Who came up with the idea of a benefits cap?

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Wednesday, 1 February 2012 at 3:31 pm Someone asked a question this morning to which I have previously tried and failed to find the answer. So it is time to take to the internet and use its power to solve this problem. Whose idea was it to set a cap on …

Contest of Names

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Saturday, 4 February 2012 at 10:39 am I have several confessions to make. I am not interested in Private Eye’s letters from people with made-up names. Or in nominative determinism, in which clever people find it amusing that the Lord Chief Justice of England is Igor Judge. I also realise that my interest in …

The Consequences of Mr Huhne

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Sunday, 5 February 2012 at 10:51 am The main effect of Chris Huhne’s resignation is to weaken the Liberal Democrats further, I argue in The Independent on Sunday today. He was the most aggressive in pushing the Lib Dem interest, and in pushing policies to ameliorate climate change, which are one of the …

Bumble Bee Update

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Sunday, 5 February 2012 at 9:56 pm Jeremy Browne, the Liberal Democrat Foreign Office minister, was interviewed by Andrew Neil on BBC1 Sunday Politics today, and was asked about the man in a bumble bee costume about which I wrote in The Independent on Sunday. Here’s the transcript of that part: Neil: You held …

Could Spider-Man become a reality?

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Monday, 6 February 2012 at 2:47 pm Number 756 in the long-running series of Questions to Which the Answer is No. Possibly because Paul Dacre is up before the Leveson inquiry today, the staff have been more careful to switch the QTWTAIN-generator off at night recently. Although we do approve of …

Blair: “Come and get me, don’t get people on a bus”

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Monday, 6 February 2012 at 9:58 pm Tony Blair has given a notable interview to Al Arabiya News. It is notable partly for the editing out of the questions he is asked, which gives his monologue a frenetic tone. Nothing is lost by leaving out the questions, though, because they can be …

More Banned List

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Tuesday, 7 February 2012 at 4:13 pm I heard Justine Greening, the Transport Secretary, on Newsnight last night and for no reason at all, apart from “across the piece” and “going forward”, decided it was time to list the next 10 in my supplementary Banned List, which I have been compiling since the publication …

Taxpayers’ missing £45bn found

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Wednesday, 8 February 2012 at 3:09 pm Stephen Hester on the Today programme this morning (transcript courtesy of Coffee House) started a hare running, which ought to be shot, if that is still legal. The RBS boss said: Not only are we trying to generate wealth in terms of profit and something that ultimately …

Tony Blair on bonuses

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Wednesday, 8 February 2012 at 4:14 pm Just been in the electronic version of the Public Record Office at Kew. So here is Tony Blair’s answer to Jeremy Paxman, BBC2 Newsnight, 4 June 2001. Just because I can: Do you believe that an individual can earn too much money? ‘I don’t really. …

“Unemployment is the root of all social evil”

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Friday, 10 February 2012 at 9:54 am I was impressed the interview in Total Politics with Neil O’Brien, director of Policy Exchange, the other day. He identified the most important item on my long and eagerly awaited list of things that Tony Blair did wrong: When Britain was in this incredibly hubristic phase, going around …