John Rentoul is chief political commentator for The Independent on Sunday, and visiting fellow at Queen Mary, University of London, where he teaches contemporary history. Previously he was chief leader writer for The Independent. He has written a biography of Tony Blair, whom he admired more at the end of his time in office than he did at the beginning. Click here and 'like' to receive updates on Facebook
We have a ComRes opinion poll in The Independent on Sunday tomorrow, shared with the Sunday Mirror.
This will help to confirm whether or not Labour is opening up a lead over the Conservatives again, after David Cameron’s Brussels Bounce when he said no to the fiscal compact in December. YouGov’s daily polls over the past [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye - Breaking views from commentators - | Saturday, 17 March 2012 at 11:00 am
In emergency session over lunch, the Committee considered the request from Lynsey Hopkins to ban headlines starting with, “Sorry, but …” Offences asked to be taken into consideration this week were:
Sorry, Shirley Williams, but I have to nail your health bill myths (Guardian)
Sorry, but religion ought to be marginalised in public life (Spectator)
Sorry, gentlemen, but [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye - Breaking views from commentators - | Friday, 16 March 2012 at 1:24 pm
Ted Bromund has a wonderfully acrid review of Barack Obama and David Cameron’s words in yesterday’s overblown ceremony of The Shooting of Footage To Be Used in Election Campaigns.
Honestly, who writes this stuff? The joke about the British burning the White House in 1814 was funny enough when Tony Blair used it in 2003 in his speech [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye - Breaking views from commentators - | Thursday, 15 March 2012 at 8:22 pm
I have a bit of catching up to do. This is Question to Which the Answer is No, number 771, asked by the BBC. I wouldn’t tell them my name because I would be in Caffè Nero.
Thanks to Citizen Sane.
Number 772, asked by Channel 4 News on Wednesday:
Can Mary Portas kick-start the clothing industry by manufacturing a [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye - Breaking views from commentators - | Thursday, 15 March 2012 at 6:54 pm
Number 769 in John Prescott’s favourite internet series, of Questions to Which the Answer is No, was asked by the automatic QTWTAIN generator at the Daily Mail. With, as Max Dunbar pointed out, a wonderful subsidiary question implied: Who is Blake Lively?
The Mail illustrates the story with a picture (right) of a model holding a [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye - Breaking views from commentators - | Thursday, 15 March 2012 at 10:24 am
Andrew Adonis (pictured) has an article in the forthcoming New Statesman saying that Labour should welcome free schools because they are, legally and in policy, academies. These are the best bits:
Free schools are Labour’s invention. They were a crucial part of our drive to promote equality of opportunity and social mobility, particularly in disadvantaged communities [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye - Breaking views from commentators - | Wednesday, 14 March 2012 at 6:34 pm
I genuinely had no idea what Nick Clegg was on about, as he stood in for David Cameron at Prime Minister’s Questions today,* when he attacked Labour’s £250m “sweetheart deals” with the private sector in the NHS.
I should have known he was taking his script from the Daily Mail: “How Labour blew £250m on private [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye - Breaking views from commentators - | Wednesday, 14 March 2012 at 2:24 pm
I was introduced by a friend at university to the Thisbit school of music criticism. It consists of listening to the chosen track, saying, “Wait”, and then, with an expression of rapture: “Thisbit!”
So what follows is not simply a list of my favourite pieces of music, but of pieces of music with the moments in them that [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye - Breaking views from commentators - | Tuesday, 13 March 2012 at 7:13 pm
Oh well. Mehdi Hasan said he didn’t understand my question (“Why should the ‘warmongering’ IAEA allow the Iranian government to develop nuclear weapons?”). Then he said he was tired.
So I thought it only polite to end it with an agreement to differ:
You think is is all right for Ahmadinejad to have nuclear weapons. The UN, IAEA [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye - Breaking views from commentators - | Tuesday, 13 March 2012 at 5:34 pm
Mehdi Hasan is doing that irritating thing of ringing the doorbell and running away, by accusing me of ringing his doorbell (pictured) and running away.
To recap, he started a fight in the empty room known as Twitter by saying, which had nothing to do with anything, that perhaps I should put “wiped off the map” [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye - Breaking views from commentators - | Tuesday, 13 March 2012 at 3:19 pm
1How the Mail Online turned us into misogyny addicts
2It was Bayern who denied the Germans victory in the Champions League final, not Chelsea
3Charitable rape: Peacekeepers’ dirty little secrets
4Islam is not “the enemy” – irrational hatred is
5The next couple of months could shape the future of Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal
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