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The new dotcom bubble

Hugo Rifkind is so good on computers and stuff in The Times today that I shall extract a bit, for the purposes of review and comment, from behind the pay wall:
The dotcom industry today, at the very top end, is basically a protracted struggle to be in charge of absolutely everything. Facebook, Google and Apple [...]

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye - Breaking views from commentators - | Friday, 13 April 2012 at 1:31 pm

44

“Complicity”: the haters’ favourite word

I know little about the Belhaj case, in which one of the leaders of post-Gaddafi Libya claims that British spies helped the Americans kidnap him in Thailand and ship him to Gaddafi’s Libya, where he says he was tortured.
But knowing little about it fails to discourage the Blair-haters from assembling their favourite big words: complicity, [...]

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye - Breaking views from commentators - | Thursday, 12 April 2012 at 10:43 pm

2

Can China become a nation of shoppers?

Everyone agrees that, if China is to avoid the feared hard economic landing, the country needs to wean itself off its reliance on investment and infrastructure spending and pump up consumer demand instead. But this will be easier said than done.

By Ben Chu | Eagle Eye - Breaking views from commentators -, Econoblog | Wednesday, 11 April 2012 at 6:05 pm

40

David Cameron’s oppressive Big Society

The Conservatives’ passion for the Big Society chimes with a deep human desire to be an esteemed and popular part of a social group – whether it be a family, a peer group or a neighbourhood. Indeed, psychologists report that even the most ambitious people – doggedly independent, seemingly – are actually motivated by a longing to achieve membership of some exclusive grouping.

By Ryan Shorthouse | Eagle Eye - Breaking views from commentators - | Wednesday, 11 April 2012 at 4:15 pm

11

All Nick Clegg’s Fault

Running a coalition government requires the patience of, well, an NHS patient. Nick Clegg needed a bauble for the Budget. A tycoon tax, he thought. That is a good bit of posturing. They have it in America: a minimum rate of income tax that rich people have to pay, regardless of allowances and reliefs.
All right, [...]

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye - Breaking views from commentators - | Wednesday, 11 April 2012 at 10:32 am

9

“I don’t believe in wasting my time”

A small Blair nugget spotted by Quentin Letts in the diaries of Michael Spicer, the Conservative politician who was a junior Energy Minister in 1989:
Another tale in the Spicer diaries concerns the young Tony Blair when he was Shadow Energy Secretary. One day he sat down next to Spicer in a Westminster corridor and casually said: ‘I don’t [...]

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye - Breaking views from commentators - | Tuesday, 10 April 2012 at 4:33 pm

17

The UKIP Bogey Bear, Still There

One of the persistent derangements of the Conservative right is its obsession with the UK Independence Party. It uses the existence and occasional blip in popularity of UKIP as an argument for the Conservative Party to move to the right — which it usually phrases as asserting “true” or “traditional” Conservatism.
Thus otherwise likeable Tories such as [...]

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye - Breaking views from commentators - | Tuesday, 10 April 2012 at 3:13 pm

11

Vote Fool’s Gold

The superficial appeal of the “independent” political candidate is glinting like fool’s gold again. This time it is Siobhan Benita, a “non-party” candidate for mayor of London (pictured). I can see why some sensible people are tempted to vote for her. Many Labour supporters find it hard to support Ken Livingstone, as even a Guardian leading [...]

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye - Breaking views from commentators - | Tuesday, 10 April 2012 at 12:00 pm

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The strange case of Trenton Oldfield

If we’re all trapped in one giant series of Big Brother, Trenton Oldfield is the latest evictee, replacing Samantha Brick on the long Walk of Shame (although it was This Morning, not Davina, that awaited the Daily Mail’s lucrative offering to the lions). I’m not going to join the booing, placard-waving crowds, because there’s enough posts stringing Mr Oldfield up if that’s your thing. But who am I to miss out on the rash of ’so, what’s the broader significance?’ pieces?

By Owen Jones | Eagle Eye - Breaking views from commentators - | Sunday, 8 April 2012 at 2:35 pm

15

Labour’s fine economic record

I was looking at data on the New Labour governments’ record on the economy, when I came across this excellent presentation, UK Economic Performance since 1997, by Dan Corry, Anna Valero and John Van Reenen, at the LSE Centre for Economic Performance, 15 November 2011 (pdf).
Real GDP per adult grew by 22 per cent between 1997 [...]

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye - Breaking views from commentators - | Thursday, 5 April 2012 at 5:40 pm

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