When the Tories were in opposition, non-aligned friends used to complain to me that the party’s front bench was unimpressive. Labour politicians had walked the political stage for more than a decade; many were household names, while the Tories were unknown. But eight months in and Labour’s top team is a largely unknown entity, with
William Hague must be feeling that the incoming rounds are coming closer and closer. The Spectator, The Daily Telegraph and now The Times (£) have each allowed their pages to be used as Forward Operating Bases from which to launch attacks against the coalition’s foreign policy. Even in the coalition’s own ranks, dissatisfied foot-soldiers (and
Labour is often seen as having presided over the erosion of the British military, squandering money on Cold War equipment and sending under-equipped soldiers to far-away battlefields. But away from the public’s scrutiny an even greater lapse occurred – the nation’s cyberdefences were left undermanned while the threat grew daily. As William Hague will tell
Open any mass-circulation newspaper and you will find plenty of insider’s information about the Tory party. But precious little is known about their coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats. After decades in the political wilderness, most editors reasoned that it wasn’t really worth their while finding out what the party thought. After all, what difference did
Egypt has made al-Jazeera English. The Qatari satellite channel has been the “go-to” channel; it has had more reporters on the ground than the BBC and CNN; and it has used technology in ways that make Western media look like they belong to a different era. Newspapers from the New York Times to the Wall
Israel is in a right state over Egypt’s incipient revolution. Israeli politicians talk openly about the threat from an Islamist takeover, the greatness of Hosni Mubarak, and have even taken to sneer at the West’s hopefulness. Now that President Mubarak has announced he will leave, the Israeli leadership will be looking on in horror. They
The Middle East is being rocked to its authoritarian core, as pro-democracy protesters defy Hosni Mubarak’s regime for the eighth day in a row. They want an end to his 31-year-rule and, to judge by their continued defiance, are unlikely to accept anything else than his departure. The events, however, have placed European governments in
Nobody is as associated with George W Bush’s drive to promote freedom and democracy in the Middle East as former US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. His role in the Iraq War, and belief that the US should promote democracy in a part of the world better known for authoritarian rulers, remains controversial to this
The last six years have been fallow ones for the neoconservatives. From around 2005, when Iraq began its descent into chaos, the ideology that did so much to shape US foreign policy became marginalised as, first, George W Bush turned increasingly realist and, then, Barack Obama continued where his predecessor left off. While ideas are
Few government jobs are as demanding as that of Permanent Under-Secretary, or PUS, in the Ministry of Defence. With Liam Fox as your boss, General David Richards as your colleague, and an exhausted, overspent department to run, it is no surprise that when Bill Jeffrey retired many of the government’s most senior officials – including,
A week ago, that would have seemed a foolish question. But after thousands of Egyptians have taken to the streets for two consecutive days of protest, even Hosni Mubarak is beginning to look vulnerable. It has placed the West in a dilemma, in a way that Ben Ali’s fall did not. For years, the fear
Today is Holocaust Day. A day to remember the horrors of the past. But it should also be an occasion to recall the moments of hope and the people – and peoples – that personified that life-saving hope. Like Nacia Anastazja Brodziak who took in my fleeing grandparents, hid them from the Nazis in her
A consensus has formed in the commentariat that besides George Osborne’s stewardship of the economy, Andrew Lansley’s healthcare reforms could become the government’s vote-loser. The political facts are as simple as the forms are complex. One, David Cameron ran a campaign based on a promise to protect the NHS. Many people thought that meant from
One of the greatest challenges for any minister – and, by extension, the government’s programme – is to avoid being “mandarined”. That is, smothered by officials in the manner of Yes Minister. But it can happen to even the most powerful and outwardly confident politicians. Here is how. Reputation Management. First, the politician is thrilled
As the coalition considers how to develop a growth strategy, it would do well to call in Paddy Ashdown and hear about the ‘Bulldozer Initiative’ he launched while in Bosnia working for the United Nations. Not a highway programme, the Bulldozer Initiative was instead one of the smartest pro-business schemes I have seen. And something
For a long time, the terms of Britain’s Europe debate has been about the merits – or otherwise – of membership. This has occluded discussion about the need to promote a deregulated and economically liberal single market, for which the Conservatives have fought so successfully since Britain joined the then EEC in 1973. Now
Yesterday saw the publication of a report into Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza, the Hamas-run part of the Palestinian crypto-state, and the Israeli military’s raid on a flotilla of aid ships bound for the coastal enclave last year. The inquiry, headed by former judge Yaakov Turkel, argued that: “The naval blockade imposed on the Gaza
There has been no shortage of depressing news for the Tories lately. But, the other day, Benedict Brogan wrote a lengthy post about William Hague that must have made particularly unpleasant in-flight reading for the Foreign Secretary as he jetted around the South Pacific. It argued that: “In his absence – and even when he
Most of my 2010 predictions did not come to pass; and many of the ones I made a few weeks ago for 2011 might not either. But one seems to have been a good bet. I wrote: “Liam Fox will come under renewed pressure when it becomes clear that the defence budget cannot afford both
William Hague has been visiting Australia in the last couple of days, alongside half of the National Security Council. But you would not know it. Except for a few comments in the blogosphere, there has been little write-up of the visit in the newspapers. In many ways this encapsulates one of the government’s key foreign
