Bright's Blog
The horror comes home
Posted by Martin Bright - 22 January 2009 09:58
In Britain, the assault on Gaza has provided a dangerous rallying point for both the hard left and the Islamist radical right
A Palestinian woman in front of her home destroyed during Israeli air strikes on the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza
The horror comes home
As the the dust and white phosphorus settle over Gaza, two questions present themselves immediately. What happens if the rockets fired on southern Israel stop? And what if they continue?
If they stop, Israel will feel fully justified in its strategy of a combined air and ground assault on Gaza, which left an estimated 1,300 dead, many of them women and children. If they continue, as appears to be ...
Ken Clarke's return
Posted by Martin Bright - 19 January 2009 16:10
New Statesman political editor Martin Bright gives his reaction to the return of former Tory chancellor Ken Clarke to frontline politics and asks is Cameron playing catch up?
Clarke's reputation is as a political bruiser - he also has huge experience
David Cameron owes it all to Ken Clarke. Although it's pretty certain he doesn't see it that way, there is no doubt that Cameron won the Tory party leadership because the support of Tory centrists seeped to away from Clarke about half way through the contest.
The reasons for Clarke's failure were clear enough at the time. He was complacent and underestimated the hunger of the Cameron camp; his ...
A New Deal of the mind
Posted by Martin Bright - 15 January 2009 09:31
The government's job creation plans are inspired by FDR's New Deal. But ministers have ignored its most lasting legacy: the boost it gave to writers, artists and intellectuals
Creative approach: artists at work on a state-funded project in New York, 1935
A New Deal of the mind
Just before the Second World War, the Works Progress Administration, one of Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal programmes, published a series of statistics about what it had done to get America back to work. In the previous three years the WPA had built 17,562 public buildings, 279,804 miles of roads, 29,084 bridges, 357 airports, more than 30,000 dams and 15,000 parks.
Although nothing ...
It's a New New Deal
Posted by Martin Bright - 08 January 2009 09:51
Gordon Brown invokes the spirit of FDR to promote his job creation programme. But is this the real thing, or classic political opportunism?
It's a New New Deal
Everyone seems to be talking about the New Deal. The Prime Minister's Christmas book recommendation in the Guardian was FDR: the First Hundred Days, written by the Cambridge professor of American history Anthony J Badger. Gordon Brown let it be known, through an interview with the Observer, published on 4 January, that he was planning a job creation programme based on FDR's New Deal. Where Franklin Delano Roosevelt built roads ...
A year of ups and downs
Posted by Martin Bright - 18 December 2008 09:44
What a difference a year made - and for no one more so than Gordon Brown, who earns five of my coveted parliamentary awards
The New Statesman doesn't do political awards. I've always thought it a shame to leave the field clear for Channel 4 and the Spectator, but I also recognise that parliamentarians are the last people on earth who need another boost to their egos. It is particularly difficult to pass judgement this year, as the political class (with a handful of exceptions) was miserably implicated in the failure to foresee the ...
Mystic Mart
Posted by Martin Bright - 15 December 2008 13:06
I've just been re-reading my predications for 2008. How do you think I did?
I usually have a rule not to make political predictions but I made an exception for last year's Christmas issue:
The New Statesman does not employ an astrologer and the usual rule of thumb is that political predictions are as useful as a handful of homoeopathic sugar-pills. But this year we have been persuaded to indulge in journalistic crystal-ball gazing, because it looks set to be one heck ...
The two-man show
Posted by Martin Bright - 11 December 2008 09:44
It can be hard to believe James Purnell and Ed Balls are in the same party. But they are hyperactive, talented and have their eye on a larger prize
The two-man show
As the recession nights of winter 2008 grow longer, thoughts in Westminster turn to parlour games to bring festive cheer in these dark times. The parts are already being cast, for example, in this year's political pantomime. Who'd have thought Speaker Martin would end up as the stage villain, booed and hissed from all sides of the stalls, or that Peter Mandelson would play Prince Charming, breathing life into the ...
An abuse of power
Posted by Martin Bright - 04 December 2008 09:39
It is not the most important secrets that are leaked. But this government has a nasty habit of seeking the easy target - the whistleblower
Which breach of the public interest? AConservative Party image of the Met’s search of Damian Green’s Commons office
An abuse of power
So why didn't the police go for David Davis? This is one of the questions hanging in the air after the arrests of the Tory immigration spokesman, Damian Green, and Christopher Galley, his Home Office source. After all, Davis was Green's boss when Galley first made contact in 2006. The former shadow home secretary and Tory leadership candidate has written: "Damian is among the most straightforward and honourable of people. ...
The end of principle
Posted by Martin Bright - 01 December 2008 11:03
I was asked to speak at the conference of the New Labour evangelists Progress and found myself getting furious about the arrest of Damian Green
Green was arrested by police and then subject to several hours of interrogation
I had the pleasure of speaking at the final plenary session of the Progress conference yesterday. The subject of the discussion was “The End of Ideology: What’s the Left For?” and it was a lively debate. The other panellists were Charles Clarke, Hazel Blears, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber and writer and broadcaster Tristram Hunt, who were all very engaged and passionate about the future.
Here is my ...
Darling holds his nerve
Posted by Martin Bright - 27 November 2008 09:45
The Chancellor's refusal to panic has won him respect, but his biggest test still lies ahead
As seen on TV: Darling is watched delivering his pre-Budget report to parliament on Monday
Darling holds his nerve
So the government has ripped up the new Labour rule-book with a return to redistributive taxation, nationalisation and work-creation schemes. The same spinners who once laid burnt offerings at the feet of the gods of the free market now sing the praises of state intervention.
In this world turned upside down, one government figure has been consistent in his reading of the situation. From the early summer, Alistair Darling has ...
Speculation about speculation
Posted by Martin Bright - 25 November 2008 16:11
Rumours of a June election just won't go away. But who is talking up a 2009 poll?
Some interesting speculation from the Spectator's boy wonder, James Forsyth, about the Brownites pushing for a 2009 election.
Forsyth quotes from Anne McElvoy's front page story from Friday's Evening Standard. McElvoy reports a source from the Brown camp telling her: "He would be mad not to think about it."
Forsyth's theory is that the source is Geoffrey Robinson, the co-owner of this magazine, who is interviewed by ...
Darling's Big Mini-Budget
Posted by Martin Bright - 24 November 2008 18:12
The quiet man gets the tone right for the statement of his political career
Prime Minister's Questions has been increasing in volume recently, making me think that parliament is already in election mode.
But even the most hostile recent Brown-Cameron exchanges were as nothing compared to the atmosphere surrounding this afternoon's pre-Budget report.
Alistair Darling began very low-key, almost sotto voce to early chortles about his claims that the government was "living within our means".
But the jeers began in earnest ...
The travelling man
Posted by Martin Bright - 20 November 2008 09:30
Gordon Brown likes to portray himself as a chancellor for the world. But he cannot keep leaving these shores with an election looming
New best friends: Brown and Sarkozy at one of their many meetings, this time in Versailles in October.
The travelling man
During the Labour party conference in September, one big beast was doing the rounds of the parties with a plan for Gordon Brown. First, the Prime Minister should fall on his sword for the greater good of the party. It was then necessary, according to this former cabinet minister, for the party to find a role for Brown travelling the world, talking to international economic experts. "There is no one ...
Who's after George?
Posted by Martin Bright and James Macintyre - 20 November 2008 09:30
Is George Osborne "nerdy", "nasty" and "overpromoted", as his Conservative critics would have it, or the potential saviour of his party and a future leader? Special report
It is a mark of Osborne’s vulnerability that he is under attack from both wings of his party
Last December, when it looked as if Boris Johnson's mayoral campaign was in trouble, senior Tories were in despair. The media were accusing their candidate of laziness and lacking an appetite for the fight. Unable to take advantage of the obvious weaknesses in the Labour camp, the Tories were sleepwalking towards defeat. Enter George Osborne. Aides to the shadow chancellor and Conservative election supremo are said to have been astonished ...
Sunday comment round-up -- 16 November 2008
Posted by Martin Bright - 16 November 2008 20:26
A good week for Gordon Brown but why is the commentariat still unconvinced?
With a colossus-like Gordon Brown still striding around the globe, tributes being paid by world leaders and nobel prize winners alike, it would only seem right that the Sunday political commentators hail the great unelected one.
But for some reason it isn't working out like that. The scale of the the Brown bounce depends on whether you believe the Independent on Sunday's ComeRes poll, which has the Tories 11 ...
