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
Charlie Veitch is a 9/11 Truther who changed his mind.
Looking back, he describes the conspiracy community as an “evil-worshipping paranoia. As someone who’s been deep in it, and seen the hatred and the insanity, I think big terrorist attacks will come from conspiracy theorists.” He can envisage an assassination or a bombing carried out by [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Wednesday, 29 May 2013 at 8:54 am
ComRes has a telephone poll for The Independent tomorrow which again gives UKIP a high score, of 17 per cent, but more significantly gives Labour a lead of just 4 points:
Labour 34% -4
Conservative 30% -2
UKIP 17% +4
Lib Dem 10% +1
(Change since last month’s telephone poll for The [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Tuesday, 28 May 2013 at 10:00 pm
This is a “serious question”, according to Kirsten Salyer, who asked it on Bloomberg. I get the impression Ollie Money didn’t think so. He’s right. It’s number 953 in my series of Questions To Which The Answer Is No. Buy the book of the series here.
“Crowdfund” is also on the Banned List. Although I think [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Tuesday, 28 May 2013 at 9:38 pm
The “Great Green Con” campaign by the Mail on Sunday took an unexpected turn at the weekend. It published an article by Prof Myles Allen, a “top British climate scientist”, who explained that climate change was definitely happening, and humans were causing it, but that most policy responses to it were misguided.
Allen’s is an interesting argument. [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Tuesday, 28 May 2013 at 12:42 pm
A poll quiz question asked by Hopi Sen on Twitter: Supporters of which political party are most likely to agree invading Iraq/Afghanistan was wrong & increased the risk of terror attack?
He was referring to a YouGov poll for The Sunday Times.
I couldn’t decide. It could be the Liberal Democrats, because they were the anti-war party [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Monday, 27 May 2013 at 11:32 am
I wrote about Angela Merkel in The Independent on Sunday. She seems to be well placed to win re-election in the German elections in September. Her Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) are running at an average of 40 per cent in the opinion polls, while the main opposition Social Democrats, whose candidate is Peer Steinbrück, is on [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Monday, 27 May 2013 at 10:49 am
Terrific double Question To Which The Answer Is No asked by Forbes and spotted by Tom Doran. That is number 950 and 951 in the long-running series of the book.
Number 952 was generated this morning, with Swiss movement precision, by the Dacre Auto Headline Generator (thanks to Brian Brady):
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Saturday, 25 May 2013 at 1:11 pm
One more excerpt is worth noting from the interviews with former cabinet secretaries that have been posted on the new 10 Downing Street/Mile End Group website.
Lord Armstrong, Cabinet Secretary 1979-87 (pictured, centre, in No 10 for the launch of the website), talked about how his first reaction to the news of the 1984 Brighton bomb, [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Friday, 24 May 2013 at 8:30 pm
The video and transcript of the full interview with Robin Butler, Cabinet Secretary 1988-98, in the 10 Downing Street history series is now on the Mile End Group cabinet secretaries website.
Interviewed by Anthony Seldon, Lord Butler reflects on the difference between the Margaret Thatcher he had known as her principal private secretary in the middle phase [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Friday, 24 May 2013 at 10:51 am
All living cabinet secretaries, including the present one, Sir Jeremy Heywood, have been interviewed for the History section of the 10 Downing Street website, a joint project of No 10 and the Mile End Group.
Highlights videos of two interviews, with Robert Armstrong and Robin Butler, have gone up on the Downing Street website, and the [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Friday, 24 May 2013 at 7:06 am
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