial it leaves itself uniquely exposed to

Following on from King Abdullah’s claim that the British were warned about 7/7, Prince Bandar—formerly the Saudi ambassador to the US who is extremely close to the Bush family—has said that if the Americans had cooperated with the Saudi properly, 9/11 wouldn’t have happened. Here’s how ABC’s The Blotter reports the Prince’s remarks: “Saudi security was actively following the movements of most of the terrorists with precision,” Bandar, the national security advisor to Saudi King told the Arabic satellite network, Al-Arabiya, Thursday.   “If U.S. security authorities had engaged their Saudi counterparts in a serious and credible manner, in my opinion, we would have avoided what happened,” Bandar said. These comments

The Guardian reports this morning that neither David Miliband nor Condi Rice can get General Musharraf to return their calls. This suggests that Musharraf might be preparing to renege on his pledge to go ahead with elections in January.  It is crucial that Britain and America do not end up appearing to endorse any postponement of elections. At the moment, the chance of Musharraf surviving are less than 50-50 and it makes no sense for Britain and America to further alienate whoever succeeds him. 

Today, as the Tories are eager to remind us, would have been election day if Gordon hadn’t lost his nerve. What would have happened will be a great parlour game for years to come but Anthony Wells’s analysis is well worth noting: “More importantly looking at the current polls I suspect Labour would have been ahead in an election today. The polls straight after the Conservative party conference when Gordon Brown decided not to have an election were showing a temporary Conservative boost from a successful party conference. In this alternate universe they would probably have subsided. In the polls we’ve seen lately Gordon Brown’s approval ratings have plummeted and

Cameron again handled the immigration issue well today, and is linking it to welfare reform. Why do we have so many vacancies in Britain, asked Humphrys? Because of the perverse incentives of our welfare state, he says. While this may perplex the pollys of this world, it will make sense to the majority. It’s what David Davis calls “council estate politics”. People see immigrants come in to work, see the family over the road on benefits enjoying holidays they cannot afford, and conclude that something stinks. These were Thatcher’s people. It is great to see Cameron tuning in to them.