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
I am afraid it is a bit like asking: “Newspapers produce what their readers want to read – does that matter?” The answer is not so much No as that it is the wrong question.
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Monday, 8 November 2010 at 12:25 pm
Needless to say, this is explained with great clarity by Tony Blair, who describes Ed Balls and Gordon Brown’s opposition to a deferred fees system in 2003 in A Journey, page 487:
Eventually, we flushed out of the Treasury a kind of alternative, which was to all intents and purposes a graduate tax, pure and simple [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Sunday, 7 November 2010 at 2:32 pm
Tesco build and open new 13,000 square feet store – from scratch – in just 13 days (right). Via Tim Montgomerie. I must write that article one day on why Tesco should run schools. (Oh. I have.)
The BBC’s ability to learn nothing from its recent journalistic history: “Sexed-up contrariness is not journalism.” A case study by Paul Vallely in The [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Sunday, 7 November 2010 at 2:04 pm
Two interim points about the coalition’s student finance proposals, which are still unclear in important respects.
One is that the structure of the graduate contribution system should be separated from the level of taxpayer funding of universities. It may be that the Government has cut too deeply, taking away 80 per cent of the teaching budget, which [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Saturday, 6 November 2010 at 4:40 pm
Number 421 in my series of Questions to Which the Answer is No is asked by Alice Instone in a letter to today’s Independent. She painted the picture of Cherie (right) which was reported on 4 November:
Your article “Rich and ruthless: how Cherie sees herself?”* was prompted by a miniature I have painted of Cherie [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Saturday, 6 November 2010 at 1:46 pm
Number 420 of my Questions to Which the Answer is No has been asked by Jim Pickard at the Financial Times, using research by Patrick Casey at the Full Fact blog. Casey was suspicious of the story, which was used by Ed Miliband in the Commons last week, as a curiously unsourced piece of do-gooding alarmism.
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Friday, 5 November 2010 at 3:37 pm
Many thanks to Luke Bozier.
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Friday, 5 November 2010 at 1:51 pm
I have only just got to page 227 of Jonathan Powell’s The New Machiavelli, which seems to contain the smoking gun: the evidence that links Gordon Brown to the attempt to bring Tony Blair down by exploiting the false allegations of loans for peerages in 2006.
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Friday, 5 November 2010 at 12:11 pm
It would be hard enough to make the case that David Cameron’s court photographer and filmmaker should be on the public pay roll as special advisers. But as civil servants?
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Wednesday, 3 November 2010 at 10:46 pm
‘Leverage’ is a noun. Get that? If you need a verb use ‘lever’. Please can we have it on the Banned List? Arieh Kovler asks.
Don’t know who had annoyed him, but no sooner asked than done (give or take three hours).
It’s number 51.
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Tuesday, 2 November 2010 at 11:10 pm
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