Tony Blair’s parting shot to his party — ‘You’re the future now’ — had the ring of irony. Much is uncertain after Labour’s conference in Manchester, not least the Prime Minister’s likely leaving date and the prospects for a full-blown leadership contest. But the notion that this exhausted, introspective and bitter party is ‘the future’
Conservatives can send only one official observer to the Labour party conference, which is a shame because a few days in the febrile, fratricidal atmosphere in Manchester would have been a tonic to Tory spirits. From the bar of the Radisson hotel, one could witness plotting of the most poisonous and spectacular kind. Rival camps
Sunday I can exclusively reveal that Dave will open conference by appearing on stage with the man from the oven chips empire. Anti-Bush stickers available in heavily disguised packs in foyer for a limited period only. To be worn spontaneously on lapels when Dave and Mr McCain (sounds like western!) ascend the platform at 16.45.
In Manchester on Tuesday, Tony Blair will deliver his 13th and final speech as Labour leader to the party’s conference. Over the years, his addresses to the rank and file have been a reliable source of slogans and soundbites that have entered the political bloodstream: ‘Labour’s coming home’ (1996); ‘a thousand days to prepare for
Leaders of failed coups either have to get out of town or abase themselves before their still-reigning targets. Gordon Brown, who feels his future career opportunities are greater in Britain than anywhere else, chose the latter course, trundling from television studio to television studio to profess his admiration for his long-time friend, Tony Blair. Blair’s
‘Things need to be different than what they currently are,’ Derek Simpson, the general secretary of the trade union Amicus, said on the Today programme last week. This is a proposition around which the whole country can unite. But there Mr Simpson’s status as national spokesman begins and ends. The former communist is one of
No, since you ask, he wasn’t drunk. I read with some interest that the former Home Secretary had been on the sauce when he told me that the Chancellor’s behaviour last week had been ‘absolutely stupid’ and attacked his suitability for the leadership. Like Shakespeare’s Menenius, Mr Clarke is well-known as a politician who ‘loves
‘New, new, new,’ Tony Blair told a meeting of European socialist leaders shortly after becoming Prime Minister, ‘everything is new.’ Embarrassing at the time, that declaration now seems merely a distant and risible memory. For, after nine years, the one thing this administration cannot possibly claim to be is ‘new’. In his original campaign for
Given the choice between a drunken Charles Kennedy and a sober Sir Menzies Campbell — to adapt the Times’s famous comparison of George Brown and Harold Wilson — we now know that the Liberal Democrat high command chose the former. There were four frontbenchers gathered in a room in March 2004 when they received first-hand
Those who think Britain is no longer a great and decent country should consider the events of the past two weeks: an alleged Islamist plot to attack airliners has already led to the charging of 11 suspects; our airports have been in turmoil; there is a furore over the effectiveness and propriety of ethnic ‘passenger
Each autumn the Labour party performs a ritualistic drama. First, trade unionists and left-wingers talk darkly about insurrection at the annual party conference. Blair must go, they say. At conference fringe meetings, such whispers become a full-blown war cry. Next Gordon Brown gives a rousing speech, laying out his rival vision of the future. There
In his book The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki writes that ‘under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them’. Our poll today shows that the response of the British people to the terror emergency has been robust and clear-sighted. While many in the political and
Last weekend I was sternly assured by a shadow Cabinet member that the Conservatives would resist the temptation to attack the government over the terrorism arrests. ‘The only people who benefit when an opposition starts playing politics with the issue are the terrorists,’ he declared. Things must have seemed rather different in David Cameron’s holiday
The United Nations is good at passing resolutions. It is, sadly, a little less effective at displaying resolve. As The Spectator went to press, Security Council discussions on the French-inspired resolution designed to deal with the conflict in Lebanon and Israel were dragging on. But whatever form of words the UN settles upon, the actions
Since David Cameron announced plans to change the Conservative party’s logo, derisive suggestions have come pouring in. A white flag to depict ideological surrender, perhaps, a spinning weathervane or a sinking Titanic. There have been so many spoofs that the favourite to succeed the ‘torch of freedom’ — a green tree — also looks like
The old order changeth, yielding place to new: as Fidel Castro’s mortality marks the fall of the last Cold War colossus, so a new global ideological struggle hardens in our midst. The conflict in the Middle East is but one symptom of this battle between the West and militant Islam. To extract this particular crisis
The image of Tony Blair and David Cameron exchanging frilly skirts and pearls is certainly arresting, but the Prime Minister’s reference in California last weekend to rampant cross-dressing was, disappointingly, political. For all the comment that his remarks have engendered, however, we have been here before. When the Economist coined the term ‘Butskellism’ in 1954,
The Blair–Bush summit in Washington was long-planned, but fortuitously well-timed. The President and Prime Minister face not only a huge strategic challenge in the Middle East but also a fundamental political problem at home. They have not yet managed to persuade Western voters of the path they have jointly pursued in the region. Neither man
On Monday, perhaps for the first time in his life, David Cameron turned right after boarding an aircraft. There is no business class in the RAF Hercules that ferried him to Afghanistan; to enter it by door rather than by loading ramp is luxury enough, and the only in-flight entertainment is an industrial-strength headset to
At a time of global tension and regional bloodshed, it is easy for governments to retreat behind rhetorical platitudes and uncontroversial diplomatic ‘initiatives’. As Clausewitz observed: ‘Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.’ In the case of the Middle East conflagration, such lazy fascination would be disastrous.