France Needs Us to Survive

TELEGRAPH BLOGS – BENEDICT BROGAN: The last time France was in deep trouble, Winston Churchill offered to merge our two countries and make common cause against the Germans, who had driven what remained of French authority from Paris. On 16 June 1940, at the urging of de Gaulle, who had just arrived in London, the British proposed a Declaration of Union to Paul Reynaud, who was desperate to avoid surrender. But the French PM's colleagues dismissed it as a nefarious plot by Britain to snaffle France's colonies. Reynaud resigned and the next day Petain did his deal with Hitler. That instinctive desire to help our oldest friend, ally and rival was celebrated last year when Nicolas Sarkozy came to London to mark the anniversary of l'appel du 18 juin, De Gaulle's call to arms that launched France's resistance and defined her post-war future. With David Cameron, he recalled that the Entente Cordiale of our intertwined histories prove that for France and Britain "their unity has always been a condition of their survival". Read on and comment » | Benedict Brogan | Friday, December 16, 2011

Vince Cable: I Could Bring Down the Government
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Vince Cable has privately threatened to “bring the Government down” if he is “pushed too far” during fractious discussions with his Conservative colleagues, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.


The Business Secretary also claims that David Cameron will seek to scrap or reduce the winter fuel allowance paid to pensioners from next year.

He believes that policies are being rushed through by the Conservatives and that ministers should be “putting a brake on” some proposals, which are in “danger of getting out of control”. Mr Cable says that, behind the scenes, the Tories and Liberal Democrats are fighting a “constant battle”, including over tax proposals. Likening the conflict to a war, he says he can always use the “nuclear option” of resignation. His departure from the Government would spell the end of the Coalition, he claims.

The disclosures emerged in a secret recording of a conversation Mr Cable had with two reporters from The Daily Telegraph posing as Lib Dem voters in his constituency.

They provide the first concrete evidence of the level of distrust and infighting taking place within the Coalition. His comments indicate that the public professions of support between the parties may not be a true reflection of what is occurring in Cabinet. Mr Cable has appeared uncomfortable in the Coalition and his comments will lead to speculation that he could be the first high-­profile member of the Government to quit.

Following divisions within the Lib Dems over the raising of tuition fees, this newspaper has begun an investigation into the party’s true feelings towards the Coalition and it discloses widespread unease. >>> Holly Watt, Robert Winnett and Heidi Blake | Monday, December 20, 2010

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH – BLOGS – BENEDICT BROGAN: No one in the Coalition will trust Vince Cable now >>> Benedict Brogan | Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Papal Visit: The Pope Shows Great Courage
THE TELEGRAPH: Pope Benedict's visit offers a lesson for all Christians in Britain.

Pope Benedict XVI wipes his brow during a mass in Westminster Cathedral in central London. Photo: The Telegraph
The Pope’s visit to Britain has demonstrated the abiding strength of Christianity within this nation. Throughout his visit, thousands of people from across the country have come to watch the spiritual leader of the world’s Catholics as he makes the first state visit by a Pontiff to these shores. In his speeches, His Holiness has shown a clarity of thought to shame the woolly utterances of Britain’s politicians, throwing down the gauntlet to our overly secularised society and insisting – as this newspaper has on many occasions – that religion still has a vital role to play within our culture. >>> Telegraph View | Saturday, September 18, 2010

Benedict Brogan: The Foreign Office Should Relax, Pakistan Knows David Cameron Is Right
THE TELEGRAPH – BLOGS – BENEDICT BROGAN: Pakistan’s anger at David Cameron and his remarks about terrorism are getting great play ahead of president Asif Ali Zardari’s visit. The Telegraph details today the real purpose of his appearance in Britain, namely to promote the political interests of his Pakistan People’s Party and his son Bilawal, who is being lined up to succeed him. There’s a big rally in Birmingham on Saturday (sorry, no cameras apparently). Which helps to explain why the visit wasn’t cancelled as some demanded: the dinner at Chequers on Friday was always incidental. Continue reading and comment >>> Benedict Brogan | Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Now that David Cameron has been so frank with the Pakistanis, perhaps he should think about being as frank with the Saudis, too. Because the Saudis also have a Janus face: On the one hand they are supposed to be our partners in the ‘war on terror’, but at the same time they are funding the growth of Salafism in the West, and thereby undermining the stability of our Judeo-Christian civilization. The Saudis also quietly fund the Jihad against us. So come on Mr. Cameron! You like the truth; so come out with it: The whole truth, and nothing but the truth. – © Mark

Cameron Needs to Be Firmer with Obama
THE TELEGRAPH: Telegraph View: The long-term relationship between Britain and America should not be jeopardised by a presidential response that has been more petulant than statesmanlike.

At some point this weekend, David Cameron is due to talk to Barack Obama on the phone, ahead of his visit to Washington next month. Until a few weeks ago, such a conversation would have involved a businesslike exchange of pleasantries and reflected a strong desire on both sides to place their personal relationship on a sound footing. No doubt that remains their intention; but the controversy over the way the President has castigated BP for its handling of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has added a potentially serious edge to these exchanges.

Mr Obama's aggressively jingoistic rhetoric might have been designed to shore up his own domestic position against criticism that he has failed to act decisively enough, but it is now sabotaging the fortunes of what was until recently Britain's biggest company. Its share price fell to a 13-year low after the American government threatened legal action to prevent the payment of dividends before compensation payments had been met, even though BP is sitting on enough cash to do both. Since the firm accounts for £1 in every £6 paid in dividends in the United Kingdom, this will have a deleterious impact on pension funds, which have £20 billion wrapped up in the company. Read on and comment >>> | Thursday, June 10, 2010

Britain Is Full Up - Cameron Must Act to Stem the Tide of Immigration
No one should hold his breath that anything will be done about this most vexing of questions in the near future. It takes balls to tackle the problem of immigration; and balls are what most politicians these days sorely lack. – © Mark

THE TELEGRAPH: With Labour at last accepting that immigration is an issue, the Coalition needs to move fast, says Benedict Brogan

It is still just about possible to go through life without spotting how Britain is being changed by immigration – if you are a hermit, or live on one of the more remote of the Hebridean islands, or are insulated from the realities of everyday life by money or power.

If you are a politician, of course, you can choose not to see. Gordon Brown presided, both as chancellor and prime minister, over a record influx of migrants, but was indifferent to the consequences. Isolated in a world bounded by Downing Street, his official Jaguar and his ethnically homogenous Scottish village above the Forth, his was never the experience of most citizens, in particular those in the capital.

When Gillian Duffy tried to raise the issue with him during the campaign, his instinctive response was to dismiss her as a bigot. No matter that six months before, he had found it politically expedient to identify himself with such concerns. "I have never agreed with the lazy elitism that dismisses immigration as an issue, or portrays anyone who has concerns about immigration as a racist," he assured us, before doing just that to Mrs Duffy. "Immigration is … a question about what it means to be British."

In fact, immigration ranks as one of Labour's greatest, most durable failures. Worse than that, it was a wilful failure – as secret documents revealed earlier this year, Labour opened the floodgate for social as well as economic reasons, in an attempt to change the culture of the country and "rub the Right's nose in diversity".

The consequences, in terms of social tensions and pressures on local services, can be seen almost everywhere. During the election campaign, immigration was consistently the most important issue for voters, after the economy. Yet Mr Brown was oblivious to it. He was the dealer who got us hooked on cheap foreign labour, and its artificial highs of unsustainable growth and low inflation. Ministers learned not to ask awkward questions. With no reliable statistics on who was coming in, who was here, and who was going out, "I don't know" become [sic] a legitimate excuse.

Tony Blair set the orthodoxy by proclaiming that we were not a "high-immigration country", and his followers duly repeated it. David Blunkett, who could normally be relied on to speak plainly on behalf of those who knew things were changing but could not say why, pronounced that there was "no obvious upper limit" on immigration.

And until the economic crisis hit, he was right. The numbers say it all. Net immigration jumped in a decade from about 41,000 a year to 233,000 in 2007. It fell to 163,000 in 2008, but only because more people left the country. The number of people entering Britain that year actually rose, from 574,000 to 590,000. Even now, they keep on coming, drawn to a country that offers more opportunities (and even greater welfare support) than just about anywhere else. >>> Benedict Brogan | Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Benedict Brogan: Discarded Policies Are the Price of Coalition
THE TELEGRAPH: Telegraph View: Will there be a coherent policy approach, or a hotchpotch of ideas with no real consistency or theme?

The publication yesterday of the agreed programme for the coalition Government resembled the launch of an election manifesto. The document certainly has the feel of one, with its mix of firm pledges, half-promises and vague aspirations. Not until the ideas begin to take legislative form in next week's Queen's Speech will we see what the true priorities are, and whether the give and take necessitated by the negotiations has produced a marriage of convenience, or of principle – will there be a coherent policy approach, or a hotchpotch of ideas with no real consistency or theme? Read on and comment >>> Benedict Brogan | Thursday, May 20, 2010

THE TELEGRAPH: David Cameron Drops More Tory Pledges As He Hails Coalition Deal >>> James Kirkup, Political Correspondent | Thursday, May 20, 2010

Benedict Brogan: Con-Lib Is Back On, Which May Be Why Vince Cable Has Just Been Seen in the Treasury
THE TELEGRAPH – BLOGS: Things are moving towards a deal between David Cameron and Nick Clegg. The Tory leader walked through Portcullis House a short while ago wearing a big smile and with his chief whip by his side. Word is a coalition is about to be agreed with a programme and seats around the Cabinet table for the Lib Dems. More intriguing are reports that Tories have offered policy concessions to sweeten the deal, including parking recognition of marriage in the tax system and inheritance tax. Can’t see it myself, but that’s the word around the rented trees of Port Ho. Read on and comment >>> Benedict Brogan | Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Strong? Stable? He's Got to Be Kidding
THE TELEGRAPH– BLOGS: Nick Clegg said the party that won the most seats and votes should have first go. He said he wanted to ensure strong and stable government in the national interest. He made plain he has little personal time for Mr Brown. His mentor Lord Ashdown on Sunday said Mr Brown was personally unsuited to coalition. David Laws said a few hours ago that the Lib Dems and Conservatives were down to negotiating over specific policy details, but a deal was near. How then will they explain themselves if, as Gordon Brown has announced, they are now negotiating a coalition of the losers with Labour? Read on and comment >>> Benedict Brogan | Monday, May 10, 2010

Gordon Brown: 'Psychological Flaws' Is Starting to Look Like an Understatment
THE SUNDAY TIMES: Andrew Rawnsley's new book paints an all-too familiar portrait of Gordon Brown's struggle to cope with the responsibilities of running the country, writes Benedict Brogan.

Gordon Brown shouldn't have a prayer. Photograph: The Sunday Times
So that’s what Alastair Campbell meant when he complained about Gordon Brown’s ‘psychological flaws’. At the time the phrase had a hugely debilitating effect on Tony Blair’s leadership; now it reads like the mother of all understatements. If an even temperament is a vital quality in a leader, then Mr Brown should never have been allowed through the door of Number 10.

The wealth of detail laid out in Andrew Rawnsley’s latest book may get the odd recollection wrong here and there, but the overall picture of Mr Brown is all too accurate. This is a terrible portrait of a complex man overwhelmed by the demands of the job he coveted, who under pressure projects his frustrations outwards at those around him, most shamefully at those with no power to answer back.

The result is excruciating to behold. A British Prime Minister is reduced to issuing official statements denying that he has ever hit anyone, like the man in the joke asked ‘when did you stop beating your wife?’ What must those tiresome foreigners he disdained so much – ‘why do I have to meet these f****** people!’ - be making of him now?

To those operating in Westminster there is nothing startling here. Mr Brown’s capacity for anger is well known, as is his inability to make snap decisions, another essential requirement of high office. His allies defend these aspects of his character as the unavoidable counterpart to his towering intellect the price we pay for the leadership he showed in the financial crisis. Those explanations have worn thin, and are heard less frequently these days. >>> Benedict Brogan | Sunday, February 21, 2010

WELT ONLINE: ”The End of the Party” – Neues Buch zeigt Gordon Brown als Tyrannen: Der britische Premierminister Brown wird in einem neu erschienenen Buch als Rüpel dargestellt, der seine Mitarbeiter einschüchtert, anpöbelt und auch mal am Kragen packt. Autor Andrew Rawnsley nutzt sein Insider-Wissen und liefert der Opposition reichlich Munition für die bald anstehende Wahl. >>> Von Thomas Kielinger | Montag, 22. Februar 2010

Labour Has Given Up Governing and Now Just Wants a Class War
THE TELEGRAPH: Gordon Brown is picking a fight with the Tories that will damage Britain, says Benedict Brogan.

So the general election is to be fought on the playing fields of Eton, which I suppose makes a nice change from the West Midlands marginals. No wonder Gordon Brown sounded so perky yesterday. He spoke like a man set free. In a fight to the death, there is no longer any point pretending to govern in the national interest. As it was in the beginning for Labour, so shall it be in the end: class war, plain and simple. Soak the rich, crow about it, and damn the consequences.

That enclave of privilege and educational excellence featured prominently at Prime Minister's Questions. Mr Brown spat out the name with the venom he reserves for those he despises most – namely Tories, those educated privately, and the English middle classes. "Is it public services for the many or inheritance tax cuts for the few? Your tax policy seems to have been dreamed up on the playing fields of Eton," Mr Brown taunted David Cameron, quoting no doubt from Labour's campaign battle plan. On the benches behind him, it was open season on the toffs in tails.

The brazenness with which Mr Brown reduced the election ahead to a battle between the rich and the rest has one advantage at least: it exposed the fraudulence of his claim to govern for all the people, or whatever the phrase was that he used when he first took over in 2007. He governs for himself and his party, first and always.

And, like the Russians retreating before Napoleon, Mr Brown pursues a scorched earth strategy. Its purpose is two-fold: to put the Tories on the spot as an Opposition by driving them towards difficult policy choices that can then be demolished, while doing everything to ensure that if they do get in, they will find the wells have been filled and the fields ploughed with salt. >>> Benedict Brogan | Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Benedict Brogan: Should We Bang Up Some Bankers?
THE TELEGRAPH: Gillian Tett, the FT whizz whose book Fool’s Gold is the best explanation so far of the financial crisis, has a fascinating piece today which considers why we have not seen some of the bankers responsible for the mess put behind bars. She points out that in the wake of the Savings & Loan scandal in the US, 1,852 S&L officials were prosecuted and 1,072 of them served time. A further 2,558 bankers were also sent to prison.

So far there is no sign of a campaign of retributive justice on the same scale to deal with those who led the system to collapse. Is that a good thing? Locking up the casino boys may satisfy public hunger for revenge, but it does nothing to repair global finance.

Gillian Tett argues: “But if there is no retribution against financiers, it will be difficult to force a real change in behaviour. After all, no amount of twiddling with Basel rules or pious statements about bonuses will ever scare a financier as much as the thought of jail. Moreover, without some retribution it will also be hard to persuade voters that finance is really being reformed, or has any credibility or moral authority. That is bad for politicians and regulators. However, it is also bad for bankers too.” She reckons we should keep an eye out for signs of legal cases against bankers. And presumably prison sentences too? [Source: The Telegraph] Comment here | Benedict Brogan | Friday, September 04, 2009

Benedict Brogan: Cutting Britain's Defence Budget to Pay Other Bills Is a False Economy
THE TELEGRAPH: Benedict Brogan believes both the main parties are missing the point of maintaining a nuclear deterrent

A free people, George Washington said, must be constantly awake against the insidious wiles of foreign influence. At any moment, from any quarter, trouble may pounce to put the sovereignty of the nation under threat. Defending the realm demands eternal vigilance.

Yet in this particular kingdom we are nodding off, distracted by the agonies of a financial crisis and the positioning of leaders vying for power. A time of great uncertainty abroad is met by political indifference at home.

From climate change and resource shortages, to cyber-warfare and disorderly states, to Islamist terrorism and international criminal networks, the dangers are multiplying. And then there are the unknown unknowns, the things we don't know that we don't know that kept Donald Rumsfeld up at night. Thirty years from now, who is to say that Russia will not have reverted to its expansionist ways, or that a nuclear-armed Caliphate of Waziristan will not be parked where Pakistan used to be?

Which is what makes British foreign policy, and our capacity to implement it, such a vital part of what a government does. It remains essential to us that our diplomatic effort be played out in the international premier league.

Listen to the whispers coming out of the chancelleries of Europe or the US state department, however, and the talk is of relegation. Britain is slipping down the rankings as Gordon Brown focuses on a domestic fight for survival. Ominously, there is no sign that the prospect of having David Cameron in charge will do anything to reverse the trend.

As so often with a national share price, it is a concatenation of decisions and behaviours that drives it downwards. Financial mismanagement, the prospect of a debt downgrade, an inability to produce the necessary resources in Iraq or Afghanistan, loose talk of defence cuts and an end to Trident, speculation about giving up our permanent seat on the UN Security Council, the threat of legal action against serving intelligence officers, and confusion over the Iraq inquiry have helped contribute to a steady loss of credibility.

The strength of our commitment to future defence is this week's wobble. Having frittered away billions since 1997, Mr Brown, with the tacit support of the Conservatives, is eyeing up those cash-draining Cold War programmes. It is tempting to detect the hand of his friends in the unions behind the well-timed leaks about cost over-runs on the two planned aircraft carriers, while the top brass fall over each other to volunteer the weapons programmes of rival services for the chop. >>> Benedict Brogan | Wednesday, July 01, 2009