There’s lots of interesting stuff in Martin Kettle’s Guardian interview with the Maximum Tone but this struck me as a telling, revealing moment: One thing I want to say before the Guardian readership particularly is that this notion that I have ever condoned or would ever condone torture in any circumstances is complete rubbish. I
Andrew Stuttaford says Alexei Kudrin is Finance Minister of the year but, surely, that understates matters? Russia’s finance minister has told people to smoke and drink more, explaining that higher consumption would help lift tax revenues for spending on social services. Speaking as the Russian government announces plan to raise duty on alcohol and cigarettes,
Larry Sabato’s latest forecast predicts that the Republican party could pick up as many as 47 seats in the House of Representatives this November. He also thinks they have an outside shot at retaking the Senate. This is the background to Conservative Cabbie’s post tweaking me for this blog’s previous – and many! – suggestions
Step forward the FT’s Jim Pickard: Some sceptics have often asked why Tony Blair was happy to help rid the world of some dictators and not others. The example most often cited is that of Robert Mugabe, who could have been deposed with even less effort than Saddam Hussein. Blair tries to justify the contradiction
Over at Liberal Conspiracy our old friend Sunny Hundal calls out Tony Blair: It was always obvious that Tony Blair hated the left. His recently published book said nothing new on that front. What’s staggering is how easily he dismisses even close Labour colleagues and ministers. […] What does it say about Tony Blair’s loyalty
This so-called story is fast becoming an ideal case study for any student of politcs and the British press. Neither party comes out of it looking especially good. I’m sure James is correct: the press wins (or loses, if that’s how you view it) either way. If Hague ignores the innuendo then it’s fodder for
I’m not sure why the New York Times Magazine thinks its readers will be interested in a long piece about the News of the World and its history of phone-hacking but I’m glad that the Times has published this article anyway. Among the most damaging allegations: the suggestion that, for various reasons, the police limited
The News of the World’s revelations about connivance between cricketers and bookmakers is dismaying; the story can’t alas, be considered wholly surprising. If proved – and on the face of it there’s every reason to suppose that the allegations are accurate – then it’s difficult to see how Salman Butt and the other players implicated
George – now Lord – Foulkes is taking his leave of Holyrood and returning to the comfort of the red benches in the House of Lords. It’s fair to say that Foulkes’s ability to wind up nationalists has not endeared him to SNP supporters. Still, Lallands Peat Worrier is quite right that the national bard
So, a “well-placed*” source tells the Guardian that while David Cameron would like Ed Miliband to be the next leader of the Labour party, he thinks the party would be best-advised to select Ed’s brother David. This news, scarcely earth-shattering to anyone who isn’t already a Labour party member (and obvious even to many of
Broad and Trott skip on against Pakistan. Amir looks on in some pain. Photo: Clive Rose/Getty Images. One ball. One wicket. That’s how far away Pakistan were from establishing a match-winning and series-squaring position at Lords. Now only god or, more probably, rain can save them. When Stuart Broad joined Jonathan Trott at the crease
Been a long time since this pair featured in this slot. Too long. So here they are performing their already-classic I Want to Sing That Rock’n’Roll at St Luke’s in London a few years ago: Bonus: There’s another, perhaps even better but sadly unembeddable version, here.
Liberaltarianism is, in case you haven’t been following this mildly esoteric debate in Washington, the notion that rather than hitch their wagons to conservativism American libertarians and libertarian-minded folk should also explore relations with (US) liberals in order to further the libertarian agenda. This has proven an oddly controversial idea and, generally, has been dismissed
A splendid spot by Dave Osler at Liberal Conspiracy: Malcolm X’s ideas about education in Harlem and Brooklyn aren’t so very different from those Michael Gove has in mind for Haringey or Toxteth. As Malcolm X wrote: The Board of Education in this city [New York] has said … there are 10 percent of schools
Paul Higgins as William Paterson in Alistair Beaton’s Caledonia. To Edinburgh yesterday to see the flagship indigenous production at this year’s Festival: Alistair Beaton’s play about the Darien misadventure in the late 17th century. For a dramatist this should be much more fertile ground than were the mangrove swamps of Panama for the poor would-be
From today’s Telegraph letters page: Comparatively ungallant nickname for a military hero SIR – Those with experience of the old Stock Exchange floor will readily recall some of the nicknames (Letters, August 22) bestowed upon its habitués. Among them were two brothers, both with highly distinguished military careers and both winners of the Military Cross,
Taking Sophocles’ least-known play and reinterpreting via the hymns and songs of gospel music is, damn it, just the sort of thing that you expect from Edinburgh* in August. Thankfully, Lee Breuer’s plundering – adaptation is too limited a term – of Oedipus at Colonus is a monumental success. If you ever get the chance
I continue to be impressed by how thin the case against Faisal Abdul Rauf is. You’d have thought that by now the staunch defenders of liberty crazies would have found either a smoking gun or a ticking bomb. To be fair, Pamela Geller* certainly thinks she has found evidence that he’s just as bad as
As if to prove the point of this post, Ed Miliband pops up in the Guardian to treat Liberal Democrat voters as though they’re lost sheep who should return to the Labour fold. Apparently the Lib Dem leadership has led the party into government and abandoned its members who should, natch, return home to Labour.
The left can’t forgive him and the right still can’t quite take him seriously but it seems to me that Nick Clegg is playing his hand with some gumption. Plenty of pundits and political enthusiasts – on all sides – still can’t quite take the Liberal Democrats seriously but the days when the party was