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
My dear friend Johann Hari and I have been having a little discussion on Twitter about the death toll in Iraq. It’s a bit like one of those email exchanges pioneered by Prospect magazine, only less intellectual. Anyway, I’ve cleaned it up and turned it round (one of the peculiarities of Twitter being that things [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Friday, 20 August 2010 at 4:31 pm
The penny may not have dropped at the David Kelly Conspiracy Daily, but it is slipping. Today, the green-ink paper has started to turn on Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General, as it begins to realise that he is not, after all, about to announce a new inquiry into the death of the weapons inspector. (Something politically-correct and pinko about [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Friday, 20 August 2010 at 2:34 pm
At some point, the Catch-Up Service will reach the end of July. But first, number 379 in my series of Questions to Which the Answer is No. This was asked by the BBC on 29 July, and includes the immortal quotation from Hawley Crippen upon his arrest:
I am not sorry; the anxiety has been too [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Friday, 20 August 2010 at 9:06 am
Right, we have fallen a little behind. The Chilcot Coverage Rebuttal Service has not yet had a chance to comment on the reporting of the evidence given by John Prescott, the former Deputy Prime Minister, on 30 July.
Worst offender was, again, my own newspaper, The Independent, which saw fit to devote its front page to a [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 19 August 2010 at 4:57 pm
Actually, all anyone needs to do to catch up with anything that they missed during August is to go back through Ian Leslie’s superb blog, Marbury.
On 28 July he gave us this:
On 1 August he summarised the state of Ed Miliband’s campaign to be Labour leader. The most likely explanation for his claim to have [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Wednesday, 18 August 2010 at 10:21 pm
The Catch-Up Service was about to resume, but I see that my colleague Amol Rajan has paid me the compliment of taking it over and putting it in The Independent today. It’s not online, so I reproduce it here.
The truly remarkable news breaking over the holiday period is the death of a fish (inset right [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Wednesday, 18 August 2010 at 9:05 pm
Jun-Jun Sotto is a Filipino politician who understands expectations management:
Thanks to Le Café Witteveen and Peter Watt.
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Wednesday, 18 August 2010 at 4:16 pm
Thanks to Michael Ezra at Harry’s Place for writing up my encounter with Chris Nineham (right) on Radio 2 yesterday.
Chris Nineham is from the Stop the War Coalition and a former leading activist within the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party. John Rentoul, Tony Blair’s biographer, had the misfortune of having to debate with Nineham on BBC Radio 2. (The [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Wednesday, 18 August 2010 at 9:49 am
Good summary of the state of undeclared war in the Conservative Party between David Cameron and Boris Johnson by Rachel Sylvester in The Times today (pay wall). The key paragraphs:
The Cameroons fear that Mr Johnson is unreliable, lazy and disloyal. “Boris is Boris” is the official line from Tory HQ, an echo of Mr Blair’s [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Tuesday, 17 August 2010 at 9:24 pm
I’ve written for The Independent today on John Prescott’s foolish charge of “collaborator” thrown at Frank Field, John Hutton and Alan Milburn.
Conor Ryan had already made the main point on his excellent blog, namely that Labour can help to persuade independent-minded voters by lending its best minds to the Government in pursuit of laudable aims.
Field [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Tuesday, 17 August 2010 at 7:33 pm
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