Britain is in no immediate financial threat, said George Osborne in his speech to the House. It was a firm restatement of the position he established in an article for the Telegraph earlier this week. Most importantly he said, the markets look favourably on Britain’s recovering public finances and the liquidity of British banks.
David Cameron’s convictions are best expressed in anger. Cameron exuded an air of the patrician yesterday with his righteous moral certainty. This may have made some observers squirm, but others would have seen this seething performance as the essence of leadership in crisis. Cameron is likely to sustain this tone in parliament today. He will
Storms have gathered over Angela Merkel’s summer. The FT reports that she faces a revolt in the Bundestag over the recent Greek debt deal. Some members of the Christian Democrats, her own party, and the Free Democrats, the junior partner in her governing coalition, will oppose the proposed expansion of the EFSF. Disparate political dissent has solidified
The communications revolution has gone viral in Britain this summer. The recent riots and looting appear to have been co-ordinated by smart phones and social networking sites. Gone, it seems, are the days when hoodlums fomented insurrection with a combination of furtive messages and indiosyncratic tic-tac. I doubt that facilitating mass disorder was quite how Steve
The presence of 16,000 police officers in London deterred looting, but violence spread in provincial towns across England, with tragic consequences. Riots in Birmingham left three men dead after a car ran them over; police are treating the incident as a murder. There was also disorder in Salford, Manchester, Gloucester, West Bromwich and Nottingham. Each
This morning’s Bookseller observes that, with one or two exceptions, bookshops have escaped from being looted during the recent London riots. Independent shops and high street retailers alike remain largely unscathed; even those situated in Croydon and Hackney, where criminality was particularly acute yesterday. Electrical shops and sports clothing vendors have, of course, fared less
President Assad’s tanks are still doing murder on the streets of Syrian, but the dictator’s isolation grows. After weeks of prevarication, several Gulf States have closed ranks against the Syrian regime. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait have all recalled their ambassadors from Damascus, and King Abdullah of Riyadh has led the Arab League’s condemnation of Assad’s ‘death
As Pete has noted, George Osborne has been making headlines while braving rollercoasters in California. The chancellor’s view that the Eurozone must accept ‘the remorseless logic of monetary union that leads from a single currency to greater fiscal integration’ marks the moment when the British government began to campaign for a two-tier Europe, which would
Might Albert Camus have been murdered by the KGB? Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, has details of a new theory. Here is a translation, courtesy of the Guardian. ‘The theory is based on remarks by Giovanni Catelli, an Italian academic and poet, who noted that a passage in a diary written by the celebrated Czech
Yesterday’s defence select committee report provoked stern critiques of the government’s defence policy from Alex Massie and Matt Cavanagh. It is hard to dissent from Matt’s view that Cameron, Fox and Osborne will be defined to some extent by how they handle the defence brief, which, as Alex points out, also proved to be Gordon
There were rumours flying around Whitehall this morning that the EU leadership was feeling the strain from yesterday’s rise in Spanish and Italian borrowing costs. Both stand rather too close to 7 per cent for comfort, and the price of insuring against sovereign default in the two countries also soared to its highest level in
The Liberal Democrats are in something of a purple patch at the moment, dominating aspects of government policy in the media. Last weekend, Danny Alexander broke his usually modest mould to stand square behind the 50p rate, in contrast to Boris Johnson and George Osborne. The debate encapsulates the current vogue for the coalition partners
Sir George Young has graced the pages of the Daily Mail this morning, arguing that MPs cannot ignore the clamour for a debate on the death penalty, as examined in depth by Pete last weekend. The Leader of the House’s intervention is the greatest indication yet that parliament will discuss the issue for the first
Business Secretary Vince Cable was on strident form this morning, pledging to drop controversial web-blocking from the government’s plan to tackle internet piracy. But his Conservative colleagues at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Ed Vaizey and Jeremy Hunt, disagree. Ed Vaizey, the minister responsible for the creative industries, is to chair a meeting
As an accompaniment to the unique photo-history of the Egyptian revolution currently being shown on the Books Blog, here is Channel 4’s latest footage of the invalid Hosni Mubarak being brought to trial. This is a momentous moment in Egypt’s rebirth as a nation, but one denuded of dignity if these images are anything to go by.
Yesterday’s leak of Vince Cable’s response to the Hargreaves report into the Digital Economy Act (DEA) set tongues wagging. The headline was as expected: ‘web-blocking’, the practice whereby copyright infringers are barred from internet access, will be dropped because it is unworkable. In line with Hargreaves’ recommendations, Cable also plans to remove restrictions on using copyright
Here’s some news that you may have missed from last week: World Book Night is to be extended to America. The American arm will be led by Carl Lennertz, currently with Harper Collins, and former head of marketing at Foyles, Julia Kingsford, is to become chief executive of the whole charity. The organisers hope that
Eric Pickles’ decentralisation revolution continues, with the announcement that Whitehall is relinquishing control over car parking restrictions in town centres. From now on, town halls will decide how much space will be devoted to parking and at what price. It is hoped that this will stimulate commerce in the localities by improving the experience of
Despite small falls in petrol prices last month, the consequence of a supermarket price war according to the AA, motoring becomes ever more expensive. Political campaigns have opened as pressure builds at the pumps; and these campaigns have been co-opted by influential organs such as the Sun. The government has reacted: taking part in the International
Former Booker judge Louise Doughty says hooray! for the bravest Booker longlist ever compiled. * Julian Barnes The Sense of an Ending * Sebastian Barry On Canaan’s Side * Carol Birch Jamrach’s Menagerie * Patrick deWitt The Sisters Brothers * Esi Edugyan Half Blood Blues * Yvvette Edwards A Cupboard Full of Coats * Alan