Really interesting debate on who is winning the Blog/Comment War last night at Edelman HQ in Victoria Street. I tried to argue that they are part of the same continuum. I have never seen them as particularly antagonistic. I suggested that we are yet to see a “classic” or “great” blog posting in the way
This evening I have the pleasure of speaking about the ongoing battle between the Commentariat and the Bloggertariat at an Editorial Intelligence event. My fellow panellists are David Aaronovitch of The Times, blogger Iain Dale, Mick Fealty (Slugger O’Toole and Brassneck) and Anne Spackman of The Times). Where do I fit in? I guess somewhere inbetween
It seems some readers of this blog are such fundamentalist economic liberals that they even disapprove of Thatcher-style state encouragement of entrepreneurs. Check out some of the reaction to my last post for some examples of this tendency. I was really trying to alert readers to the words of Sir David Trippier, but never mind.
One of the reasons I haven’t been blogging as often as I should is that I’ve been writing a report for the Arts Council about self-employment in the creative industries. I’ve been convinced for some time that the government should be re-creating some version of the 1980s Enterprise Allowance Scheme to encourage entreprenership. The original
Harry’s Place reports that Al-Muhajiroun has reformed and it is already returning to its thuggish ways. A debate between Anjem Choudhary and Douglas Murray turned very nasty when a member of the audience insisted on not being segregated and sat with his female friends. Free expression does not equal the right to brutalise those who
Not my choice for the Spectator’s Top 50 films (really not) but the title of the masterful new edition of Index on Censorship. The article by Floyd Abrams on how Britain has become an international centre for libel tourism is particularly powerful. The following note to the Khalid bin Mahfouz/Rachel Ehrenfeld case is particularly telling:
So now Kitty Ussher has gone too. This really is becoming a significant clearout as hopes for the next generation of Labour politicians fall away. I always rather liked Kitty, who seemed decent enough and even spoke out against Tony Blair’s failure to speak out about the Lebanon war. But it’s difficult to see how
I have written an essay for a Demos pamphlet called What Next for Labour? In it I have compared two campaigns, John Prescott’s Go Fourth and my own New Deal of the Mind. I recommend you look at the whole collection of essays but my argument is pretty simple. I suggest the Labour Party needs to rediscover
A subject close to my heart is the fear of mental collapse that lies just below the surface of New Labour. So I wrote about it for this week’s Spectator magazine. You’ll find it here.
As I wandered through parliament on Monday evening I bumped into a former minister who had just come out of the do-or-die parliamentary Labour Party meeting. He reached in his pocket and showed me a text message on his mobile from a constituency activist: “So it’s a slow, lingering death then,” it said. This was
Martin Bright says that the party labels its enemies as ‘mad’ for Freudian reasons: ‘projecting’ its own collective and individual mental disorders upon foes and rebels alike What is it with New Labour and accusations of psychological weakness? No sooner had Hazel Blears announced her resignation from the Cabinet but dark murmurings bubbled up from
I didn’t think Gordon Brown’s narcissistic statements of principle could get more embarrassing. The idea that he is driven by his presbyterian conscience was bad enough, but this Washingtonian nonsense about being taught by his father to always be honest is just hide-behind-the-sofa excruciating. It’s been my experience that people’s own mythology of themselves is often
Perhaps James Purnell was at Hamlet last night as well. There is a kind of tragic inevitability to all this now. Until tonight there was at least the appearance of a government. Now even that thin veil has been removed. There is nothing left with which to govern. Think of the already vacant Cabinet posts: Home
I’m just back from seeing Jude Law’s Hamlet at the Wyndham’s Theatre. I’ll leave judgement on the quality of the production and performances to those more qualified than myself. But it was certainly a very clear, no-nonsense retelling of that most terrible of stories. Since the point was first made about Gordon Brown being a
There are a number of peculiar aspects of the political moment through which we are living: the fact that the Prime Minister has no mandate from the country or his own party, the collapse of the economy, the meltdown at Westminster. But never before have we had a political moment where junior ministers will be
The MPs’ expenses scandal has been a devastating distracttion. It has been an essential process. But it is a distraction all the same. How many times have commentators now said the country is now facing a political crisis to match the economic crisis? This is not the whole story. The economic situation means that people’s anger about the venal behaviour of
I’l be taking a break from blogging over the next week. Back at the beginning of June.
Hats of to Paul Evans of the Local Democracy blog who has come up with a brilliant idea for renewing our political culture: Reselect Democracy. I am happy to endorse it along with Liberal Conspiracy. Here’s the Reselect Democracy pitch to the major political parties: Following recent revelations about the abuse of expenses by a
Watching Newsnight tonight it felt like a dam had broken. Three MPs from the main parties having an open discussion about the future of politics post-Speaker Martin, Jeremy Paxman relaxed and cracking jokes about the growing groundswell of support for Chris Mullin to become speaker: it was all rather extraordinary. The three MPs, Chris Mullin,
It’s all getting very strange, isn’t it? Now that Esther Rantzen has thrown her hat into the ring, anything is possible. Among the twitterati everyone and his dog is discussing new ideas for political parties or anti-sleaze alliances. when Toby Young puts himself forward you (and surely he) knows the country is in desperate trouble.