Society

Friday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

A resignation at CCHQ

Ben Brogan reports that George Bridges, David Cameron’s former campaign manager, has quit, It is a loss, he’s a great guy and had a hell of a tough job. Being in charge of campaigning for Scotland and the north is like being made head of the Saudi Arabian division of Guinness. I gather his departure was not to do with a clash with Andy Coulson, and that he had been growing steadily disgruntled with the Cameroon operation for some time. So when Coulson was appointed, Bridges didn’t even know (as Francis Elliot tells us). A rather puzzling move: Cameron needs all the talent he can get right now.

The Spectator

Why Cheney is a law unto himself

What makes Dick Cheney so unusual a Vice President is that he knows this is his last gig. He really couldn’t give two hoots who he ticks off because after this it is time for the carpet slippers. When Bush picked Cheney in 2000, the general view was that this was a good thing as it would mean that Cheney could give Bush advice without worrying about what the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire would make of it. It also meant that he didn’t need Bush’s help to win the Republican nomination, so he could give Bush frank advice unworried about the consequences of offending the president. But over

The Spectator

The fallout from ‘cash for honours’

My thoughts on today’s drama 1. Yates will be hopping mad if (as is believed) he recommended charges against Jonathan Powell and others. He may see this as the second time he’s been shafted by the establishment. 2. No criminality doesn’t mean no wrongdoing said Martin Bright, my counterpart at the New Statesman in a Week in Westminster episode we were both invited in for (broadcast tomorrow). Lord Hutton cleared the government of any wrongdoing. But the documents he released damned Messrs Blair and Campbell in the court of public opinion. 3. No one can now claim that Yates wasted time because we don’t know what he found. Yes, he took time. The

The Spectator

The ties that bind | 20 July 2007

In a piece keying off the Beckhams arrival in the States, Time magazine tries to explain what unites the English-speaking peoples and comes up with an interesting, distinctly non-Churchillian answer: Britain is now just about as open and classless a society as the U.S. (The Beckhams’ habits are far more typical of modern Britain than the boarding-school japes of that other ubiquitous Brit, Harry Potter.) So why bother to settle in the U.S.? For the same reason that investment bankers from New Jersey like London–because the two nations have so much in common. Britain and the U.S. are the most messy, undeferential, schlocky societies on earth, places that like making

Thursday

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

When giving makes you feel good

Dr Salvatore LaSpada (what a lovely name) had a plaintive piece in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph about how little we Brits give to charity. America gives away 1.7 per cent of it’s GDP to good causes, he says, so what’s with our pitiful 0.7? Giving is great! says LaSpada encouragingly, “It’s the best fun you’ll ever have!”  Whoa there Dr S! But he’s right of course, giving does generally feel good, so there’s probably a decent reason why we don’t. And the reason I think is actually quite simple. It’s not that we’ve contracted our consciences out to the State, or that we’re intrinsically mean, but rather that Big Charity has

Wednesday

The Spectator

Getting the band back together

Today sees the launch of an intriguing new international group, The Elders. It is a collection of aging, diplomatic all-stars who will join forces to push issues up the international agenda. The cast is pretty stellar: Nelson Mandela and his wife, Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter,  Muhammad Yunus et al. The whole idea makes sense–even if the current crew do rather run the risk of group think–as at the same time that people are living longer, political leaders are getting younger. It would be foolish to let their expertise and knowledge go to waste once they’ve left office. At the very least, this new club will give our recently departed PM something to

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Priorities?

This is quite incredible: there are more people in US military bands than in the entire US foreign service. Hat tip: My old colleagues at Foreign Policy

Tuesday

The Spectator

What Putin is up to

If you want a handy primer on why so many people think we’re slipping into a new Cold War, read Fraser Nelson’s cover story on the Russian arms build up under Vladimir Putin. As Fraser points out, while we’ve been fixated on the Middle East, Putin has been preparing the ground for an aggressive restoration of Russia’s great power status. 

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Keeping climate change in perspective

Richard Littlejohn is perhaps the funniest journalist in Britain today, but it’s a mistake to be distracted by the brilliance of his jokes. He regularly unearths the social and political trends making a direct impact on people’s lives. Today its the “global warming racket” – how councils are hiring “carbon advisers” on £30k a year. Hull Council has 30 staff working on “environmental issues”, he says, none of whom proved any help when its flood defences succumbed. This is my problem with the global warming “debate” – it skews priorities, and allows councils to assemble a highly-paid green Gestapo while losing track of their basic duties (like keeping council tax

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Yet another hiatus…

I’m afraid blogging is likely to be even lighter than usual this week as I’m going to be in Turkish Cyprus, attending the 33rd edition of “Peace and Freedom Day”. Should be fun.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Friends, eh?

Ah, Facebook… No sooner do I announce that I’m off to Cyprus than this harsh but fair note appears: I look forward to you being kidnapped by Turkish Cypriot terrorists, and the video clips of Massie after 50 days in a makeshift prison cell. And all his mates saying “He looks better than he usually does, doesn’t he?”

The Spectator

Obama’s dollars

The key to Barack Obama’s phenomenal fund-raising success, $58.6 million raised so far, is that he is working both ends of the spectrum equally hard. He is playing the grassroots card for all its worth by registering anyone who buys so much as bumper sticker as a donor and has raised more in small donations than the rest of the Democratic field combined. But he is also tapping the banker class hard. If you look at the five firms from whose employees he’s raised the most money they’re all finance houses: Lehman Brothers, $160,760; Citadel Investment Group, $152,150; Goldman Sachs, $103,550; JP Morgan Chase, $101,950 and Citigroup $61,125. Just to add

The Spectator

The Iraq debate

This exchange between Lindsey Graham, John McCain’s right-hand man, and Jim Webb, Ronald Reagan’s navy secretary who is now an anti-war Democrat, gives you a good idea of how heated the Iraq debate is now getting in the States. Senators, who pride themselves on their Roman reserve, don’t squabble like this in public. The debate is going to become bitterer still before General Petraeus’s delivers his make or break update to Congress on the war in September. In reality, we’ll be faced with the same dilemma then that we are now. Leave—and resign ourselves to the genocidal civil war that will surely follow and the boost that Iran and al

Sarah Standing

A pet just for the holidays

I am on holiday in the Hamptons. Conrad Black’s guilty verdict merited two paragraphs in the newspaper. I feel totally starved for news. I found a turtle on the lawn on my second day here. My niece and nephew wanted to keep it as a pet. I took them to the pet shop in an effort to get the shopkeeper to reinforce my mantra that it is cruel to keep pets when you are a mere “visiting tourist”. I grew up thinking pets were forever, not just for Christmas or summer. But I forgot this was America. “Ma’am many of our holiday makers take temporary custody of animals for the

Sunday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Dispatches from the Front Line

It’s been going for a while now, but do check out this blog. It’s a collection of letters written by Private Harry Lamin to his brother and sister in England. Each letter, scribbled in the trenches of the Western Front, is being published 90 years to the day after Pvt Lamin wrote them. Collectively it’s a moving and illuminating project.