Society

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

<strong>The Republicans debate</strong>

Tonight, the Republican presidential contenders—minus Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter—hold another televised debate here in New Hampshire. Last night, John McCain, Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani all piled on to Mitt Romney. In the spin room afterwards, their surrogates continued to unload on the former Massachusetts governor and so the big question tonight is whether Romney will face another sustained assault. At the Huckabee event today it was noticeable that he was still, even if not mentioned by name, the major target of Huckabee’s criticisms with Huckabee making cracks about Romney’s hunting bona fides and the amount of his own money that he is pouring into his campaign.

The Skimmer

The BBC was not even warm about global temperatures

Almost a year ago, BBC News reported (January 04),  that “the world is likely to experience the warmest year on record in 2007.” In fact, temperatures in 2007 were no different from 2006, or indeed 2001.   Overall, temperatures (as measured by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Britain’s Met Office, the UN’s IPCC — and even Al Gore) last year were broadly the same as they had been in 1998 — yet CO2 emissions have continued to increase at an even faster rate in the last decade than they did 1980-98, when global temperatures did indeed rise.   It would be good journalism if BBC News looked again

James Forsyth James Forsyth

<strong>How Huckabee is tailoring his message to New Hampshire</strong>

After Hillary’s rally this morning, we drove out to Mike Huckabee’s chowder-fest in the small town of Wyndham. The whole event was a testament to what a versatile politician Huckabee is. He won in Iowa by being, as his adverts controversially called him, a “Christian leader” but here in New Hampshire, where the evangelical population is only three percent, he has dialled the God factor right down. Instead, he is accentuating his economic populism and his humble origins. The room resounded with applause when he told the crowd, “you’re the ones who make the decisions, not the Wall Street types.”  The Huckabee campaign signed in 600 people but were claiming

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Hillary needs a convincing critique of Obama–and fast

Hillary Clinton’s new strategy was evident at her canvas kick off this morning. She kept stressing how she, unlike Obama, had actually delivered change. She rattled off—Gordon Brown style—the numbers of New Hampshire children, national guard members and veterans she had ‘delivered’ health care to. However, it is hard to see this line of attack bringing voters flooding to her side and I expect that as Hillary talks in Washington acronyms about her achievements she is probably reinforcing the Obama-Edwards charge that she is part of the Washington status quo. With Obama 10 points up in the latest CNN/WMUR poll, Hillary needs to find a more potent critique of him

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Hillary’s quest for votes

I’m at a Hillary “canvas kick off” in Manchester, New Hampshire this morning and the Hillary supporters are out in force making more noise than is entirely decent at this time in the morning in an attempt to inject some energy into her flagging campaign. With less than 48 hours until voting starts here, Hillary needs to turn the tide and fast. Hillary’s organisation here is clearly formidable, she has a lot of people prepared to stand outside in the cold and shout themselves hoarse for her. But worryingly for her, there’s none of the spontaneous excitement that characterised Obama’s event yesterday. Interestingly, Hillary is holding a rally at the same

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The winners: McCain and Obama

John McCain and Barack Obama won tonight’s debates here in New Hampshire not because of what they did but because of what others did for them. The mass Republican assault on Mitt Romney, which McCain joined in, ensured that McCain’s chief rival in the state left the debate bloodied and bruised. At this point, the stars seem to be aligning for McCain in New Hampshire. If McCain does win here, the other candidates might regret doing him such a favour tonight as the momentum he gains might carry him all the way to the nomination—but you get the impression that the other candidates wouldn’t mind that too much. Logic had

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Democratic debate

I’m a little late to the party here as I was in the spin room listening to the surrogates for the Republican candidates. So, I’ll come back to the foreign policy section after the debate. The first thing to notice is that John Edwards is riding to Obama’s defence as Hillary tries to attack him. Edwards is depicting Clinton as the candidate of the status quo. Edwards’s attack was brutal. Hillary is firing back now. If she can’t rebut this charge, then it is over for her. Bill Richardson starts with a joke, “I’ve been in hostage negotiations that were more civil than this.” He then goes on to ask

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The debate double-header

I’m sitting in the press filing centre at Saint Anselm College where the leading Republican and Democratic presidential candidates are about to hold back to back debates. The stakes are huge—this is Hillary Clinton’s last best chance to halt the Obama bandwagon before the primary on Tuesday. While on the Republican side, Mitt Romney can’t afford a bad showing. Worryingly for Romney, Ed Rollins, a key Huckabee aide, told the New York Times this morning: “We’re going to see if we can’t take Romney out,” Mr. Rollins said. “We like John. Nobody likes Romney.” The first question is on the Bush foreign policy legacy. Mike Huckabee, who has criticised the

The Spectator

<strong>Worrying signs for the Republicans</strong>

As in Iowa, you can’t help but notice the enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats. This morning Obama drew 3,000 people and no one seemed to mind the event starting an hour late or that a large chunk of the audience had to be located in an overflow room. The majority of the crowd were families with young kids: political pay dirt.  There were only 600 people at McCain’s event. Admittedly it was in a much smaller town and there were more people waiting outside, but unlike at Obama’s most of McCain’s attendees were older voters—the average age must have been comfortably over fifty. If you’re a Republican you have to

Saturday

Melissa Kite

High maintenance

Since when did we become incapable of doing anything for ourselves? It started off with cleaners. In the bad old days only rich people had cleaners. Now everyone has a cleaner. Cleaners have cleaners. The golden age of cheap foreign labour means that nobody has to tidy up their own mess. Or cook their own dinner, or dig their own garden, or feed their own cats, or, indeed, do their own job. My friend Catherine has a PA. My friend Catherine is a PA. Since when did a PA need a PA? And what happens when the PA’s PA needs a PA? Doing boring things for yourself is just so

Jeremy Clarke

Hunting special

Foul weather and worse to come. Puddles in the farmyard. An 18th-century farmhouse with a cast-iron fox’s mask for a doorknocker. The door is ajar. Inside, men in hunting waistcoats are gathered around a silver drinks tray. The warmth and enthusiasm of my host’s greeting takes me aback. He welcomes me literally with open arms and introduces me to the company. One of them, a raffish-looking bloke, is an Earl. Another, with a cruel, outdoor face, is introduced as ‘the Master’. Friendly hands are extended. ‘He looks the part, anyway,’ says the Master. ‘Now, then,’ says my host to me in a business-like manner, carefully tipping first whisky then cherry

Taki

Downers and uppers

New Year’s Eve parties cannot be described in lyrical terms, recalling perhaps the elegance of poetry by, say, Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde’s decadence being more like it. I am not among those who hate New Year’s parties; in fact, on the contrary. Let’s start with the bad news. The worst New Year’s ever was 31 December 1984, in Pentonville. Now that was a real downer. Talk about a party that never took off. On that particular night it never even got started. Everyone was locked up by 7 p.m., and most of the jailbirds were asleep by the time the clock struck 12. I stayed up by force of habit, but

The Spectator

Letters | 5 January 2008

Hoggartian paradox The result has been the Hoggartian paradox of programmes that managed to be both, in Simon’s words, ‘scaringly revealing’ and largely covering ‘old and well-travelled ground’. Hoggartian paradox The result has been the Hoggartian paradox of programmes that managed to be both, in Simon’s words, ‘scaringly revealing’ and largely covering ‘old and well-travelled ground’. I am sorry that he was so disappointed and, of course, I am as sure that he would have done a better job of interviewing Mr Blair as I am that his criticisms are utterly unmotivated by envy. David Aaronovitch By email In defence of Ms Gibbons Mr Liddle might also care to reflect

Toby Young Toby Young

I may have to get divorced: this happiness stuff makes time go too quickly

What happened? Where did 2007 go? Come to think of it, where did the last 10 years go? It’s as though there’s an egg-timer on my desk that measures how much time I have left, only it isn’t working properly. When I keep my eyes on it, the sand trickles through at a steady pace, but whenever I look away the hole opens up and vast quantities of sand fall through at an alarming rate. How else to explain the fact that there’s so little left? I’m reminded of one of John Cleese’s soliloquies in Fawlty Towers: ‘Zzzhhoom. What was that? That was your life, mate. Oh, that was quick.

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody | 5 January 2008

It’s that time of year again My Fellow Compassionates! So here they are, my New Year’s Resolutions for 2008! 1.) Go easy on the policy. I don’t know about you but I’m suffering a major hangover in this department. Not that I haven’t enjoyed being at the cutting edge. I was as surprised as anyone when Dave adopted all 26 of the ideas I scrawled down on Pony Club notelets during one particularly gruelling emergency manifesto writing session. But enough is enough. If we’re not careful someone is going to dig out all these promises and hold us to them when we’re in government! 2.) Get on the right side

Tim Rice

Diary – 5 January 2008

My daughter has just got married and a beautiful and lively event it was, moving from her local church in St James’s Gardens to the Dorchester via Routemaster buses. I took the opportunity in my speech to thank many for their efforts to be present but reserved my principal praise not for those who had journeyed from Australia, America and South Africa, but for those who had travelled just a few miles from other parts of London. When you have flogged through hideous traffic at the end of another ghastly working day to attend a wedding in your home town it is always extremely annoying to sit through praise showered

Peter Jones

Ancient & Modern | 05 January 2008

One moment laws against ‘religious hatred’, the next against smoking in cars, now mobile phones. What next? But then, law-making has been expanding ever since the Romans drew up their XII Tables, c. 450 bc, which were themselves originally a mere X until they decided they needed II more. In ad 533, when the Roman empire in the West was no more, the eastern emperor Justinian published a Digest of Roman law. It was condensed from some 2,000 volumes. Romans despaired of the problem. Julius Caesar decided to reduce the statute book to a manageable size but was assassinated in 44 bc before he could begin. The great Roman historian

James Forsyth James Forsyth

McCain rallies his band of brothers

After the Obama rally, I headed up to Peterborough for a John McCain town hall. The population of the town is 6,000 yet McCain had 600 at his event with the police blocking more people from entering. It is awesome, in the proper sense of the word, how seriously New Hampshire primary voters take their first in the nation role. Talking to them afterwards, one couldn’t help but be struck by their knowledge of the candidates’ records and the sheer number of events they’d been to. Interestingly, a couple of people I spoke to had previously been for Bill Richardson, the Democrat who came fourth in Iowa, but were now

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Obama has the wind at his back

Nashua, New Hampshire There’s little doubt that Obama is the candidate with the big ‘mo. Half an hour before his event was due to start here at Nashua North High School there was a mile and a half long queue of cars trying to get into the car park. The event eventually started an hour late once the campaign had set up an overflow room. There must have been at least a couple of thousand people there and encouragingly for Obama at least a quarter of them were undecided voters. If you’re Hillary Clinton, or John McCain who is competing with Obama for the votes of independents in the state,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Hillary’s last best chance

Tonight, both the Democrats and the Republicans debate here in New Hampshire. The Democratic debate represents Hillary Clinton’s best chance to push back against the surging Barack Obama. Hillary has little choice but to make her move tonight, with the primary on Tuesday she has to change the story fast. If Obama wins on Tuesday, he would become the overwhelming favourite to win the nomination.  There is, though, still no sign that the Clintons have come up with a compelling reason for voters to back Hillary. As The New York Times reports this morning, the campaign is still searching for a rationale for her candidacy that goes beyond inevitability and