I’ve become something of a fan of Bad Idea magazine, which promotes the work of young journalists. It’s a sight more lively than most of the dreary material pumped out by the mainstream press as it stumbles lazily into oblivion. People younger than me will have to invent new ways of doing this thing if any of us
There is a very important piece in today’s Guardian about the UK libel laws by my old friend Jo Glanville, editor of Index on Censoship. I urge you to read the article in full. She argues that the UK’s “libel laws remain the most significant daily chill on free speech in the UK”. She is
I don’t think it’s quite right for me to keep promoting New Deal of the Mind here on my Spectator blog. That should happen elsewhere and will. But just in case readers are interested, the launch meeting at Number 11 Downing Street was a fascinating affair. Cabinet Ministers Andy Burnham and James Purnell pledged their support
There is a part of me that hopes I never have to write another word about the troubled relationship between the British left and radical Islam. But I certainly wouldn’t appreciate being told I could never write about it. This is what I find so mystifying about the campaign by Sunder Katwala, the Fabian Society’s
A rather impassioned piece on unemployment from Polly Toynbee in yesterday’s Guardian made me realise that there are a number of people on the liberal-left in Britain thinking very hard about the implications of the global recession. “Has the horror of it all struck Westminster with full force?,” asks Polly? I think they are beginning
Good to see three of my favourite whistleblowers – Katharine Gun, Brian Jones and Derek Pasquill – giving evidence to the Public Accounts Committee today. But it seems from the reporting that Carne Ross, former first secretary at the United Nations, rather stole the show by live video link from New York. Ross, it seems
Many, many apologies for my absence from the blog. I have been deep in the inner crevices and interstices of government searching for an escape route from the recession. Have I found it? You will find out next week when the New Deal of the MInd finally sees the light of day. The coalition of people
The brutal truth about politics is that a whole career can often be telescoped into a single defining event. The judgement of history can be particularly cruel on unlucky Prime Ministers. Ted Heath’s reputation is dominated by the 1972 miners’ strike, Jim Callaghan is synonymous with the “winter of discontent” and Anthony Eden, perhaps the
I very much enjoyed Comic Relief tonight, especially the double act of Anjem Choudhary and Patrick Cordingly on Newsnight. That was comic genius. Why do serious programmes like Newsnight give clowns like Choudhary the time of day?
Apologies for missing a day of blogging, but I’ve been hard at work trying to figure out how my idea for a New Deal of the Mind might work in practice. There seems to be some momentum growing around the concept of harnessing this country’s celebrated talent for creativity and innovation during the downturn. We
Every now and again I find myself reaching for Robert Peston’s 2005 book, Brown’s Britain. As we are now living in Brown’s Britain (perhaps we have been for the past 11 or so years) it is a very useful work of reference. We all know by now that Peston was always there first. The book
I now get magazines sent to my home rather than my office, which means that I actually read them from time to time. The latest issue of The Liberal, for instance, contains a fascinating article by Sarah Churchwell about the home-spun language used by Sarah Palin and John McCain during the US presidential election. She demonstrates that
A good mini-scoop from the Independent on Sunday based on an article from Peter Hain. News stories based on articles by politicians are often the last refuge of a political journalist who has run out of road. But this piece by Jane Merrick and Brian Brady is an exception. The former Work and Pension Secretary
My politics students at City University in London were delighted to have a visit from a master hack today. Kevin Maguire was an entertainining and marvellously indiscreet guest. The final question was straight and to the point: “What did Mr Maguire think Harriet Harman was up to?” Kevin thought for about a second before replying: “She’s at
I have had some time to think about Gordon Brown’s performance in Washington now and I would agree with an American liberal friend I spoke to on the phone this evening that it was “not bad”. This is someone who desperately wanted Obama to win and who, on balance, would probably not want a Tory government
You will all be delighted to hear that today I finally signed away the rights to my life story. Stop laughing at the back! Longstanding followers of The Bright Stuff will remember that I (perhaps rather grandly) said I was leaving the New Statesman to work on a film project. The Spy Who Tried to Stop
There’s some really fascinating stuff knocking around today. Rachel Sylvester’s column in The Times is really quite extraordinary. She claims that in a conference call with Peter Mandelson and Ed Balls, the Prime Minister could not be persuaded to concentrate on domestic policy and kept returning to the international global crisis. Were there others involved
I was really sorry not to get along to the Convention on Modern Liberty at the weekend. I think this is an important development on the political landscape and I salute the organisers. I have been impressed by the energy of Henry Porter in getting this onto the agenda and the coalition is an interesting
No one outside Downing Street can imagine how tense it must be getting in the bunker as the economic situation worsens and the period Gordon Brown has to turn things around shortens. My suspicion is that it is getting very tense indeed. I was informed on Friday that No 10 was not happy with some of the
I was interested to read Noreena’s Hertz’s take on “Co-Op Capitalism” in The Times. If what she calls “Gucci Capitalism” is going the way of the command economy then what will replace it, Hertz asks. “I believe that the conditions are in place for a new form of capitalism to arise from the debris — co-op