Coffee House The Spectator Blog
The Iran problem isn’t going away
Don’t miss the excellent Toby Harnden’s interview with Norman Podhoretz in today’s Daily Telegraph in which the US conservative guru – an adviser to, amongst many others Rudy Giuliani –… Continue reading
0 CommentsListen up
Tomorrow morning you’ll want to tune into The Week at Westminster on Radio 4, Matt will be presenting and he’s got some great guest lined up including Dennis Skinner, Gisela… Continue reading
0 CommentsNo question about it, it was a great performance
Around Westminster today plenty of normally hard-bitten folk have been saying to me how good Fraser was on Question Time. He’s far too modest to say it, so let me… Continue reading
0 CommentsCameron’s outdated foreign policy
David Cameron’s speech in Berlin today on foreign policy advocated a cautious, liberal conservative approach to foreign policy. It is very different, at least in tone, from the foreign policy vision that… Continue reading
0 CommentsThe trick to doing Question Time
While preparing for my first Question Time last night, talking to former panellists, I discovered a strata of politics I didn’t know existed. With five million viewers it’s the most-watched… Continue reading
0 CommentsChris Huhne and whose army?
The Lib Dem leadership will be a closer affair than many people expect. Chris Huhne having run before and got a respectable 40 odd percent of vote is going to… Continue reading
0 CommentsHow liberal is the BBC?
Sam Coates over at Conservative Home has done some great number crunching on how BBC employees identify themselves politically on Facebook. Of the 10,580 BBC workers on the site, 1,… Continue reading
0 CommentsThe Blair memoirs
Tony Blair has announced the name of the ghost writer for his forthcoming memoirs: Frank But-not-disloyal. Mr Blair and Frank go back a long way, and their laughter could often… Continue reading
0 CommentsTories 3 points ahead in latest poll
The latest YouGov poll for the Telegraph has the Tories on 41, Labour 38 and the Liberal Democrats languishing on a 11 percent. I suspect that both main parties will… Continue reading
0 CommentsTime for Parliament to take a stand
I’m normally slightly sceptical of the value of Early Day Motions; too few of them justify the £627,000 that they cost the taxpayer in 2005/6. But one put down today… Continue reading
1 CommentGordon doesn’t get it
Anatole Kaletsky has a cracking column in The Times today about Gordon Brown’s political difficulties. One point is particularly worth noting: Brown doesn’t know how to triangulate. Bill Clinton and… Continue reading
2 CommentsPreparations for a possible strike on Iran stepped up
The speculation over whether President George W. Bush will order strikes on Iran before he leaves office in January 2009 will ramp up another notch with the news that the Bush administration… Continue reading
3 CommentsWill Tony wear a blue dress?
Oh, this is going to be fun. Adam Boulton, writing in the New Statesman, says that Tony Blair and David Cameron will indeed be holding a meeting soon. Apparently, Blair… Continue reading
3 CommentsThe real abortion figures
One of my favourite themes is the power of metrics. The party who chooses the right yardsticks shapes the debate: something Labour understood early on, with their specific definition of… Continue reading
1 CommentAshdown warns that Afghanistan is lost
When it comes to winning the peace few people know more than Paddy Ashdown so his warning that Afghanistan is “lost” is particularly alarming. The Telegraph quotes him setting out… Continue reading
3 CommentsBrown is having tent trouble
When Gordon Brown first announced the outsiders he had recruited to his ‘ministry of all the talents’ there was much chuckling in Westminster about whether Digby Jones or Mark Malloch… Continue reading
1 CommentArnie earns his stripes
Most people chuckled at California when it elected Arnold Schwarzenegger governor. But the sheer competence of the state government’s reaction to the appalling wild fires that are sweeping the state… Continue reading
3 CommentsBrown gets clunked again
More Labour glum faces today, and much for them to be glum about. Cameron opened on a good theme: Brown’s plans to confiscate budget surpluses accrued by prudent schools. Cameron… Continue reading
7 CommentsTime to use the space created by the surge
The military success of the surge in Iraq has been quite astonishing but much remains to be done on the political front. Part of the reason for this is that… Continue reading
0 CommentsBrown shouldn’t waste his breath on the UN over Burma
In The Guardian, Gordon Brown asks the world to focus itself on Burma today as Aung Sui Kyi’s 12th year under house arrest draws to and end. The Prime Minister’s… Continue reading
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