Eagle Eye
Three Sorry Stories
I know this is old; I meant to note it at the time and then lost it. Kenneth Morgan’s historical take on Conservative-Liberal coalitions, in a letter in August’s Prospect, is a gem:
25th June 2010
Dick Leonard’s summary of past Lib-Con coalitions (July) deals admirably with those of 1895 and 1931. Both ended up with Liberals [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Friday, 10 September 2010 at 6:27 pm
The Paranoid Style
The Times carries a leading article today (pay wall), with the headline above, that is worth quoting in full — for the purposes of criticism, review and reporting current events.
Tony Blair’s memoirs have broken sales records, with 92,000 copies sold in the four days after publication. Yet Mr Blair cancelled a book signing and the launch party this [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Friday, 10 September 2010 at 10:18 am
Tony Blair: Britain’s Sarah Palin?
Number 384 in my series of Questions to Which the Answer is No is asked by Julie Weiner at Vanity Fair. “To be fair”, a phrase horribly over-used by Tony Blair in his book, she is comparing the response to A Journey to that to Going Rogue. But the answer is still No.
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Friday, 10 September 2010 at 9:54 am
Left Foot Forward’s false claim Ed M is members’ darling
Left Foot Forward, the blog that is not supporting Ed Miliband for Labour leader, has an interesting article about “media manipulation” today. Its opening sentence is:
Ed Miliband’s leadership campaign may not have the money that his older brother David’s does, but he is sure that the support of 4,500 volunteers has made up for it.
The [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 9 September 2010 at 10:02 pm
Nick Brown and the whip hand
As the fastest riser at no 7 in the Total Politics media blogs chart (respect to Iain Martin, straight in at no 3), despite my specific instructions to readers not to take part in unrepresentative voodoo internet polls, I had better write something.
I have had my nose in a book for the past week, so [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 9 September 2010 at 6:21 pm
Perhaps they mean ironic
Alex Massie draws the Committee’s attention to a grievous omission. Some fool has left “iconic” off the Banned List.
This means that Guy Keleny, custodian of The Independent’s Errors and Omissions, has had to devote valuable time and space to restating what should have been taken for granted:
Evidently, this column needs to reopen its campaign against [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Tuesday, 7 September 2010 at 9:16 pm
Gibbering Statterate
That will teach me. I feel a right Gibbard Satterthwaite now. I said that one of the advantages of the Alternative Vote was that it removes the need to vote tactically, because it by definition transfers your vote to your next best choice. As The Man said:
You idiot. You naive, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop. There is [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Tuesday, 7 September 2010 at 1:54 pm
Business as usual for Bob Diamond and for the banks
If the banking world wanted to show the rest of us that things are back to “business as usual” they could not have found a more potent symbol than to have promoted the head of Barclays Capital, the so-called “casino” end of Barclays, to run the group as a whole.
Mr Diamond’s (right) operation was [...]
By Sean O'Grady | Eagle Eye, Econoblog | Tuesday, 7 September 2010 at 12:21 pm
The Empty Victory
Nothing much to say about Tony Blair’s decision to cancel his book signing in central London on Wednesday. At one level, it is terrible to give in to the mongers of hate. But on another, why give the sellers-on of the venom in the Daily Mail, Guardian and BBC the chance to work themselves up [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Monday, 6 September 2010 at 9:33 pm
Rentoul suffers cognitive dissonance
I have just had one of those near-life-changing moments. One of my most solid political convictions was nearly overturned this morning. A lot of people seem to be getting their Labour leadership ballot papers today (a bit later than I thought), and it emerged in separate conversations with two highly-intelligent party members that they do [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Monday, 6 September 2010 at 3:13 pm
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