Blair and Zimbabwe

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Sunday, 1 December 2013 at 12:57 pm Ian Birrell unexpectedly defends Tony Blair in The Independent today, suggesting that it would have been a good idea to invade Zimbabwe in around 2000. This is a story that was given a push by General Sir Charles Guthrie in an interview with The Independent …

Ed Balls: the 21st-century Harold Macmillan

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Sunday, 1 December 2013 at 12:46 pm Plenty of interest in the Shadow Chancellor’s interview with Andrew Marr this morning. Full transcript: ANDREW MARR: If it’s the job of an opposition spokesman to get under the skin of the Government, Ed Balls is an all time gold winning champion. …

Boris Blows It

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Sunday, 1 December 2013 at 3:38 pm I have already commented on Boris Johnson’s Margaret Thatcher lecture here, here and in The Independent on Sunday today, where I say his mischievous identification with the right wing of the Conservative Party has harmed his chances of winning the leadership. Or, as I put it, Theresa …

Cooper on immigration: “It’s important … not to make promises about the numbers”

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Sunday, 1 December 2013 at 4:11 pm Just to be fair, balanced and equalitarian, here is the transcript of the Shadow Home Secretary’s interview with Andrew Neil on BBC1’s Sunday Politics. AN: Yvette Cooper joins me now for the Sunday interview. Welcome to the Sunday Politics, Yvette Cooper. Now you’ve criticised the coalition …

Blair, Labour and Palestine: book review

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Tuesday, 3 December 2013 at 7:44 pm If anyone is interested in what Blair is actually doing as Quartet envoy in Israel-Palestine, as opposed to what the Daily Mail and Guardian say he is doing, I recently recommended an excellent article by Toby Greene in the Jewish Chronicle. I have since read Greene’s equally commendable book. It …

“Low-Information Leadership”

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Wednesday, 4 December 2013 at 12:45 pm Peggy Noonan, Ronald Reagan’s speech-writer, is majestic on her Wall Street Journal blog yesterday. She lays into Barack Obama over the healthcare reform, saying it is a problem that he is seen as intelligent, sophisticated, in control. Mr Obama’s problem now is that people think …

“Thomas Jefferson would have strongly advised us against it”

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Wednesday, 4 December 2013 at 6:07 pm Igor Judge, who retired as Lord Chief Justice in September, says that British courts are not obliged to follow the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, and that the Human Rights Act should be amended to make this clearer. He …

The UKIP Effect

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Thursday, 5 December 2013 at 9:34 am I have in the past been at the unexciteable end of the market on UKIP’s impact on the next election. I am also generally sceptical about polls carried out in marginal seats: in the past, national polling and uniform swing has tended to …

Wealth more equal in UK than Germany or Sweden

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Saturday, 7 December 2013 at 11:45 am Someone asked me today how inequality in South Africa compared with that in the United States.* I don’t know if they were trying to make the point that Nelson Mandela had failed to achieve an egalitarian paradise, which would have been a …

Ed Balls’s Nightmare Week

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Sunday, 8 December 2013 at 5:22 pm Ed Balls has had a rough week. I think he got the response to the Autumn Statement wrong, not because he shouted but because the trick should be to make George Osborne look like a student politician who is making it up as he goes along. …