John Rentoul is chief political commentator for The Independent on Sunday, and visiting professor 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
David Miliband’s resignation as an MP to run a charity in New York is a loss to the Labour Party. More than that, though, it tells us what a state Labour is in.
There has recently been speculation about the possibility of Alistair Darling replacing Ed Balls as shadow chancellor – a change on which Darling [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Tuesday, 26 March 2013 at 9:40 pm
Haven’t had a full-dress straight up and down Question To Which The Answer Is No for a while. This is the real thing. Number 908, asked by Henry Farrell, The Monkey Cage, from an original article by Thomas Oatley.
Thanks to James Plunkett, who spotted it.
Meanwhile, we had number 907, asked by James Chapman of the [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Tuesday, 26 March 2013 at 3:50 pm
Tony Blair often says that the debate about the response to the economic crisis is not a matter of left versus right but of right versus wrong.
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Tuesday, 26 March 2013 at 11:45 am
I should like to thank my mum.
And those good people at Time who have listed me as one of the 140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2013.
Distinguished company and all, in a list beginning with Chelsea Clinton, Mia Farrow and Bill Gates. Especially as I currently have a stripe across my face (it’s a another rather [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Monday, 25 March 2013 at 10:20 pm
India Knight in The Sunday Times (pay wall) on Michael Gove’s curriculum reform:
Gove, rightly, calls his proposals “fundamental building blocks”. These will result in children learning fractions from the age of five, knowing their times tables by the age of nine and learning to recite poetry from the age of five, with an added emphasis [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Sunday, 24 March 2013 at 6:04 pm
George Osborne on ITV1 Daybreak on the morning after the Budget said he “wanted to be straight with the nation about the problems we face”. Good idea.
He went on: “We have made a lot of mistakes as a country, over many years, building up these debts.” How graciously bipartisan, accepting that these were national mistakes, [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Saturday, 23 March 2013 at 11:00 am
David Nutt, Drugs – Without the Hot Air: Minimising the Harms of Legal and Illegal Drugs (UIT Cambridge, 31 May 2012)
A good book, full of information, but which suffers as a polemic from Nutt’s preferred style of debate. I read it because it was shortlisted for Polemic of the Year at the Political Book Awards. [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Friday, 22 March 2013 at 9:49 am
No good will come of it. That was a desperate Budget. A cut in employers’ National Insurance contributions for small companies, worth up to £2,000 a year for each employer (but not the employers of nannies). Paid for by some tax-that-isn’t-a-tax on the second state pension in 2016.
A cut in beer duty and a freeze [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Wednesday, 20 March 2013 at 6:20 pm
Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, adopted quite a good tone of welcoming many of the things in the Budget in this BBC News discussion this afternoon.
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Wednesday, 20 March 2013 at 5:29 pm
Is over here; where I shall be doing what politicians often refuse to do, namely giving a running commentary.
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Wednesday, 20 March 2013 at 11:30 am
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