Tony blair

On the hottest weekend of the year, few people would want to be stuck inside in Milton Keynes. But that is where the Labour hierarchy finds itself. For this weekend is the party’s national policy forum. Ed Miliband’s speech today is meant to try and show that while he has moved on from New Labour he is not old Labour. There will be much talk of how fiscal restraint will have to continue and how Miliband knows there can be no return to the free spending ways of the past. One aide sums the message up as, ‘We know there is no money to spend.’ But it’ll be fascinating to

Labour’s failure to offer a credible economic alternative to the Tories is going hurt them in next year’s election, according to Charles Clarke. The former Labour Education and Home Secretary proved to be a ray of sunshine on the Daily Politics today, arguing that Ed Miliband has failed to explain to voters why the Labour’s alternative plan for the economy is the right one. When asked whether the Conservatives’ strategy is cogent, Clarke said: ‘It’s very cogent. I don’t think it’s true, myself, as a matter of fact. I think Labour has a much better story to tell about the last government and the economy than is widely believed. But

Tony Blair appeared on the Today programme on Tuesday morning to talk about Europe. The televised version showed him against the backdrop of the Brandenburg Gate. He said somewhat predictable things about Ukip being bad and a reformed Europe being good. The mystery was ‘Why?’ Why was he intervening at this point? It took me several hours to puzzle out a possible answer. It lies, I suggest, in his statement that the European project used to be ‘about peace’ and now it is ‘about power’. He was speaking at the beginning of the week when the contest for the presidency of the European Commission comes to a head. Mr Blair emphasised that

So, now almost all the votes have been counted — except for those in the Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets, where the vibrant and colourful political practices of Bangladesh continue to keep the returning officers entertained. Allegations of widespread intimidation of voters at polling booths, postal voting fraud and a huge number of mysteriously spoiled ballot papers; so much more fun than the usual dull, grey and mechanistic western electoral procedure. You wonder, looking at the exotic political fervour of Tower Hamlets, how on earth the British people could be so mean-spirited as to have developed this sudden animus against immigration. White British people now make up less than one third

What are we supposed to make of Boris Johnson? I mean, are we supposed to pay attention to what Boris actually says? Or is he permitted to play the game of politics by different rules? That is, the sort of stuff that applies to other politicians does not apply to Boris because the Mayor of London is a great entertainer and thus granted some kind of relief from the usual rules of responsibility. Just asking, you know. Consider his recent remarks about Tony Blair and the Iraq War. During an appearance on LBC last week, the Mayor appeared to endorse the fashionable daft idea that Mr Blair should be tried

As so often (in my opinion) Tony Blair is almost right. In a wide-ranging speech at Bloomberg this morning he roamed over Syria, Libya, the Middle East and the West’s withdrawal of interest, let alone engagement, in the region. But it is Blair’s comments on Islam that are most interesting, are already garnering headlines and merit most attention. Referring to the problems across the Middle East he said: ‘At the root of the crisis lies a radicalised and politicised view of Islam, an ideology that distorts and warps Islam’s true message. The threat of this radical Islam is not abating. It is growing. It is spreading across the world. It is

David Cameron has said Christians should be more evangelical “about a faith that compels us to get out there and make a difference to people’s lives”. In an article for The Church Times he said he wanted to infuse politics with Christian values such as responsibility, hard work, charity, compassion, humility and love. In recent years politicians have often been shy about talking about religion, reluctant perhaps to invoke the authority of God to score a political point. William Ewart Gladstone had no such anxiety, saying in 1832: “Restrict the sphere of politics to earth, and it becomes a secondary science”. In 1880, when he was campaigning for Home Rule

My friend and critic Jonathan Portes obviously took exception to my remarks about Keynesianism having been disproven. His entertaining rebuttal claims to have exposed my misreading of data. That’s not quite how I see it. I agree with him that the appalling build-up of out-of-work benefits happened before 1997. The Tories badly miscalculated incapacity benefit; thinking it would be a one-off way to help those affected by deindustrialization. But, in fact, it created a welfare dependency trap, and the 1992 recession caught too many people in it. John Major had an excuse: a recession. Tony Blair had no such excuse. I wasn’t joking about a quarter of Liverpool and Glasgow

As the Irish president is making the first visit to the United Kingdom by an Irish head of state, some people have asked what’s taken him so long. The Spectator’s archive offers some insights into the two countries’ rocky relationship. The British government has often been criticised for not doing more to mitigate the effects of the Irish potato blight in the 1840s. The Spectator agreed the government could have done more, but also voiced suspicions about one of Ireland’s national champions, Daniel O’Connell. He’s known as The Liberator in Ireland and was one of the early campaigners for the repeal of the Act of Union. In 1846, this magazine