http://blogs.independent.co.uk| Blogs from the Independent newspaper - news, views and features from the world's most free-thinking newspaper| Sat, 25 May 2013 22:42:45 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2| en hourly 1 http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/05/15/a-triumph-for-david-cameron/ http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/05/15/a-triumph-for-david-cameron/#comments Wed, 15 May 2013 11:02:43 +0000 John Rentoul http://blogs.independent.co.uk/?p=34922 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 [...]]]> http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/05/15/a-triumph-for-david-cameron/feed/ 13 http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/05/12/ed-miliband-on-europe/ http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/05/12/ed-miliband-on-europe/#comments Sun, 12 May 2013 14:01:58 +0000 John Rentoul http://blogs.independent.co.uk/?p=34863 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 [...]]]> http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/05/12/ed-miliband-on-europe/feed/ 2 http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/05/12/tory-bennism-on-europe/ http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/05/12/tory-bennism-on-europe/#comments Sun, 12 May 2013 11:22:38 +0000 John Rentoul http://blogs.independent.co.uk/?p=34857 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 [...]]]> http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/05/12/tory-bennism-on-europe/feed/ 3 http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/05/05/david-davis-on-a-mandate-referendum/ http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/05/05/david-davis-on-a-mandate-referendum/#comments Sun, 05 May 2013 20:12:50 +0000 John Rentoul http://blogs.independent.co.uk/?p=34710 No, I didn’t know what it meant either. David Davis explains it well in this transcript of his interview with Andrew Neil on the BBC’s Sunday Politics. But it is the politics of fruitcake and David Cameron will, of course, have nothing to do with it. Politely. AN: Joining me now from his Altrincham constituency, former [...]]]> http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/05/05/david-davis-on-a-mandate-referendum/feed/ 6 http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/04/29/ukip-chairman-endorses-theresa-may-on-abu-qatada/ http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/04/29/ukip-chairman-endorses-theresa-may-on-abu-qatada/#comments Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:36:01 +0000 John Rentoul http://blogs.independent.co.uk/?p=34546 I scored an unexpected Blairite victory on Voice of Russia radio today. We were discussing the Abu Qatada case with David Coburn, chairman of UKIP London, who wants the UK to decide who it keeps and who it chucks out, with Abu Q in the second category. Obviously, he want to repudiate the European Convention [...]]]> http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/04/29/ukip-chairman-endorses-theresa-may-on-abu-qatada/feed/ 3 http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/03/01/eastleigh-all-the-wrong-lessons/ http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/03/01/eastleigh-all-the-wrong-lessons/#comments Fri, 01 Mar 2013 09:20:32 +0000 John Rentoul http://blogs.independent.co.uk/?p=32894 Too many Conservatives are sure to take the wrong lesson from third place in the Eastleigh by-election, which is that they should be more Eurosceptic, tougher on immigration and should never have legalised gay marriage. The right lesson, of course, is that they should have supported the Alternative Vote in the 2011 referendum. It wouldn’t have [...]]]> http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/03/01/eastleigh-all-the-wrong-lessons/feed/ 13 http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/02/26/cameron-on-europe-turned-a-trap-into-a-tryst-with-destiny/ http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/02/26/cameron-on-europe-turned-a-trap-into-a-tryst-with-destiny/#comments Tue, 26 Feb 2013 17:39:11 +0000 John Rentoul http://blogs.independent.co.uk/?p=32821 David Hayes has a lovely long essay on Britain’s history with Europe in Inside Story, an Australian website. He sees the crisis of the eurozone as a big moment in this long story, which “makes the prime minister’s referendum démarche on 23 January all the more intelligible, and his craftsmanship in turning a political trap into [...]]]> http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/02/26/cameron-on-europe-turned-a-trap-into-a-tryst-with-destiny/feed/ 8 http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/02/03/when-blair-wanted-an-in-or-out-eu-referendum/ http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/02/03/when-blair-wanted-an-in-or-out-eu-referendum/#comments Sun, 03 Feb 2013 14:18:01 +0000 John Rentoul http://blogs.independent.co.uk/?p=32216 Tony Blair was on the Andrew Marr show this morning, interviewed by Sian Williams. She did a good job of asking some quite hard questions, although not getting much by way of answers. On the extension of the “war with terrorism” to north Africa, she asked if the “Islamist ideology” of which he spoke really is [...]]]> http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/02/03/when-blair-wanted-an-in-or-out-eu-referendum/feed/ 2 http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/01/28/camerons-public-plot-to-stay-in-the-eu/ http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/01/28/camerons-public-plot-to-stay-in-the-eu/#comments Mon, 28 Jan 2013 08:33:49 +0000 John Rentoul http://blogs.independent.co.uk/?p=32055 David Lidington, the Europe minister, was on BBC1 Sunday Politics yesterday. The BBC sends transcripts to journalists but doesn't put them on its website, so here it is.]]> http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/01/28/camerons-public-plot-to-stay-in-the-eu/feed/ 24 http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/01/27/cameron-on-europe-right-wrong-or-political/ http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/01/27/cameron-on-europe-right-wrong-or-political/#comments Sun, 27 Jan 2013 19:08:08 +0000 John Rentoul http://blogs.independent.co.uk/?p=32043 We Sunday columnists are divided over the Prime Minister’s speech on the European Union. Matthew d’Ancona says David Cameron got it right and it was all part of the grand modernising plan. Andrew Rawnsley says it was “a terrible mistake, quite possibly the fatal error of his premiership”. And I am somewhere in between, saying that [...]]]> http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/01/27/cameron-on-europe-right-wrong-or-political/feed/ 5 http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/01/27/why-are-you-screaming-and-hugging/ http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/01/27/why-are-you-screaming-and-hugging/#comments Sun, 27 Jan 2013 14:55:09 +0000 John Rentoul http://blogs.independent.co.uk/?p=32040 “It’s the wrong people who are clapping!” I meant to refer last week to this quotation from Dora Gaitskell, wife of Hugh, who expressed her horror at the applause for his “thousand years of history” Eurosceptic speech to Labour conference in 1962. Andrew Rawnsley got there first, in his column for The Observer today. It is an apt echo of [...]]]> http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/01/27/why-are-you-screaming-and-hugging/feed/ 8 http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/01/23/pmqs-through-the-sound-proof-glass/ http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/01/23/pmqs-through-the-sound-proof-glass/#comments Wed, 23 Jan 2013 18:44:56 +0000 John Rentoul http://blogs.independent.co.uk/?p=31930 An unusual degree of textual analysis is required of the exchanges at Prime Minister’s Questions today. I thought Ed Miliband simply failed to notice that David Cameron answered his question, twice, and stuck doggedly to the script he and Douglas Alexander had agreed (the more Eurosceptic Ed Balls was notably sullen and silent a further seat [...]]]> http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/01/23/pmqs-through-the-sound-proof-glass/feed/ 3