Showing posts with label British politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label British politics. Show all posts
Monday, March 29, 2010
MAIL ONLINE: Tony Blair will make a dramatic return to the centre stage of British politics to boost Labour's election hopes.
The former Prime Minister is due to give a speech tomorrow attacking Tory policies and highlighting New Labour's achievements.
It will be the first time Mr Blair has stepped out of the political shadows since standing down from No.10.
The speech, in his former constituency of Sedgefield, County Durham, is expected to dismiss claims that David Cameron is his natural successor and has modernised the Tories.
The carefully-planned attack will also attempt to portray the Tories as a far-Right party with extremist policies. He's back! Tony Blair set to step out of political shadows with speech attacking Cameron >>> Ryan Kisiel | Monday, March 29, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Individualism and autonomy used to be prized – now they are held in contempt, argues Simon Heffer
A danger of the Government's having made such a mess of the economy is that one risks forgetting all the other horrors for which it is responsible. Between now and the election I shall make a point of discussing some of these other factors that an intelligent voter should want to consider before casting his or her ballot. Despite stiff competition from matters like Europe, immigration, law and order and the near-destruction of our education system, one is perhaps worse than all the others: the insidious and at times quite terrifying assault on our civil liberties.
I have been prompted to think more about this after reading a new book by one of Cambridge University's most impressive young political philosophers, Ben Colburn. In Autonomy and Liberalism (Routledge, £70), Dr Colburn seeks "an understanding of what a liberal political philosophy is committed to". In this country, "liberal" is still just a term of approbation. Mrs Thatcher was a 19th century liberal. I have always considered myself a Gladstonian liberal. However, in America the word is used by people whose politics are broadly the same as Mrs Thatcher's and mine as a term of abuse. Perhaps the difference is that we think of liberalism in predominantly economic terms and the Americans think of it as defining something social.
This creates what Dr Colburn calls "a cacophony" surrounding the term, and in his book he seeks to restore order. To his mind, individual autonomy is central to the liberal political philosophy. Although a political philosopher, Dr Colburn takes a view of autonomy that verges upon the spiritual: "What is distinctive and valuable about human life is our capacity to decide for ourselves what is valuable in life, and to shape our lives in accordance with that decision".
There has, he argues later in his book, to be equality of access to autonomy; and he points out that autonomy is not a term interchangeable with freedom, and demonstrates how increased freedom may actually restrict the autonomy of some individuals simply because they do not have the knowledge or the means to handle it. These are rarified points, worthy of a political philosopher, but perhaps not with an immediate practical application to our politics. However, it is precisely this sort of philosophical underpinning that has been absent from so much policy during the past 13 years, and which has caused unnecessary restrictions to our autonomy: and, in the process, created a state that is becoming progressively more and more authoritarian, and therefore unpleasant, to live in. >>> Simon Heffer | Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
TIMES ONLINE: Harriet Harman has backed away from a confrontation with religious leaders over who they can employ, making clear that she will not force contentious amendments to the Equality Bill through Parliament.
Ministers were astonished on Monday when the Pope said that the Bill violated “natural justice” and urged bishops to fight it. But that attack, along with the strength of opposition in the Lords and the limited time left to get Bills passed before the election, has sapped the Government’s enthusiasm to continue the fight.
Ms Harman, the Equalities Minister, has been engaged in a long dispute with churches and religious organisations over their exemption from anti-discrimination employment law, and how it affects “non-religious” posts. >>> Rosemary Bennett, Ruth Gledhill | Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
MAIL ONLINE: Sensational claims that Gordon Brown has physically attacked his staff in a series of outbursts in Downing Street - and once in America - have rocked the Government.
Well-placed sources say the Prime Minister has been accused of hitting a senior adviser, pulling a secretary out of her chair and hurling foul-mouthed abuse at aides while distraught over an alleged snub by President Barack Obama.
The claims, which are fiercely denied by Mr Brown's allies, are linked to a new book about Mr Brown by respected political journalist Andrew Rawnsley.
In researching the book, The End Of The Party, due to be published on March 1, Mr Rawnsley has investigated allegations that Mr Brown flew into a number of wild rages since he succeeded Tony Blair as Prime Minister. The publishers say his accounts are so detailed that readers will think he has 'bugs in the vases at No10'. Angry Gordon Brown 'hit out at aide and yanked secretary from her chair' >>> Simon Walters, Mail Online Political Editor | Sunday, January 31, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
THE INDEPENDENT: (from a firm that bet on British banks going bust)
Tony Blair is to be paid at least £200,000 by a City firm accused of profiteering from the financial crisis that brought Britain's banks to their knees.
The former prime minister has been hired by the hedge fund Lansdowne Partners to deliver four presentations to staff about the world political situation. Mr Blair, one of the world's most highly paid speakers, reportedly commands between £50,000 and £170,000 for a single speech.
Details of his latest money-spinning appearance emerged days before he is due to appear before the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war.
He was accused last night of a "shameless" willingness to accept money from any source. Blair's £200,000 hedge fund pay-day >>> Nigel Morris, Deputy Political Editor, and Nick Clark | Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
MAIL ONLINE: Abroad, our reputation lies in shreds. At home, an exhausted government is drifting, rudderless, from one crisis to the next.
Unemployment is rising sharply. The public finances are in chaos. The unions are threatening havoc and inflation is set to soar...
No, this isn't the tail-end of 2009 - though the parallels are painfully obvious.
This is the Britain of early 1979, in the dying months of the last Labour administration, as brought vividly back to life by papers released today under the 30-year rule.
Then, as now, our country's problems were stacking up so fast that national ruin seemed inevitable.
But as the papers so graphically remind us, waiting in the wings in the spring of 1979 was a politician with a radical blueprint for revival and the indomitable courage to turn it into action.
Even 30 years on, Margaret Thatcher remains a hugely controversial figure.
For many on the bien-pensant Left, she is still the butt of sneers, reviled as the petit-bourgeois grocer's daughter who ruthlessly destroyed jobs in the old nationalised industries.
For growing numbers of others, however - and the Mail has been among them from the start - she is recognised as the woman who rescued Britain from the edge of the precipice and did more for ordinary workers than anyone since the war.
Whichever side you may be on, it's impossible not to admire the sheer vigour and straight-talking honesty, brought to light in the 30-year-rule papers, with which she stood up for Britain and set about her task of reconstruction.
Foreign presidents, Tory grandees and obstructive civil servants can hardly have known what hit them when this whirlwind blew into Downing Street on May 3, 1979. >>> Daily Mail Comment | Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
MAIL ONLINE: The sumptuous home of financier Jacob Rothschild, Waddesdon Manor, has long been famed as one of Britain's most magnificent country houses.
But for all its splendour and beauty, the estate has this week been associated with an extraordinary weekend shooting party which symbolises the decadence, corruption and moral collapse of modern British socialism.
No novelist would have dared to invent such an occasion. The host was a leading member of the world's richest and most famous banking dynasty. The guests included the son of a bloodthirsty and oil-rich Arab dictator, and the discredited wife of a former British prime minister.
And totally at home in all this gilded opulence was the remarkable figure of Lord Mandelson, former Young Communist, far Left activist, major player in three successive Labour election victories and right-hand man to Gordon Brown.
One might have expected such a figure to have been repelled by so much opulence and wealth. Instead, Mandelson clearly revels in it. The drab lives of the hard-working men and women who placed their faith in Labour at three consecutive general elections hold no appeal to him.
Mandelson now only seems truly at home in grand country houses or on the yachts of billionaires such as his Russian oligarch friend Oleg Deripaska, whose guest he was during the summer of 2008.
The truth is that his attendance at a shooting party with Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi's son is a perfect parable of the decadent Left's embrace of everything it claims to despise.
Nor is Mandelson an exception. Practically every member of Tony Blair's Cabinet which took office in 1997 has since sold out to wealth and power.
Blair himself is a perfect example. Since leaving office, he has become a popular member of the international plutocracy; a consultant to an investment bank who has earned an estimated £15 million since leaving Downing Street.
While at No 10, Blair was shamefully attracted to extremely rich men. On one occasion, government policy was even changed after the tycoon Bernie Ecclestone donated £1 million to the Labour Party.
Peerages were for sale under his government, while his wife Cherie blatantly profiteered from her status of First Lady by accepting free gifts and discounts from retailers. >>> Peter Oborne | Friday, November 27, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
TIMESONLINE: The public anger is not just about expenses. There has been a cultural shift away from organisations towards individuals
When Michael Martin was first elected Speaker of the House of Commons, he symbolised the idea that power was within the grasp of the ordinary man. A former sheet metal worker raised in a Glasgow slum had landed one of the most powerful roles in the land.
Now Mr Martin has come to embody the disconnection between Parliament and the people. His failure to understand public concern about MPs' expenses, his attempt to block the release of documents and refusal to reform the system have made him the figurehead of a political establishment that is dangerously detached from voters.
Privately, Cabinet ministers and their Conservative shadows agree with the Liberal Democrat front bench that Mr Martin has to go. In the Commons yesterday the Speaker looked like a teacher who had lost control of an unruly class. It is hard to see how he can survive having lost all respect.
But politicians should not think that this human sacrifice will be enough to appease the electoral gods who will judge them on polling day.
The public reaction to claims for mortgages, manure and massage chairs is so intense because it is not just about MPs' expenses. It's about the inability of politicians to understand that the “little people” no longer look up to the “big people”, that the balance of power has shifted from institutions to individuals, that the iPod generation does not want to join party tribes. There has been an emotional outpouring, rather as there was after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, because there is a cultural clash between Westminster and the modern world.
The moat is a metaphor for the barrier between the voters and their elected representatives. A revolution is under way, and not just in politics.
Bankers are facing a backlash over bonuses. Bloggers take on the mainstream media. Banksy is as desirable as Botticelli. A decade ago, celebrity magazines would portray Hollywood stars as higher beings - now they write flatteringly about reality TV contestants while highlighting millionaire actresses' cellulite.
Just as Galileo argued that the Earth moved around the Sun, so the “little people” insist that they, rather than the “big people”, are now the centre of the world. A Cabinet minister says: “When you're knocking on doors one of the hardest things is the amount of anger and hostility towards anybody in authority. It's like a flame thrower being directed against you.” >>> Rachel Sylvester | Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
THE TELEGRAPH: The full details of the taxpayer-funded expenses claimed by the MPs who battled to keep them secret can be disclosed for the first time.
An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has established that backers of a Bill two years ago which aimed to exempt Parliament from the full force of the Freedom of Information Act have benefited from thousands of pounds paid under the second home expenses system.
Examples ranged from a former government whip who “bought out” his partner from her share of a London flat at a cost to the taxpayer of thousands of pounds, to a Tory grandee who spent thousands of pounds of public funds on his country estate before selling it.
A shadow minister claimed a £7,000 bedroom suite and a £2,200 television and “flipped” his second home, while a Labour election co-ordinator bought 16 bedsheets within the space of two months for a one-bedroom flat.
The MPs, who all backed the 2007 Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill introduced by David Maclean, the former Conservative chief whip, will face questions over their use of expenses and will come under pressure to return money.
Supporters of Mr Maclean’s Bill said they were acting to protect the confidentiality of constituents. Yet MPs opposing the Bill told the Commons repeatedly that its main impact would be to keep expenses secret. >>> By Patrick Hennessy and Melissa Kite | Saturday, May 16, 2009
Monday, September 08, 2008
THE TELEGRAPH: Having spent the past two weeks immersed in American politics (spiritually, not physically), I must try to readjust my eyes for the British domestic scene.
It is not just the difference in scale that is disconcerting - this is a small island, after all, not a continental superpower. It is the sense of a wholly different conception of the relationship between government and people.
After more than 40 years as an American expatriate living in Britain, I have not got over the shock of being in a democratic country where the governing class holds the views of ordinary people in such contempt: the priorities of the public - whether they are uncontrolled immigration, lack of appropriate punishment for criminals, or the outrageous cost of the basic necessities of modern life - can be disregarded or dismissed if the governing elite decides that they are wrong-headed or benighted.
There is almost no sense at all of the principle that underpins the US Constitution: that in a democracy, the will of the majority of the people is sacred.
What prevails in Britain is the received wisdom of the professional political club. And that includes not just those elected to Parliament but their entourages, their party machines and their media hangers-on. Of course, Washington has its insider cabals and its incestuous "inside the Beltway" culture. But no member of Congress who wishes to survive can afford to become as detached and disdainful of popular opinion as members of the British political class openly (and shamelessly) declare themselves to be.
It is a positive point of pride among politicians here to say that they bravely hold out against "populist" demands - which is to say that they wilfully ignore and deride the concerns of ordinary people because they are not sufficiently enlightened to be worthy of consideration. Look across the Pond for a Lesson in Listening to the People >>> By Janet Daley September 8, 2008
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Dust Jacket Hardcover, direct from the publishers (UK) >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback, direct from the publishers (UK) >>>
MAIL Online: Despite obvious differences between the U.S. and the UK, her triumph carries important lessons for British politics, too.
Palin's storming of the political citadel is the victory of the outsider, the little person who takes on the establishment - and wins.
In Britain and America - as in other parts of the Western world, too - an enormous gulf now yawns between leaders and led.
People have concluded that politicians of all parties seem to inhabit a world apart, governed by self-interest, cynicism, corruption, incompetence, deep contempt for the electorate and an incorrigible instinct to deceive them.
Politicians know this. Which is why they all purport to stand on a platform of 'change'.
But change from what to what, precisely?
Unless there's a clear answer, 'change' becomes a pointless soundbite which risks creating an impression of yet more political sleight of hand.
This is the trap into which Barack Obama has fallen.
Yes, he has amazing gifts of charisma and oratory; along with his youth and black ancestry, this all helps create the impression that he is an outsider and embodies a fresh start.
But, on closer inspection, he looks suspiciously like yet more of the same old same old. The way he changes his political message to fit the audience he is addressing sits ill with his pitch to represent a new politics of integrity.
And his voting record and positions on social issues place him firmly among the Left-wing elite which has waged such devastating war upon the West's moral values.
By contrast, Palin has a very strong sense of right and wrong rooted in her evangelical Christian faith. Perversely, this damns her in the eyes of the Left as the 'hard Right'.
This is clearly absurd: she is a working mother of five who has shown herself as capable of felling Big Oil and other political cartels against the public interest as shooting moose.
Moreover, her real achievement is to do what the Left assumed was utterly impossible: she makes social conservatism seem attractive. Contempt, Apathy and Lies - Why Britain Is Crying Out for Our Own 'Pitbull with Lipstick' >>> By Melanie Phillips | September 8, 2008
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Dust Jacket Hardcover, direct from the publishers (US) >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback, direct from the publishers (US) >>>
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
DAILY MAIL: Five years ago I spent several weeks in Zimbabwe reporting on the way that President Mugabe was brutalising his people, in part thanks to the inertia and complicity of the Tony Blair government.
After I returned, Sir Patrick Cormack, a Conservative Party backbencher, invited me to his room. He wanted to ask what questions he should put to a government minister who would soon be giving evidence on Zimbabwe to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons, of which he was a member.
So I told Cormack about a strange event that had occurred the previous month. President Mugabe had been invited to Paris by President Chirac for a summit meeting. This example of European approval of a barbarous dictator caused uproar.
When Downing Street was asked about the episode, it gave the impression to reporters that it had neither been consulted nor informed, while ministers spoke out angrily against the invitation.
In fact I was able to show Cormack evidence that the British government had known all along about the invitation, raised not the slightest objection, that its protestations of ignorance were false, and that the angry pronouncements by ministers were no better than a cynical device. I suggested to Cormack that he should expose this wretched business at the Foreign Affairs Committee, and offered to draft him a list of questions.
Sir Patrick gazed around his large and beautifully appointed Commons office. He looked appalled. "Oh, I could never do that," he stated. "It might embarrass the Government."
Since then I have often noted Sir Patrick nod with vigorous approval from the Conservative side as Tony Blair spoke from the dispatch box. I have seen him cross the floor of the House to offer sympathy and support to a government minister in trouble.
I have also been reliably told that he wrote a letter of rebuke to a younger Tory MP in a neighbouring constituency who attacked the Government. "That is not the sort of thing we do in Staffordshire," declared Cormack.
Cormack has his fans who believe that he represents a 'civilised' kind of politics. I cannot agree. Voters put their MPs into Parliament to represent their interests and articulate their concerns, and sometimes anger, not to form part of a comfortable club, or to collude with opposition parties.
Sir Patrick is one of hundreds of Members of Parliament who now belong to a Political Class that has become entrenched at the centre of British politics, government and society.
This new Political Class has emerged over the past three decades to become the dominant force in British public life - and increasingly pursues its own sectional interests oblivious to the public good.
It encompasses lobbyists, party functionaries, advisers and spindoctors, many journalists, and increasing numbers of onceindependent civil servants. All mainstream politicians of the three main parties belong to it. Gordon Brown is a member, so is the Tory leader David Cameron.
Indeed, as the case of Sir Patrick Cormack shows, MPs from different parties now have far more in common with each other, as members of the Political Class, than they have with voters. They seek to protect one another, help each other out, rather than engage in robust democratic debate.
As a result, the House of Commons is no longer really a cockpit where great conflicts of vision are fought out across the chamber. It has converted instead into a professional group, like the Bar Council or the British Medical Association.
This means that the most important division in Britain is no longer the Tory versus Labour dividing line that marked out the battle zone in politics for the bulk of the 20th century. The real division is between a narrow, self-serving and - as we will see - increasingly corrupt Political Class and the mass of ordinary voters. PETER OBORNE: The rise of the sleaze-ocrats in Britain's ruling class (more)
Mark Alexander
Thursday, July 19, 2007
BBC: Ahead of Sunday's general election, the BBC's Sarah Rainsford travels to Kayseri and Izmir to report on how the country's secular system and its democracy are being tested by a shift in power towards religious-minded Turks.
At five o'clock most mornings, the elite of Kayseri are already up and working out. In the hills that surround the city they take a brisk two-hour hike to start the day.
"We always start very early," one man puffs. Striding alongside him are the city's mayor, its business leaders and its police chief. "That's the Anatolian people. They have lots of energy," he says.
Kayseri is a clean-living city, and it is also devout. In Turkey today it is pious places like this that are on the rise. Two faces of modern Turkey (more) By Sarah Rainsford
Mark Alexander
Sunday, April 08, 2007
THE OBSERVER: A remarkable picture of the way Tony Blair has lost the faith of British voters over his 10 years in power is revealed today by a comprehensive study of public attitudes towards the Prime Minister.
As Blair prepares to leave office, the poll of more than 2,000 adults shows that people believe the country is a more dangerous, less happy, less pleasant place to live. There was a negative response to nearly all of more than 40 questions the public was asked about trust in politics, how they felt about their own lives and whether public services had got better. Britain delivers damning verdict on Blair’s 10 years by Gaby Hinsliff
Mark Alexander
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Much has been written over the past few weeks about the Conservative Party leadership contest, about each candidate's suitability to lead the party out of the doldrums; but each article has missed the main point: Which candidate understands Islam, and which candidate understands the threat that this religion and alternative culture poses Great Britain in particular, and Europe and the West in general?
Whoever wins the race needs to understand the history of Islam, its relentless rise in history, and its recent rapid growth inside and outside the West. As far as I am concerned, if the candidate does not understand this religion - Islam, Muslims' aims, aspirations, and tactics, and the history of jihad and Islamic conquest - then he is not a suitable candidate to lead the party.
A good political leader in the present day must have a firm grasp of this important subject if the West is to survive in its present form. In my opinion, this should be a prerequisite for political leadership in the modern world!
It is surprising indeed that no newspaper has yet raised this question. To ignore it is to miss this profoundly important point!
©Mark Alexander
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