Why you and me owe Merrill Lynch $29bn
US investment bank Merrill Lynch lost $29bn on its global collateralised debt obligations last year. Not to worry, though; all losses worldwide have been booked through a London subsidiary, so three generations of British public will be forced to pick up the entire tab instead. So that’s OK, then: Merrill Lynch is unlikely to pay [...]
The left and the end of unipolarity
Although little known in Britain, Charles Krauthammer (pictured) is probably America’s number one commentator on foreign policy. He’s got a Pulitzer prize to his name, he’s a regular talking head on Fox News, and his Washington Post column is syndicated in nearly 200 other newspapers. Politically, he is very much on the right. He is [...]
If Ben Collett deserves the money, so does Colin Stagg
THE DAILY Mail this morning describes Colin Stagg as ‘the man cleared of murdering Rachel Nickell’. Get that? Not ‘the man wrongly arrested and prosecuted for murdering Rachel Nickell’ or even ‘the man fitted up for murdering Rachel Nickell after a shameless police honeytrap operation’; just the man ‘cleared of’ the crime. Nice. As a [...]
Cities Unlimited: slight return
I’m still trying to put my finger on what exactly so many people found so offensive about the Tory think tank ‘scrap Liverpool’ report on urban regeneration published yesterday. But at least it offers us a clear illustration of the mindset that dominates the intellectual wing of what is soon to be Britain’s governing party. [...]
Cities Unlimited: Tory contempt for the North
My father took me to a football match in Derby in 1970, and I can just about recall going to a two-day conference in Bradford in 1983; I have never set foot in either city since. Yet at least I have visited these places once, which is more than I can say about Preston or [...]
In defence of ‘binge drink Britons abroad’
OK, full disclosure; I have been plastered in Paris and seriously stoned in Switzerland. I even once got laid in Leningrad, even if the woman in question was from Loughborough. Back in the 1980s, I regularly visited Amsterdam with the express intention of getting ripped on cheap hallucinogenics. And yes, in those days I would [...]
South Ossetia: the left doesn’t have to take sides
I suppose I shouldn’t be so surprised to find that the default position on the left over the Georgia crisis is one of passive sympathy with Russia. Attitudes formed in the past can leave powerful legacies, after all. I’m particularly taken by a couple of conversations over the last 24 hours. Alright, conceded a workmate [...]
Labour leadership: unions ‘want Johnson-Cruddas ticket’
Unnamed union leaders want to see Alan Johnson – former general secretary of the Communication Workers’ Union, of course – installed as Britain’s next prime minister, the Observer reported yesterday. Jon Cruddas, perceived as a union-friendly soft left, would be the bureaucracy’s top choice for the largely symbolic number two slot: One pivotal figure at [...]
Libertarian paternalism: brief political fad of the month
Observation suggests that political activists – irrespective of party alignment – come in three main varieties. The most common type comprises good sorts who enjoy going out on the knocker and then heading off to the pub for a chinwag about politics, incorporating all the goss on who is knocking off whom on the local [...]
How to make Number10TV work
New Labour has come up with a great idea to get its message across without relying on the mediation of the hostile media. Yes, YouTube-based Number10TV will provide ‘exclusive video of the prime minister’s speeches, press conferences, media appearances and news archives’. But as the FT noted this morning, the portents are not auspicious: The [...]
