Society

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

A Scandal in Springfield

Sometimes it’s useful to remember that, despite everything, British politics is, on the whole, markedly less corrupt than politics elsewhere. That, of course, explains why so many of our scandals are disappointingly third or fourth rate. They do things differently in America. Today’ entertainment comes courtesy of Rod Blagojevich, the governor of Illinois, who has been arrested on charges of, inter alia, conspiring to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat. Great stuff: Federal prosecutors have investigated Blagojevich’s administration for at least three years. The governor has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. The FBI affidavit alleges that Blagojevich also sought promises of campaign cash, as well as a cabinet post or ambassadorship in

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Chicago Hardball

More from the Blagojevich indictment: [I]ntercepted phone conversations between ROD BLAGOJEVICH and others indicate that ROD BLAGOJEVICH is contemplating rescinding his commitment of state funds to benefit Children’s Memorial Hospital because Hospital Executive 1 has not made a recent campaign contribution to ROD BLAGOJEVICH. Really, if you’re not entertained by this then you probably need to rethink your interest in politics.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Does Sure Start perform?

Is Sure Start really the success story that Rachel Sylvester suggests it is? I asked my colleague at the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), Jill Kirby – perhaps the leading expert on family issues – for her take. She reviewed Sure Start in her CPS report Nationalisation of Childhood. That was two years ago, and the evidence was that for children of the most vulnerable (ie, jobless and lone parents) it was, amazingly, doing more harm than good. For the others, the benefits were negligible. Since then, Professor Edward Melhuish’s National Evaulation of Sure Start has said that it is “plausible if by no means certain” that this problem on

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The case for merit pay

Malcolm Gladwell has a fantastic piece in this week’s New Yorker which contains a totally compelling argument for merit pay for teachers: “Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford, estimates that the students of a very bad teacher will learn, on average, half a year’s worth of material in one school year. The students in the class of a very good teacher will learn a year and a half’s worth of material. That difference amounts to a year’s worth of learning in a single year. Teacher effects dwarf school effects: your child is actually better off in a “bad” school with an excellent teacher than in an excellent school with a bad

Peter Hoskin

What’s this about?

The Speaker’s set to make a Damian Green-related statement at 15:30 today.  Tim Montgomerie highlights a post by Richard Benyon MP which suggests it may be to do with police access to the Commons server. Stay tuned. UPDATE, 1535: Not much to it.  Martin says that “no access was given, and no access was taken” to the Commons server.

Peter Hoskin

And so back to the economy…

There was much to be impressed about in David Cameron’s speech to the LSE earlier.  It contained some fizzy soundbites; made effective attacks on Brown’s repsonse to the downturn; and clearly spelt out the dividing lines between the Tories and Labour.  Most of all, though, it said: “We are not the do-nothing party”.  Given that the “do-nothing” charge is the key component in Brown’s spin war against the Tories, it’s an important point for Cameron to make.  And he did so by drawing a distinction between the wrong and the right “exceptional measures” (see this video clip from the Beeb): “I do believe that exceptional times call for exceptional measures

Daniel Korski

Britain should have Mugabe prosecuted

The charge sheet against Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe is long and packed with crimes of both commission and omission. The World Food Program expects half the Zimbabwean population will soon need food aid. Official inflation was 231 million percent in July – the last time statistics were released. Unemployment is over 85 percent; poverty over 90 percent; and foreign reserves almost depleted. Since Mugabe took power, thousands have died at the hands of his goons. Operation Murambatsvina, in 2005, alone cost some 700,000 people their homes, livelihoods or both. Now an outbreak of cholera has claimed around 600 lives and, according to Medicins Sans Frontieres, threatens another 1.4 million people.  As

Peter Hoskin

A second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty for Ireland?

This from the Standard’s Paul Waugh: “Premier Brian Cowen will tell the EU summit this week that he wants his country to ratify the treaty by this time next year. Although the words ‘second referendum’ may not pass his lips, his colleague Europe Minister Dick Roche has just made plain that that is what will happen. Roche says that the treaty can be amended to meet Ireland’s fears over neutrality, tax, abortion and its own Commissioner.” At best, I’d say this “try and try again” mentality is patronising to those who voted ‘No’ the first time around. One wonders what will happen if a second referendum delivers a second ‘No’

Peter Hoskin

Putting up barriers to social mobility<br />

Another week, another essential column by Rachel Sylvester; this time on the successes and failures of the Sure Start programme.  Here’s the key passage on how the programme could encourage social segregation: “In some cases parents are asked whether they have a garden for their children to play in. The objective is clear – to identify the middle classes. A friend of mine was telephoned by her local Sure Start organiser and asked not to come to baby massage classes any more because she was too posh… …Of course it’s important that Sure Start reaches the people it was originally designed to help. But it would be ironic if the

Monday

Peter Hoskin

Poll blues for the Tories

There’s another post-PBR opinion poll for us to mull over tonight; this time courtesy of The Times / Populus.  The headline figures put the Tories below the 40 percent mark, and have Labour once more closing the gap: Conservatives — 39 percent (down 2) Labour — 35 percent (no change) Lib Dems — 17 percent (up 1) It all seems counterintuitive.  What about the sceptical response to Brown’s PBR?  What about the Damian Green affair?  Either this poll is an outlier, or these events – which felt seismic within the Westminster bubble – just haven’t registered that much with the public.  I guess we need to see a few more

Peter Hoskin

Brown gets his way

The Commons have just voted down an attempt to change the remit of the committee being established by Michael Martin to look into the Damian Green affair – and by the slenderest of margins (285-281).  Those four votes mean that the seven-person committee will most likely have a government majority on it; just as Brown wanted.  One suspects it was the Labour whip team wot won it. UPDATE: Harriet Harman’s “government majority” version of the committee has been passed (293-270).  Given that the Tories and the Lib Dems are now boycotting it, will anyone actually give any regard to its findings?  Will be interesting to see if this rebounds on Brown &

Peter Hoskin

Debate for naught?

The debate over the raid on Damian Green’s office is trundling along in the Commons (you can watch it here).  So far, the talking points have been a (failed) attempt to get the debate extended to six hours, as well as some Tory resistance to Michael Martin’s proposed committee on the matter.  This should be Parliament at its very best – a packed House, debating an important issue that’s angered many – but there’s a sad air of pointlessnes about it all.  I guess it’s something to do with Gordon Brown’s whipping of the Labour benches.  As Bob Marshall-Andrews put it earlier, he and his Labour colleagues are on a

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A horrifying agenda

Since the Mumbai atrocities there has been a lot written about the need for a settlement in Kashmir. Undoubtedly, a resolution to this conflict is to be wished for on it own terms and because it would make cooperation between India and Pakistan easier. But as Patrick French argues in a trenchant op-ed in today’s New York Times, the idea that the ending of the Kashmir dispute would see the terrorists put down their arms is naïve in the extreme. Here he describes the views of Hafiz Saeed, the leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba “who lives on a large estate outside Lahore bought with Saudi Money”: “Mr. Saeed’s hatreds are catholic —

Daniel Korski

The unknown surge

Everyone following developments in Afghanistan will know of the demand by military commanders on the ground for more international troops to be deployed. A former NATO commander said he needed at least 400,000 troops. Doctrinally, a 20:1,000 security force-to-population ratio is deemed necessary for counter-insurgency operations. That would mean putting at least 200,000 troops into the southern and eastern parts of the country, a figure well beyond NATO’s capability. But there has, in fact, been a steady –- if unknown — increase in the number of NATO troops deployed to Afghanistan, including from Europe: Clearly this is not enough and numbers do not equal capability – as many of the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Not just cricket

It is wonderful news that a full-strength England team will head to India today for the Test series. If England had pulled out or sent a weakened team, it would have been a triumph for the terrorists; proof that they had succeeded in one of their goals, making Westerners think twice about going to or investing in India. It would also have threatened the future of the international game. By going the cricketers are demonstrating their solidarity with the Indian people and showing a welcome defiance to the terrorists. It would be petty to sneer about whether a desire to play in the lucrative IPL affected their decision or the level

Peter Hoskin

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 8 December – 14 December

Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which – provided your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency – you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no topic, so there’s no need to stay ‘on topic’ – which means you’ll be able to debate with each other more freely and extensively. There’s also no constraint on the length of what you write – so, in effect, you can become Coffee House bloggers. Anything’s fair game – from political stories in your local

Peter Hoskin

Convincing the creditors

The dangers of mounting national debt are spelt out clearly and persuasively by Frank Field in an article for today’s Guardian.  Well worth reading the whole thing, but the bottom line is that desperate times may call for desperate measures: “If the debt can’t be sold, it will be impossible for the government to continue. The only options then will be to print money, with all the dangers for a country of going along with such a policy; or for the political parties to come together – in a national government – to try to convince the gilt market that the country is serious about bringing under control the gap

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Top Lib Dem donor quits party in tax row

Sam Coates breaks the news that Lord Jacobs, the Lib Dem’s biggest donor, is quitting the party. But reading about his policy dispute with the party, one wonders why he was a Lib Dem in the first place. Sam reports that: “His beef is that he wants Clegg to go further on tax, taking the lowest paid out of tax altogether but also reducing the rates for higher earners. The party is reluctant to raise employers national insurance by the required amount to pay for it, and relations have clearly broken down. Now Lord Jacobs wants to be free to hawk his tax plan around Labour and the Tories –

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Did a Cabinet minister think Brown was breaking the law?

The oddest, and potentially most significant, story in the Sunday papers is the Tories claim—reported in the Mail on Sunday—that two senior Labour people, including a current cabinet minister, passed on information to them about Brown, Balls and the Smith Institute. The two Labour sources apparently pushed the Tories to see whether the relationship was illegal. This claim is bound to increase the paranoia levels in Downing Street. If it is true and not just pys ops by the Tories, then it is testament to how bitterly personal of the divisions in the Labour party are. But it should be remembered that the information was passed to the Tories in

Peter Hoskin

A third term for the Speaker?

Despite his cynical attempts at buck-passery, the heat’s still not off Michael Martin.  Numerous MPs across the House are thought to be, at best, underwhelmed – and, at worst, disgusted – by his actions before, during and after the police raid on Damian Green’s parliamentary office.  A survey of MPs by the Beeb puts some numbers on the discontent: of 130 Parliamentarians, 32 said they have no confidence in the Speaker, against 56 who still have confidence in him.  On a separate question, 50 thought Martin culpable over the search of Green’s office. One thing that may have been holding back Martin’s detractors – and even those 56 who apparently