Archive: 8 February – 14 February 2010
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Friday 12 February 2010
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Considering the fuss made when Gordon Brown accused David Cameron of making up his policies "on the playing fields of Eton", it's surprising that few, if any of Fleet Street's Brigade of Columnists has paused to examine the Tory leader's charge this week that the prime minister is a "shameless defender of the old elite".
Perhaps it isn't surprising. It's such a brazen claim, made in Cameron's "Rebuilding trust in politics" speech on Monday, that it may have sent a ripple of ill-ease through the columnar ranks.
After all, well-fed people who write populist columns pandering to the prejudices of popular newspaper readers ("It's all Europe's fault" and "Global warming's a con") are pulling off the same trick as Cameron himself, and many like him.
What trick? The trick of pandering to what we no longer call the masses and their tastes – in sport, in entertainment, especially in TV and other mass media, in politics and even education – while quietly enjoying the privileges of belonging to an elite defined by money and metropolitan lifestyle, if nothing more.
To be fair, Cameron was talking in the context of political reform at the Commons, where he has consistently managed to stay ahead of the game during the expenses scandal, though we have noted here before that he promised many things – a stronger backbench role, for instance – that he will find it hard to deliver. Continue reading...
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Thursday 11 February 2010
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The three Labour MPs who were told last week they would be charged with false accounting in relation to their expenses have now all given interviews. Jim Devine spoke out last week. Elliot Morley gave an interview to his local paper that appeared yesterday. And today the Bury Times has published an interview with David Chaytor. Continue reading...
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Think Malcolm Gladwell – but with less hair. The Conservative frontbencher David Willetts has written a series of dry, academic-ish, books but his latest – The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children's Future, and Why They Should Give it Back – will appeal to a much wider audience.
It has already been widely praised – Daniel Finkelstein in the Times said it was the most important book written by a Conservative for years, Richard Reeves in the Observer described Willetts as a one-man thinktank and the Guardian applauded the book in the "In praise of ... " slot on the editorial page – and there doesn't seem to be any point writing another glowing review. But there is plenty of information in the book about British society that is worth sharing. I learned lots of new facts. Here Continue reading...
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Binyam Mohamed speaking for the first time since his release from Guantanamo. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP
After yesterday's high court drama I'd be on the side of those calling for a judicial inquiry into the allegations of MI5 and MI6 collusion in torture, the Binyam Mohamed case, if it wasn't for a nagging doubt.
Where an issue is as much about politics as it is about the law, would such an inquiry produce results that command respect and thereby do some long-term good rather than undermine confidence in due process and between allies such as Britain and the US?
Or would its findings be dismissed as a "whitewash" if they failed to support the political case against whichever public authority ended up in the metaphorical d Continue reading...
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Wednesday 10 February 2010
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Conservative leader addresses a high-tech, high-power conference, giving him a global stage as he looks ahead to the general election
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This is a technical announcement, but potentially one with big implications. David Cameron says that if he wins the election, he will publish in full any contract between government and a third party supplier worth more than £25,000.
Cameron is making a full statement on this in a speech he is delivering tonight by video-link to the Technology Entertainment Design conference in California. But the Tories have issued a press release in advance with this quote from George Osborne. Continue reading...
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Andrew Sparrow: MP charged with false accounting over his expenses says decision goes 'against natural justice'
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Live coverage as the foreign secretary makes a statement to MPs following court ruling ordering the government to disclose what MI5 knew of refugee's treatment in Guantánamo Bay
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Gordon Brown speaks during PMQs today. Photograph: PA
Join Andrew Sparrow for minute-by-minute coverage of Gordon Brown's weekly grilling
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EHRC chair Trevor Phillips. Photograph: Martin Argles
Andrew Sparrow: Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission is accused of trying to influence members of a committee shortly before they published a report about him
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David Cameron has a little local difficulty today, one of several, over a Tory candidate called Joanne Cash, who has fallen out with party big-wigs in Westminster North, where she is supposed to be set to take a redrawn seat from Labour's Karen Buck.
At one level it's no big deal. All political parties have this sort of problem for one reason or another, problems which require party HQ to step in and sort things out – or put its big foot into them and make it all worse. Continue reading...
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Tuesday 9 February 2010
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Hey there, Eurosceptic. Yes, I'm talking to you, the one with the loud voice and the scowl. Spare five minutes in the course of your busy day to read Ian Traynor's lengthy zeitgeist (sorry about the German) report in today's Guardian on the demoralised state of the European Union.
Smart chap and highly-experienced correspondent that he is, Traynor is right on the money. If anything, it's worse than he says. You can't pack everything into one article and Ian has concentrated on the EU's diplomatic disarray on the world stage. Continue reading...
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Minute-by-minute coverage as Labour's general election coordinator, Douglas Alexander, and Andy Burnham, the health secretary, outline the party's plans for the NHS
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Monday 8 February 2010
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Jack Straw giving evidence to the Chilcot Iraq war inquiry last month. Photograph: EPA
Live coverage as the justice secretary returns to give evidence to the Chilcot panel for a second time
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Are you confessioned out? I certainly am after a weekend in which Gordon Brown's reported tears and Alastair Campbell's alleged "breakdown" on TV have got more attention than any such saga since, I don't know, Friday's sacking of John Terry as England captain after a string of away games. Continue reading...