Kabul based journalist Jerome Starkey has a story in the Independent about a deal to keep President Karzai in office. No other news service is reporting this, and its veracity might be questionable, but it reveals how difficult it is to establish stability in Afghanistan. Here’s the key section: ‘Mr Karzai and his main challenger,
Further to the Gray report’s suppression, the BBC have been given what they are told are slides from a presentation made by Bernard Gray summarising his investigation into defence procurement. It is only a glimpse, but these slides, if they are genuine, illustrate quite how damning this report would have been, and could still be.
This letter appears in today’s issue of the Spectator: ‘Sir: We the undersigned wish to condemn Baron Sugar of Clapton’s threatened legal action against our colleague Quentin Letts for calling him a ‘telly peer’ who ‘doesn’t seem to have an enormous intellect’ on LBC on 20 July. According to a letter Mr Letts received from
I thought Harriet Harman’s posturing could not be bettered, but Vladimir Putin’s annual Alexander Nevsky tribute act takes the biscuit. Each year he varies his macho stock in trade of hunting, shooting and fishing in the buff. Last year he invaded Georgia. And this year he played 20,000 leagues under the sea’s Captain Nemo, by
John Kampfner launches a scathing attack on New Labour in today’s Guardian. He characterises New Labour as a movement obsessed with micro-politics that ignores broad political context, leaving a legacy of missed opportunities of which the government are oblivious. He sees Harman’s and Mandelson’s leadership posturing in the same light: ‘Harman has set out her
Following yesterday’s ‘men can’t be left to govern’ comments, John Prescott urged Harman to stop posturing and “get on with the job”. But, lo and behold, she’s at it again the very next day. This time it’s bankers: “Somebody did say… that if it had been Lehman sisters rather than Lehman Brothers then there may
Lord Falconer has an opinion piece in this morning’s Independent, calling for Labour to renew its progressive agenda to avoid a rout at the next general election. The policies prioritised in the article are clear, but the politics is ambiguous – restating the rumours that Lord Mandelson seeks to return to the Commons and is
Oh dear Lord. According to yesterday’s Londoner’s Diary, Tony Blair is bringing his religious lecture ‘Faith and Globalisation’ to Britain. The former PM ‘does God’ unashamedly these days. His talks have been a huge hit in America and now he will address British universities, starting at Durham. In what appears to be a re-enactment of
Like the Natwest Three, the rejection of the computer hacker Gary McKinnon’s appeal against extradition to the US raises serious questions about the balance of Anglo-American extradition arrangements. It is hard not to sympathise with McKinnon, who suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome and now faces a bleak future, but if he is accused of hacking into
Social mobility is emotive and I imagine that Alan Milburn is livid that his report was ignored by its commissioners, the government. That it was swept under the carpet is unsurprising, for Milburn’s conclusion confirms Labour’s failure: ‘Social mobility has slowed down in our country. Birth, not worth, has become more and more a determinant
Debbie Purdy has won her appeal to have the law on assisted suicide clarified. The House of Lords judged that the Director of Public Prosceutions (DPP) must detail an “offence-specific policy” defining the facts and circumstances under which a prosecution would be made in cases like Debbie Purdy’s. She also won on the point that
The general opinion is that Sir John Chilcot’s terms of reference imply that his Iraq inquiry will be more open than its predecessors and that this is bad news for Brown. Former Defence committee chairman Michael Mates said that, unlike the two inquiries he sat on, Chilcot’s will have “much more independence than the Prime
Public disgust with the MoD’s mean-spirited and grossly ill-judged compensation appeal has forced ‘Battlin’ Bob’ to bring forward the review of the scheme. The Telegraph has details: Mr Ainsworth said public debate had demonstrated that the scheme was not fully equipped to deal with “anomalies, legal complexities and wider issues” relating to compensating wounded troops.
Bizarre though it seems, Brown has missed a trick by not agreeing to TV debates. YouGov polling figures from 17th July revealed that Brown has a 71% disapproval rating; by contrast, Cameron’s approval rating stands at 57%. Yesterday’s ComRes poll gave the Tories an 18 point lead. Labour’s best hope of reversing those dire figures
It is plain that the public purse needs a swift injection of cash. The question is where it will come from. Daniel Finkelstein’s column in this morning’s Times argues that the proposed Tory cuts and public service reform will save money in the long-term, but not immediately. He cites Peter Lilley’s 1995 pension reforms –
Lord Mandelson’s suggestion that tuition fees will be raised only if universities extend opportunity was uncompromising: “I’m not prepared and the government is not prepared to see an increase in fees and funding for the universities without the link being made to wider participation and access.” The government intends to widen access by make well-off
Nothing could be lower, more pathetic and cowardly than this. The Defence Secretary and his team of jobsworths are appearing before the Court of Appeal, pleading that ‘secondary complications’ arising from wounds troops received on service should not be compensated by the MoD. The High Court judged this inventive argument “absurd” when the government first
If you are about to jet-off on your holidays, beware. This summer, determined missionaries are being sent out across Europe. They will hound you on your sun bed, collar you at the airport, harass you in the tavernas, and lecture you at places of local interest. And this is no ordinary evangelical movement. The proselytisers
Counting is under way in Norwich North and the results are due in at lunchtime. In the meantime, here’s a selection of rumours, stories and predictions from the blogosphere. Danny Finkelstein’s live blog at Comment Central predicts that, based on the turnout, the Tories will secure around 12,000 votes to Labour’s 5,500, though he urges