The entire Shadow Cabinet should be forced to drink Waitrose’s free coffee

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Sunday, 2 March 2014 at 3:16 pm Ed Miliband’s more-Blairite-than-Blair triumph of breaking the power of the trade union bosses in the Labour Party was nearly overshadowed by a silly row about Waitrose’s free coffee. Andy Sawford, a Labour frontbencher, criticised Waitrose for giving its customers free coffee (scroll down), because it undercuts …

Blair’s gone, Lord Owen, it’s safe to come back now

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Sunday, 2 March 2014 at 5:49 pm Talking of David Owen, how uplifting it was to see him back in the gateway to the Labour fold. (He’s not actually rejoining the party, he told BBC radio today, because he is too old to submit to the authority of the …

The Velvet Curtain of Religion

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Monday, 3 March 2014 at 3:44 pm A friend draws my attention to a prophetic passage in Samuel Huntington’s 1993 essay, “The Clash of Civilisations?” In it, he predicted that post-Cold War conflicts would be at the edges of cultural tectonic plates. One of his examples was Ukraine, which …

David Owen nearly endorsed Labour in 2005

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Tuesday, 4 March 2014 at 11:18 am Still talking of David Owen, who endorsed Ed Miliband’s Labour Party reforms at the weekend, I’m told that he was prepared to come out for the Labour Party in the 2005 election, but wasn’t taken up on it. I understand that, towards …

David Owen and the Bad Fairy

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Tuesday, 4 March 2014 at 2:55 pm Still further talking of David Owen, I forgot to repeat Denis Healey’s fine story about him: When he was born, all the good fairies gave him every virtue: “You’ll be beautiful, you’ll be intelligent, you’ll have charm and charisma.” And the bad fairy …

Chuka Umunna speech: mostly harmless

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Tuesday, 4 March 2014 at 9:59 pm Chuka Umunna, the shadow Business Secretary, is giving a speech tonight about “Labour’s plan for long-term balanced growth” to the EEF, which used to stand for Engineering Employers’ Federation. As usual, it has some nice touches. He praises Ken Clarke, “who speaks a lot of …

“Tainted Pockets”

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Thursday, 6 March 2014 at 10:02 am The Daily Mail does seem to be off its game. The headline I imagined it would use on the story of Tony Blair’s possible donation to the Labour Party is much better than what it came up with today. I suggested: This Blood Money …

Top 10 First Sentences of Novels

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Thursday, 6 March 2014 at 3:55 pm This Top 10, in The Independent on Sunday magazine, was always going to be hard to keep to just 10. Sure enough, I have received many representations on behalf of books that people thought should have been in the list. Lots of people …

James of the Broken Shire

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Sunday, 9 March 2014 at 5:04 pm I have written a “very sneery” column for The Independent on Sunday about James Brokenshire’s speech to Demos, according to David Goodhart. Goodhart is chair of the Advisory Group at Demos, which I said was a think tank that sounds like an aftershave, so perhaps he …

Stella Creasy, consumer champion

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Last updated: Monday, 10 March 2014 at 6:31 pm A neglected part of the work of MPs is Public Bill Committees, where new laws are scrutinised in detail. Here we get a look at the inner workings not just of Bills but of ministers and their shadows. I spent many happy …