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
Nigel Lawson, Financial Secretary to the Treasury 1979-81 (second from left in picture), told Treasury civil servants at a seminar organised by the Mile End Group two weeks ago (but online only today):
There’s a reason why you today can feel confident … Based on the example of what we did in the 1980s, squeezing public [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Friday, 17 May 2013 at 2:14 pm
That’s the blog post I would like to write – not because I am a cheerleader for the Prime Minister but because it would be a challenge. But, despite Dan Hodges’ best effort to explain why Ed Miliband has blown his chance (Times, pay wall), it doesn’t seem possible to explain how this week’s EU referendum [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Wednesday, 15 May 2013 at 12:02 pm
No, this is not my long-promised lecture of the above title. I am under-qualified to deliver it, in any case. Suffice it to say that those who idolise Clement Attlee as a way of criticising New Labour have got the wrong man.
Someone who could deliver it is David Hayes, one of the finest essayists, whose [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Tuesday, 14 May 2013 at 9:59 pm
Number 944 in my series of Questions To Which The Answer Is No, asked by guess who.
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Tuesday, 14 May 2013 at 11:19 am
We are used to Ed Miliband’s post-neo-liberal mumbo-jumbo on the economy. We heard more of it in his speech to Progress on Saturday (see below). What was surprising, reading David Sainsbury’s book, Progressive Capitalism, is that he too criticises the New Labour government, in which he too was a minister, because it failed to “question fundamentally [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Monday, 13 May 2013 at 6:19 pm
The next question is whether Ed Miliband will match David Cameron’s promise of a referendum on EU membership by the time of the 2015 election. He could have pre-empted Cameron’s promise, which was advertised several months in advance, but he chose not to. I suspect that there was a vigorous debate with Ed Balls, who [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Sunday, 12 May 2013 at 3:01 pm
Tory Bennism takes hold: the Sunday politics news is all about which Conservative minister says what precisely about Europe. Labour fell victim to litmustestism in opposition in the 1980s, when the precise number of top “monopolies” to be taken into public ownership mattered deeply to nerds. But to do it in government is unusual: it [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Sunday, 12 May 2013 at 12:22 pm
Do you want a new airport?
I do not need it, Louise Ellman.
Would you like it here or there?
I would not like it here or there.
I would not like it anywhere.
I do not need a new airport.
I do not need it, Louise Ellman, chair of the Transport select committee, Boris Johnson, Howard Davies, Iain Martin and all the others.
Would [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Friday, 10 May 2013 at 8:25 pm
Another furiously aspiring speech from Michael Gove today:
All of us who are parents would be delighted if our children were learning to love George Eliot, write their own computer programmes, daring to take themselves out of their comfort zone and aspiring to be faster, higher or stronger.
Unless, of course, we write for Guardian Education…
Jacqueline Wilson [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 9 May 2013 at 11:57 am
Once again, I have been caught out by the lack of a backward-sloping ironic typeface on my computer. I gathered, yesterday, that an association football manager had resigned, so I said on Twitter:
I don’t think Ferguson should have given in to media hysteria like this. He apologised for his tasteless comments about Keynes being gay.
The [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 9 May 2013 at 11:16 am
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