More lies and intellectual dishonesty

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Tuesday, 2 October 2012 at 10:30 am Professor John Newsinger is senior lecturer in history at Bath Spa University. He has written a book review for a supposedly serious academic journal, Race & Class. It is subscription-only, but the review starts thus: Studies of the Labour party have overwhelmingly focused on its …

“Even worse than I thought it would be”

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Tuesday, 2 October 2012 at 6:39 pm “Incredible,” as Marvin the manically depressed robot says of the long-sought planet in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. “It’s even worse than I thought it would be.” I did not like the sound of Ed Miliband doing a “personal” speech. And though the whole …

I Agree With Mehdi

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Wednesday, 3 October 2012 at 11:33 am Tony Blair was on the radio two weeks ago to discuss the reaction of some Muslims to a YouTube video, including that of the mob who killed the American ambassador in Benghazi in Libya. Mehdi Hasan commented that the “Today prog has invited on T Blair, one of …

Truth, Stumbled

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Wednesday, 3 October 2012 at 7:33 pm Kevin Marsh’s book, Stumbling Over Truth, tells of his time as editor of the BBC Today programme in 2003 when it broadcast Andrew Gilligan’s report about the Iraq dossier. It is a savage condemnation of how a cabal of people in positions of power, their certainty reinforced by groupthink, …

The Capitalist System

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Thursday, 4 October 2012 at 3:00 pm There is an unusual question in the YouGov opinion poll for today's Sun* [Link removed - Ed]: In general, do you think the capitalist system… 1. works well despite the bad behaviour of a minority; the government should intervene as little as possible; otherwise jobs and investment …

Those Political Ambush Interviews In Full

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Thursday, 4 October 2012 at 5:47 pm Just to be different, I was going to write a column about the art of the ambush interview last weekend, after the Prime Minister failed to answer two questions correctly on the Letterman Show in the US last week. But it would have been odd not …

Louise Mensch Looks Back

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Sunday, 7 October 2012 at 4:08 pm I have an interview with Louise Mensch, the Conservative MP who gave up interesting prospects to move to New York (pictured), in today’s Independent on Sunday. Given how little media exposure she enjoyed, I realise that some of you may want a fuller transcript, so …

“Broadest shoulders bearing the greatest burden”?

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Monday, 8 October 2012 at 3:26 pm Perhaps it is just because I am a grumpy curmudgeon, but I didn’t like George Osborne’s speech either. A lot of second-rate sloganising, a couple of feeble jokes, no attempt whatever to engage with the difficult macro-economic debates about policy, and mindless partisanship, such as that …

Slow Capitalism

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Monday, 8 October 2012 at 4:50 pm I am a bit slow on the uptake. I was puzzled by references to Ed Miliband wanting to abolish quarterly reporting requirements on companies in his speech last week. The obvious search terms failed to find it in the transcript, but now I have it. …

Cameron’s judo speech

By John Rentoul Eagle Eye Wednesday, 10 October 2012 at 3:40 pm David Cameron’s speech had its ration of waffle and meaningless guff. It was an annual conference address, after all. All that stuff about how great Britain is (“This is the country that invented the computer, defeated the Nazis, started the web, saw off the …