US President Barack Obama has demanded to know why American intelligence services failed to piece together information that could have prevented the attempted bombing of a US airliner on 25 December, Christmas Day.
The that clearly the system did not work, in spite of "fair warning" given to officials.
"The State Department, working with other agencies, had the power to revoke the son's visa or put a temporary hold on it. Officials say the warning was insufficient. That seems like a very bad judgment call."
that the more she thinks about the Christmas all-but-bombing, the angrier she gets.
"There was, one administration official explained, 'insufficient derogatory information' to bump Abdulmutallab to a higher status of watch list. Excuse me, but how much more derogatory can you get?"
But the that not all of the blame lies with the US government's management of terrorist watch lists.
"Some share of responsibility lies with civil libertarian extremists who have ceaselessly lambasted the entire no-fly system."
that airport security is not as bad as we might think.
"The fact that terrorists are reduced to smuggling explosive materials on-board in their underwear, without the casings and detonators that make for an efficient explosion, is proof of our success in deterring them from even trying to board with a capable bomb."
The of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who first asserted that "the system worked", adding that it was no consolation that the system only worked after the bomb didn't:
"The best thing to be said for this attempted attack, besides that it failed, is that it scared the bejeezus out of us. Apparently we needed that. It revealed flaws in a system that Napolitano now concedes 'failed miserably'."
that the attack was a wake-up call to a country which had got complacent and too worried about image, privacy, and the state of the airline industry"
"Complacency remains an insidious flaw in our natural defenses. For eight years we frustrated plots because we spared no effort to examine and address any lead about a potential threat. But as time passed, more people began to suffer from battle fatigue or to fall prey to historical revisionism."
that the US will find and fix vulnerabilities in the system which allowed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board the plane headed for Detroit.
"We know that terrorists motivated by violent extremist beliefs desire to carry out acts of catastrophic violence... President Obama has made it clear that we will be unrelenting in our efforts around the world, using every element of our national power to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda and other violent extremists wherever they plot against our country."
to know how tough President Obama really is on terrorism.
"Is Obama, as many conservatives say, someone who has fundamentally shifted American security priorities from Bush's offensive "war on terror" to a passive emphasis on legal process and law enforcement? Or is he simply following Theodore Roosevelt's maxim to "speak softly and carry a big stick"? From Guantanamo to Afghanistan, Obama's record is mixed, which is why experts are looking forward to getting more details at the promised congressional hearings on the Christmas Day attack."
that the one immediate consequence of the attempted airline bombing and the bomber's alleged contacts with extremists in Yemen will be to stop the emptying of Guantanamo Bay of its Yemeni prisoners.
"They haven't done anything newly wrong or been convicted -- or even charged -- with any crime, but they are now caught up in the politics of the moment, making their release seemingly impossible."
Links in full
US senators have passed the final Senate version of a historic healthcare reform bill.
The bill aims to cover 31 million uninsured Americans and could lead to the biggest change in American healthcare in decades.
The it brings Democrats a step closer to a goal they have pursued for decades:
"It would, as lawmakers said repeatedly in the debate, touch the lives of nearly all Americans."
The there is much that is right with the bill, but also much that is wrong:
"What should have been a moment of proud accomplishment for the Senate, right up there with the passage of Social Security and the first civil rights bills, was instead a travesty of low-grade political theatre - angry rhetoric and backroom deals."
, the leadership of majority leader Harry Reid played a key part in the bill's passage:
"Along the way, Reid's effort sometimes revealed an unseemly, if time-honored, side of congressional business as he struck bargains with senators who traded their votes for aid to their states or help for supportive interest groups."
The that Harry Reid had been singled out for praise:
"Reid accomplished what was long viewed as impossible: He drafted a comprehensive reform bill palatable to the both extremes of his Democratic caucus, moderates and liberals, plus everybody in between."
The it as a hard-fought battle:
"In the end, the Democrats will rise on its successes, or suffer the consequences of any controversy surrounding the bill - polls portray the public as wary about it, doubtful that it will help, worried that it will make things worse.
"And in the end, the Republicans, for better or worse, will rise with any public resistance to this measure, or suffer the consequences of being the party of No."
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Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said university funding in England will be cut by £398m for 2010-11. Commentators weigh up the merits of Labour's years of higher education expansion, threatened by these cuts.
The not all recent expansion has been healthy:
"Rapid expansion has meant that insufficient attention has been paid to every student; in some places teaching quality and standards have been diluted, and the drop-out rate has been high. If, as seems inevitable, many universities are to be allowed to charge higher fees, students need to know they will get value for their money."
Labour has got the universities they deserve:
"Labour's expansion of university education promised disaster from the beginning. The 50 per cent target had all the signs of being plucked from the sky for the 2001 manifesto with no regard to whether half the population is mentally equipped for an academic education."
The former minister for education that the suggestion to shorten courses is not possible because of the school system:
"Academics at university complain about the amount of remedial teaching they have to do, in maths especially, before students are ready to tackle their courses."
The against preparing students for the workplace instead of for life:
"Yet these fast-track courses will turn the clock back 20 years, to the time when polytechnics offered vocational degrees to the less academically gifted. It seems inevitable that a two-tier system will develop, as the most academically rigorous universities continue to offer high-quality courses - though for higher fees."
the best alternative is for universities to become financially independent:
"Shifting the burden of university funding from the taxpayer to the student may seem tough.
But how much better to have the dons running their colleges in the interests of the undergraduates than according to the erratic whims of Lord Mandelson?"
The alone in seeing, in its editorial, the recent expansion in higher education as a success, one which will end:
"All these pressures mean participation will be narrowed, and that fairer access - another Labour success story - is put at further risk, while social mobility is suddenly a luxury for another day."
Links in full
Newspaper columnists make their conclusions about the forthcoming televised debate between party leaders in the run-up to the election.
• See who the political bloggers think will come out best.
The what took the UK so long:
"We should not expect too much of them - experience in many countries suggests that they rarely change the public's already-half-made-up mind. Despite the politicians' collective insistence that they will thrash out the issues that matter, there is bound to be a good deal of cheap point-scoring. Even so, they should not be so regulated that they become boring. For all the predictable flaws, the new debates are a step forward."
the style of the debates will be key:
"Whether Cameron, Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown will face direct questions from voters, vetted if not scripted, or be quizzed by pundits in the American fashion while the live audience sits in silence with no clapping allowed, is one of several important details still being negotiated.
Naturally the broadcasters want as much audience participation as possible to help make 90 solid minutes more bearable to the X Factor generation."
The the televised debates offer a tonic to apathy:
"At home and abroad, televisual skill is an asset for a politician. There is no point in lamenting a supposedly purer form of politics. Televised debates could be just the tonic British politics, and the jaded British public, need."
sceptical that the debates will pull in viewers:
"The stunning bore scenario should certainly not be ruled out. A modest wager on a rapidly declining number of viewers might be worthwhile."
However, the the debates are necessary and long overdue, even if imperfect:
"Children, children! Enough! Yes, the Mail accepts that the three-way debates will not be wholly fair. And, yes, regional and minor parties may have a legitimate grievance, which the broadcasters must do all they can to redress elsewhere during the election.
But in this less than ideal world, it's impossible to devise a format to please everyone, from the mainstream to the Monster Raving Loonies, without producing an unwatchable and unilluminating cacophony that would drag on for days."
The where the US debates and the UK differ:
"The American (or the French) presidential debates work because the nation is choosing a person; in this country, we choose parties even if they rely heavily on the popularity and competence of their leaders."
Nick Clegg will shine and Gordon Brown will not:
"He's a telly catastrophe. Disturbingly unnatural and unnervingly weird, with the top lip of The Joker, eye bags the size of Caligula's imperial couch, waxen flesh the hue of unwashed grey flannel, and the rictus grin of a jackal in its death throes, he is by light years the least accomplished television act of the trio."
The Alex Salmond is wrong to insist the he should take part if the debates will be aired in Scotland:
"Televised leadership debates will make for a welcome and long-overdue innovation in the run-up to our next general election. Mr Salmond will not be standing in that election. The debate will be between candidates to be the UK's next prime minister. This is not an office to which Mr Salmond aspires."
:
"These debates are nothing to do with proportionality and everything to do with the presidential style of election we now have, like or hate it. In that sense Alex Salmond and his Welsh counterpart stand no chance of being PM and their value in them is limited at best."
Links in full
Today in Web Monitor: the pantomime explained, Santa's big fat lie, and more from the world of geek rap.
The announcement that there will be a televised debates between party leaders for the first time gets political bloggers debating about who will benefit most.
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg should not be in the debate:
"The public will want to see a debate between the two individuals who may emerge as Prime Minister. They will want to hear exchanges between the two and get a clear understanding of what they would be like leading the nation. What possible relevance will there be to have a man there who stands absolutely no chance of being Prime Minister once the votes are counted?"
the parties have to be clear about if they are going to be "Santa or Scrooge":
"The next election, and the three televised debates announced yesterday, will boil down to a contest between optimism and pessimism. And the recession has blurred the natural dividing line between the two men."
the debate will not improve democracy but that doesn't mean it shouldn't happen:
"It's ludicrous that we are still conducting elections as though it were the 1950s. But anyone expecting political fireworks will be disappointed. The party leaders will be prepped to death and will negotiate each encounter like a minefield."
England should have its own debate:
"As a sop to nationalist sentiment the broadcasters are offering Scotland and Wales their own national debates with their own local Leaders. That's fine by me, but what about England? It just reminds us how lopsided UK devolution is under Labour, and just how much the EU hates England, wishing to break it into unloved regional units."
David Cameron has made a mistake by agreeing to the debate:
"When you are in as strong a position as he is then the last thing he should have agreed to is something that could be a game-changer. Anything could happen."
this debate will benefit the Liberal Democrats most:
"It gives the Liberal Democrats one hell of a leg-up, and that's high in Labour's calculations (they want the Lib Dems to do well against the Tories to limit Tory gains) but not as high as the fundamental point: Labour strategists think Gordon Brown might just make David Cameron look naive, not versed in the ways of the world and not a man to hold the tiller in dangerous times."
Links in full
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Today in Web Monitor: the year in scientific nonsense, placing jokes and the history of canned laughter.
After a failure to make a legally-binding agreement on climate change in Copenhagen, commentators consider what the conference can tell us.
The the Copenhagen deal empty and a sham but observes a change:
"... the rich world was forced to haggle with the bigger emerging economies on more equal terms than ever before."
Energy Secretary on the significance of China's veto on carbon emission reduction targets:
"Indeed, this is one of the straws in the wind for the future: the old order of developed versus developing has been replaced by more interesting alliances."
In the world leaders urging another conference are in a state of denial:
"Far from achieving a major step forward, Copenhagen - predictably - achieved precisely nothing. The nearest thing to a commitment was the promise by the developed world to pay the developing world $30 billion of 'climate aid' over the next three years, rising to $100 billion a year from 2020. Not only is that (perhaps fortunately) not legally binding, but there is no agreement whatsoever about which countries it will go to, in which amounts, and on what conditions."
that the political negotiations were poor:
"Let's turn down the rhetorical heat, the 'days left to save mankind' bluster. More persuasion and less proselytising. Fewer bogus timetables. No circuses like Copenhagen."
the only real winners from the deal are those who benefit from carbon trading:
"The only really concrete achievement of Copenhagen was to win agreement to the perpetuating of those Kyoto rules that have created this vast industry, which has two main beneficiaries. On one hand are that small number of people in China and India who have learnt how to work this system to their huge advantage. On the other are all those Western entrepreneurs who have piled into what has become the fastest growing commodity market in the world."
political leaders let the world down:
"Imagine a 50-a-day smoker who goes to his doctor and is told he must stop immediately or he will develop lung cancer. He says: 'I'll tell you what, doc - I'll cut down to 40-a-day, I'll eat a salad every lunchtime, and I'll slap on a few nicotine patches. How does that sound?' That's the official response to global warming."
, the director of Forum for the Future, looks on the bright side of the outcome:
"Paradoxically, the greatest cause for hope lies in the depth of that failure. Before Copenhagen, many campaigners had argued that no agreement would be better than a weak agreement. And in effect, that's exactly what has happened."
Links in full
Commentators discuss the High Court ruling that a 12-day Christmas strike by BA cabin crews would be illegal.
the decision:
"In this case, there's not the slightest question that those mistakenly balloted half-way through taking redundancy could have changed the result. Instead, Mrs Justice Cox has made a transparently political decision to skew the balance of power still further in favour of BA's recklessly incompetent management."
The the union Unite has been left to look like something between a menace and a joke:
"It is not just the unions' incompetence that is so breath-taking. It is their arrogance. They seem unable to look beyond themselves."
the attempted strike reflects crumbling social cohesion:
"Engulfed by their own propaganda, wallowing in grievance and entitlement, BA's eager strikers are not fighting for a noble cause. They are masquerading as victims in order to pursue self-interest, while dressing it up as virtue."
The union leaders and management to work teogether:
"Let's hope that the airline's management and wiser heads in the union take advantage of this breathing space to find a way forward."
even before the strike was prevented by an injunction, the union's decision to strike over Christmas played straight into the airline's hands:
"Future students of industrial relations will be amazed that a big trade union could have misjudged the public mood so badly."
Finally, in his ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ blog Robert Peston reminds us that the court victory for BA doesn't resolve the problem:
"BA still needs to resolve its dispute with cabin crew over staffing levels and pay. The airline cannot really escape the painful truth that many of its people feel spurned and alienated."
Links in full
Robert Peston | ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ | BA: Stress addict
Today in Web Monitor: a bleak verdict at the twentieth anniversary of the Simpsons, rappers for economic theory and science fact behind science fiction.
A selection of lines from parliamentary sketch-writers.
It was the last Prime Minister's Questions of 2009 with Harriet Harman and William Hague taking centre stage because Gordon Brown was in Copenhagen for the UN climate conference. Commentators noticed an end-of-term buzz among those MPs still in attendance.
that most efforts at humour in the Commons are excruciating for those regular spectators in the gallery:
"This is usually like watching a walrus attempting to tap-dance: you admire the effort rather than the result."
, quoting Harriet Harman's response to a question about her favourite fairy tale when she said there was a need "to avoid the Brothers Grimm" (referring to David Cameron and George Osborne):
"It does not look very amusing in print, nor did it sound very amusing in the Chamber."
that there was one person who certainly was not in the mood for frivolity - an MP well-known for his repartee and witticisms at the dispatch box, the shadow foreign secretary:
"Mr Hague took Miss Harman by surprise - by being completely serious."
that he enjoyed the general air of amusement but notes that it did not go down so well with the Speaker, John Bercow:
"The House was rejoicing - and even the Tories laughing, hell even I was laughing a bit, and the Speaker became extremely authoritative. 'Order, order!' he shouted. 'Good humour is one thing, disorder is another!'
by Theresa May's footwear on the Tory frontbench:
"She was sporting more leopard-skin than a zoo, her boots a desperate cry (miaow?) for attention. Perhaps, like that Pammie Anderson, she feels that she is destined for the stage (Maywatch, not Baywatch)."
Links in full
The announcement that payment by cheque will be abolished in 2018 has got commentators saying their farewells.
its not only charities who will be sorry to see the cheque go, but also those who see getting their first cheque-book as a rite of passage:
"That moment was prefaced in many cases with a kind of initiation, in the form of an almost adult interview with the branch bank manager. The stately local equivalent of Captain Mainwaring would introduce you to the mysteries of the procedure: the amount changing hands written in words on a line and in numbers in an adjoining box, and the process completed with your own peculiar signature, which new account holders may have spent many hours devising."
The the abolition of the cheque a selfish move by cost-cutting bankers:
"This change is being made for the financial self-interest of the banks.
Not content with plunging Britain into debt to bail them out of their own mess, the financiers have found yet another way to thumb their nose at consumers."
Christmas time reminds us why cheques should stay:
"At this time of year I still receive a few cheques in the post, hidden within Christmas cards from relatives who have become sick of sending me socks. They don't want to send cash in the post and the idea of receiving a present by electronic transfer does not fill me with joy."
The what the alternative to the oversized cheque will be:
"Indeed, the cheque might not have survived this far, had it not been for lotteries and the Pools. A bank transfer is no substitute for seeing real numbers inscribed on a giant cheque. Starting now, they have nine years to find an alternative."
the cheque-book used to signify a different relationship with credit and bank managers:
"But he had one key weapon. If you didn't turn up to discuss your overdraft, he didn't reissue your cheque book. And life stopped."
about the motivation of the banks:
"One other factor worth considering is that, whilst cheques cost the banks money, things like BACS payments actively earn them money. Could it be that our financial institutions are going to encourage us to do stuff that costs us money at the behest of something that doesn't?"
is more optimistic:
"This will be a good opportunity for the development of new and improved methods of payment, such as using mobile phones to pay small bills."
Links in full
Today in Web Monitor: Marketing Magazine's list of brands least likely to sponsor Tiger Woods, what we've been searching for in 2009 and Alec Baldwin tells Wired Magazine what it feels like to be a failure.
The campaign to stop X Factor winner Joe McElderry from claiming the Christmas number one has divided music critics and fans alike. At the time of writing, Rage Against The Machine's expletive-laden 1992 single Killing In The Name, is .
But Fraser McAlpine, writing on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Chart Blog, takes issue with the motives behind the campaign, launched on Facebook three weeks ago:
"It strikes me that there is a nasty streak of snobbery to the Rage Against The Machine campaign, because essentially the people behind it not only don't approve of the song the X Factor has made - before they have even heard it, which is always lovely - but they don't like the people who DO like it. They think these people are easily-led. They may use words like 'sheep' or 'masses' or 'plebs' or 'chavs', and they believe themselves to be above such obvious mind-control."
Picking up the baton, calls the protest a "huge waste of everyone's time and money" - and goes on to suggest its supporters are trivialising Killing In The Name's political message:
"Rage Against The Machine wrote the song about the racism deeply embedded in American society - the police officers who "burn crosses" are closet members of the Ku Klux Klan. You can't imagine [lead singer] Zack de la Rocha - a man so committed to leftist social activism he has worked closely with Mexico's Zapatista National Liberation Army, and once declared US Presidents should be shot as war criminals - would be too delighted to discover his howl of anti-establishment rage had been co-opted by a bunch of bored Brits on Twitter."
There are better singles to back if you want to strike a blow against Simon Cowell and his record label, SyCo, In particular, Fifty Grand For Christmas, a song by former X Factor auditionee Paul Holt:
"In case you've forgotten, when Paul Holt auditioned for the first series of The X Factor Simon Cowell told him that if Holt managed to get a Number One single, he'd hand over fifty thousand pounds. So Holt made a song, 'Fifty Grand For Christmas', about the bet. As the lyrics - and this is one of the greatest opening lines in the history of popular song - explain: 'Simon says he'll pay the sum of fifty thousand pounds if I get to Number One.'"
. He says a number one for Rage Against The Machine's 20-year-old protest anthem would be a "triumph for pop":
"The song might be old, but having a fan-powered campaign propel it to the chart summit against the might of an entertainment powerhouse like SyCo would tell you more about the democratised, downloadable and downright free-for-all nature of the pop charts in 2009 than anything else."
But were the festive charts ever a safe haven for musical talent? Not really, . Before X Factor, he reminds us, the Christmas chart crown went to the likes of Bob The Builder and Mr Blobby:
"For the kind of consumer whose interest in music is so shallow they only invest money buying a single at Christmas, Mr Cowell provides the unique service of reducing their choice to whatever his latest talent show is peddling."
Finally, for Radio One DJ Reggie Yates when he reveals Rage Against The Machine's final position on the Chart Show this weekend:
"The track is unlikely to get much airplay. On its release in February 1993 then Radio 1 DJ Bruno Brookes bungled by playing an uncensored version of it during his Top 40 countdown show. The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ were flooded by complaints from listeners stunned by the sheer volume of F-words the track contains."
Links in full
Fraser McAlpine | ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Chart Blog | Thoughts About Rage vs X Factor
A selection of lines from parliamentary sketch-writers.
Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth has announced spending cuts which will free up money to pay for 22 Chinook helicopters and other equipment for troops in Afghanistan.
Mr Ainsworth on his ability to pack his statement so full of jargon that no-one, particularly not the enemy in Afghanistan, could understand him:
"They may have wiggled their aerials and spanked their crystal sets to try to improve the reception. They may have drilled the earwax from their plugholes and bawled at the tribal goat to shaddup while they listened to the crafty Engleeshman's fiendishly coded signal."
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"Much of it was bespoke mahogany-bomber speak, Whitehall spiel designed to bestow managerial plausibility to the once basic business of rations being cut."
the news that the helicopters will not be ready until 2012 ie a year after the US plans to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan:
"So the British are like a guest who arrives after the party has ended, but at least brings a bottle of wine."
for the defence secretary:
"He's got a surprisingly active personality for a sandbag. He's colourful for camouflage. When you put his predecessor, Geoff Hoon, beside him, Geoff suddenly looks vibrant and glamorous. Geoff suddenly looks like Prince. And not Prince Charles, I mean the artist formerly known as Prince."
that in spite of the defence secretary's constant reiteration of "prioritisation" and contradictions in his speech, his opposite number Liam Fox failed to strike a decent blow.
Elsewhere, one of Mr Ainsworth's ministers was giving evidence to a select committee. Quentin Davies, a former Tory who "defected" to Labour was up in front of defence select committee chairman James Arbuthnott, which was an amusing occasion for one reason completely unrelated to defence:
"It isn't every day that you see a man with a belltower interviewed by a man who has purchased three garlic peelers from QVC on expenses."
Links in full
The British Airways strike prompts commentators to discuss the merits of the action.
The the strike is bewildering, calling BA workers comparatively lucky considering we're in a recession:
"It's not even as if they're being asked to accept pay freezes or compulsory redundancies, like other workers.
On the contrary, more than 10,000 are being offered pay increases of between 2 and 7 per cent this year and next."
The the British have fallen out of love with BA and calls for the Union Jack to be taken of BA planes:
"So now that the Union Jack on BA's tailfins no longer fills us with pride, it no longer deserves to remain there. It should be swapped for a logo that more accurately reflects how we feel about BA's attitude to its customers. A Jolly Roger, perhaps."
The to be sympathetic towards striking cabin crew but concludes their attempts will be self-defeating:
"But there is one service that air passengers value above all others: reliability. And it is that service which this senseless strike threatens to blow out of the skies."
In the Guardian, the CEO of British Airways the changes in staffing saying his cabin crew are the most expensive in the Industry:
"Given this company's well-advertised financial plight and a protracted recession that has squeezed living standards in every economic sector, we think that this deal is very fair and reasonable."
Despite Willie Walsh writing in the paper, the the decision to strike:
"BA cabin crew are quite right to fight to protect their conditions, which are under serious threat. That was the case even before the recession; the aviation industry has expanded rapidly over the past few years and working conditions on many new budget carriers are, frankly poor. This is a classic race to the bottom, and few workers win those."
like the idea of budget airlines being the only option. She wonders if BA could emerge from this crisis with a new business model:
"Are there enough people like me to create a viable middle-market business model that will work for BA, so that those of us who can afford more than £5 but don't aspire to own a share in a private jet can still experience reasonably civilised travel?"
Links in full
Today in Web Monitor: Sting's unwanted lyrics, where the trend to hold a gun sideways began and the list of people who ruined the decade.
A selection of lines from parliamentary sketch-writers.
The prime minister was in the Commons, giving a statement on Afghanistan after visiting troops there at the weekend.
that Gordon Brown has an been on a whistle-stop "sleepover" tour of the globe, as he's gone from an EU summit in Brussels to visiting troops in Kandahar, briefly calling in to London before jetting off again to the UN climate conference in Copenhagen:
"The man seems to be on some kind of statesman high. Ronald Reagan had detente. Gordon Brown has a pair of jim-jams and a sleep mask."
Sleep is also the theme that , referring to Mr Brown's ability to make spectators nod off as he's talking:
"Everything is so practised and proficient he can put you to sleep in under two minutes."
"The combination of purpose, detail, destiny, dishonesty, wishful thinking and driving energy are absolutely soporific."
that the prime minister carried off the military look in Afghanistan, where he donned a flak jacket and helmet:
"Frank Spencer visits the front line! The flapping wrists were perfect. Pure 'oooh, Betty'."
In the Guardian, that at least an armoured Mr Brown would be protected from any attacks similar to that on Silvio Berlusconi with the miniature Milan cathedral:
"Some MPs yesterday gave the impression that they would very much like to go for Mr Brown with almost any kind of souvenir, even something labelled 'My prime minister went to Helmand, and all I got was this lousy flak jacket'."
Links in full
Commentators are generally not sympathetic towards BA cabin crew who plan to strike over Christmas.
booked a flight with BA: she recalls her many tales of woe flying with BA. Given these, she says she doesn't care about BA strike:
"I don't care whose fault it is any more, whether the chief executive Willie Walsh is a mediocre manager or the unions are deluded; I've had enough of the embarrassment. I just hope BA's name is changed to Iberia when they merge."
flights booked. He calls the action "maddening":
"It can only lead to a decline in bookings for the airline as consumers become increasingly wary of gambling on losing some of their precious holiday time to a strike. How on earth can ruining Christmas for customers ever turn out to be good for longer-term business?"
The this could be the final blow for BA:
"But a company that is bleeding £1.6 million every day cannot afford such a disastrous Christmas. A company that lost over £400 million last year is in no position to weather continually appalling industrial relations."
The that members of the BA crew get paid more than their competitors - something, it says, has to change:
"BA's management has a duty to cut its costs. The company lost £400 million last year and is expected to lose even more this year. To meet this crisis with a strike threat is suicidal."
BA crews are risking not only their jobs but their retirement too:
"If BA were to go to the wall the Pension Protection Fund would only pay out 90pc of the benefits accrued."
Finally the strike action won't help the BA crews in the long term:
"So turkeys really do vote for Christmas."
Links in full
Before his appearance at the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war, Tony Blair said in an interview with Fern Britton that he would "still have thought it right to remove" Saddam Hussein, even if he had known that Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction. Commentators dissect the interview and its on effect on the inquiry.
the inquiry to follow up on the interview:
"Yet Blair in effect admits he and Bush planned to launch a war even if they knew there was no chance of getting UN approval. In cases brought before the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, political leaders who plotted large-scale illegal violence were described as collaborating in a 'joint criminal enterprise'. Here too is a fertile new field of inquiry that Chilcot must not duck."
Tony Blair's supposed frustration about not getting his views out doesn't make any sense:
"Why is it necessary, then, for him to talk in secret to the Chilcot Inquiry while publicly excusing his actions in a ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ1 interview with Fern Britton?"
Blair a narcissist:
"This was a foreign policy disgrace of epic proportions and playing footsie on Sunday morning television does nothing to repair the damage."
Fern Britton has had more success than the Chilcot inquiry so far:
"Blair's remarkable pre-emptive strike comfortably overshadows anything so far said to Sir John Chilcot. It goes to the very nub of the issue Sir John is considering: was the war necessary, and was the prime minister's official justification, weapons of mass destruction, merely a pretext for something decided long before?"
that Tony Blair's interview shows he lacks attention to detail:
"Moralists can easily fall into two traps: of believing that good intentions are enough and of assuming that their own moral superiority will guarantee a favourable outcome. Tony Blair did both."
Church of England priest that it's too late for Tony Blair to reinvent himself:
"There's something of the Jeffrey Archer to Tony Blair. If there's a past that doesn't suit him, he invents another one. According to Campbell now, the famous 'we don't do God' line was all a trifling misunderstanding. And according to Blair now, his whole life, from childhood to Oxford to Number 10, has been informed by his faith. He used to say that he denied it because he was afraid of being thought to be 'a nutter'. Now he's changing his plea to one of undiminished responsibility by virtue of sanity."
Links in full
Please leave more useful links below - general discussion is off-topic.
As the Commons releases fresh expenses details, commentators give their insights into how MPs are dealing with the saga and their views on the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.
Former MP against getting rid of second homes, looking back at the time when he had to rent as an MP:
"We'll be back to the days of a century ago with a two-tier system of MPs - those living in style in Belgravia while others slum it in the rented digs to be identified from a list compiled by IPSA."
In the how the expenses fiasco plays out among his colleagues:
"We don't talk about any of this to each other. No one says how much they owe. I had hoped that the septic summer of abuse would mellow into an autumn of acceptance as the flow of abuse and the letters addressed to 'Dear Thief' dropped away."
The the latest revelations leave us in the same place as before:
"In terms of what needs to be done, the prescription remains the same. Where fraud appears to have taken place, the police must investigate."
The Quentin Davies' bell tower is an unwelcome addition to the "surreal" expenses claims by MPs:
"These latest revelations are further proof that it is time to ring the changes."
However, on the new powers held by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, the external authority tasked with policing the financial conduct of MPs:
"Some wonder if they are watching the evolution of a more accountable Britain - or a post-democratic one."
Backing this up, in the , who campaigned for MPs to release their expenses, does not welcome the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority:
"You don't make a system more effective by increasing the number of regulators. You improve it by making the lines of authority clear, simple and transparent so everyone knows exactly who is responsible for what. Instead the muddle is getting muddled. Even with today's government amendments, we still have the farce of duelling commissioners."
And finally, going through the new expenses claims, there is just some stuff we don't need to know:
"Just imagine receiving a receipt from a cleaning company that describes your sofa as 'full of crumbs and dirty' and condemns your carpet for having 'large spot marks and stains' - and then realising it would be made public."
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A selection of lines from parliamentary sketch-writers.
All eyes were on Alistair Darling as he set out the government's pre-Budget report.
the chancellor's demeanour was definitely one of calm:
"Mr Darling's deadpan delivery remains more dead than pan. As he droned, eyes struggled to stay open."
that Mr Darling was "untroubled" as he delivered his report but that he showed signs of panic as MPs jeered and heckled his talk of the government being in a "position of strength":
"He increasingly resembles the little pig who built his house out of straw, frantically picking up the stuff while the big bad wolf prepares the apple sauce."
that the language of the speech is deliberately unclear and complicated to make it difficult for anyone except Treasury economists to understand:
"The language, generally, is opaque, the better to confound the electorate. Up in the press gallery, reporters chew on ballpoint pens and frown with puzzlement. Same thing on the backbenches."
that despite the general air of doom and gloom in the chamber the prime minister was in a jovial mood:
"There was now £1.3 trillion of this and 5.9 per cent of that, and every point was a punchline making Gordon chuckle, laugh, smirk, grin, you needed a thesaurus of mirth to describe the PM on the front bench."
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Commentators make their conclusions about Alistair Darling's pre-Budget report.
The Alistair Darling's plans show that Labour is no longer fit to govern:
"The most extraordinary aspect of Alistair Darling's statement was its absurdly cavalier treatment of the deficit, a debt that is growing almost twice as fast as he predicted."
The one further saying yesterday the government gave up governing:
"His aim should have been that by the time he sat down everyone should accept that he realised the scale of the problem, that he had a plan to deal with it, and that this plan consisted mostly of spending reductions rather than tax rises. Sadly this turned out not to be his aim."
George Osborne thought that the pre-Budget report shows the power of a government:
"Wherever it lies in the polls, a Government holds most of the cards. It can make numbers say what it wants, it can use the power of executive fiat to stack tax on the rich and hand out cash to the poor, and it can deploy the weight of the state in its favour."
The that the budget was about the election:
"To his everlasting shame, Mr Darling ducked his duty and chose to put the electoral interests of his party before the crying needs of his country."
More encouraging, was the Alistair Darling may have been looking to the short term, in which case his decisions weren't bad:
"Amid awful circumstances, he did enough yesterday to secure a few not-entirely-awful headlines. This close to an election, and that far behind in the polls, that may be the best Labour could have hoped for from yesterday's PBR."
However, he doubts if Alistair Darling's reputation will ever recover from yesterday:
"He has now entered that small and select category - alongside Norman Lamont and Anthony Barber - of truly dreadful British Chancellors, those who have put selfish or factional interests before the country."
Said ex-Chancellor :
"Watching Alistair Darling yesterday was like stepping into a time machine. It was as if we were observing one of Gordon Brown's long-forgotten Budgets, from the time before the bubble burst and revealed the full extent of his catastrophic mismanagement of the public finances."
the increase in National Insurance may not play well with workers:
"Darling no doubt anticipated the howls of outrage from Canary Wharf; in electoral terms Labour should be more concerned by the anger expressed by Dave Prentis of Unison and how higher NICs will play in Middle England."
Added to this, the rise in taxes isn't enough:
"The problem, in a nutshell, is that you can't raise that much money from the so-called rich because there are not enough of them. The maths do not work."
by resisting wide-ranging cuts, Darling separates Labour from the Tories:
"Labour's 11th-hour decision to play the social justice card - even if its actions are still lagging well behind its rhetoric - may yet help it narrow the gap with the Conservatives."
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• Seumus Milne | Guardian | With cuts looming, the issue of who pays is paramount
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On the day of Alistair Darling's pre-Budget report, commentators ponder the best way to set spending plans to get the UK out of recession.
In the his evidence for the case against spending cuts:
"The simple truth is that slashing public spending prematurely, in the absence of private sector demand, could result in a second recession with unemployment benefits once again rising and a lower tax take. The great irony is that this approach would result in an even worse deficit in the long run."
the main criterion by which to judge the PBR will be its depth and detail in addressing the deficit:
"To achieve fiscal sustainability, the size of the State must now be reduced by abandoning named programmes and departments. Mr Darling must explain how and where."
The Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman that Alistair Darling will be respected if he makes the hard decision to cut spending:
"A generation ago Jenkins earned the nation's trust as he turned the economic crisis around. He told the truth. He made the rich pay their share. And he did the job in the national, not party, interest. Mr Darling and his successor, whoever it is, will have to lead the country through five years of hard economic slog. They won't go far wrong if they follow in Jenkins's footsteps."
only privatising large parts of the state will reduce public spending. He's frustrated by the lack of variety between the parties on their spending proposals:
"Depressingly, the Labour and Conservative spending plans for the coming years do not differ greatly - and nor can they if the grounds for disagreement are so narrow. We know from recent history that efficiency savings do not stop the growth of public spending."
economic growth will come irrespective of government policies, so the budget deficit is what the pre-Budget report should focus on. And this has a knock-on effect on policies regarding bankers:
"The place it has to go to borrow these hundreds of billions is the City; there is nowhere else. Yet it bad-mouths anything and anyone connected with finance. How bright is that?"
on what the pre-Budget report will tell us about Labour's manifesto:
"The politics again looks like aiming to create dividing lines. The leaks point strongly to bankers' bonuses getting hit, though with that having already generated headlines, I suspect there's another rabbit to be pulled from that hat - not least because bankers' bonuses isn't creating a dividing line."
Paul Staines, known as the political blogger Alistair Darling may announce a raise in VAT, which he expresses surprise at:
"If you are going to hit the low paid hardest with indirect taxes surely it makes sense to compensate them by raising the income tax threshold accordingly? Lower taxes for the low paid has got to be a vote winner."
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A selection of lines from parliamentary sketch-writers.
the appearance of Jill Pay, Serjeant at Arms, in front of the select committee looking into Damien Green's arrest and the police search of his Commons office. He compares her - "clerical efficiency made flesh. Tilly the Typist, eat your heart out" - with the image that her job title conjures up:
"three-Shredded Wheat types. Hands like spades. Voices like Windsor Davies (or even Ruth Kelly)".
in the House of Lords watching the new leader of Ukip, Malcolm Everard MacLaren Pearson, Baron Pearson of Rannoch, and wondering how the former Tory would get on with Mr Cameron's party these days:
"M.E.M.P.B.P.O.R has a set of views - being anti-gay, anti-Muslim and pro almost any form of hunting - which would curl the neck hair of Tory frontbenchers such as Georgie Oz, Andy Lans, Frankie Maude and others, some of whose names have been conveniently pre-shortened, such as Tess May, Bill Hague and Eric Pickles."
a single remark in the Commons during Work and Pensions questions to ask why the Speaker's wife, Sally Bercow, said what she said in a recent interview when she talked about drinking excessively and sleeping with strangers in her 20s:
"If there's trouble for the Speaker, it's not what his wife did then, it's what she's doing now. Slagging off her husband's party, attacking the leader of the opposition, and to keep her political ambitions alive she has to give an insane interview to reveal things any normal person would draw a veil - or burka - or great racing sail - over."
Commenting on the prime minister's speech on public spending cuts, Gordon Brown was wrong to talk about "smarter government" when what she thought was that "it was all just dumber and dumber".
"For instance, in his Smart New World, Gordo is going to be 'putting frontline services first'. But where else would they be?"
Any other business? In an article which seems to be a sketch in all but name, the PM's speech on public spending has little in it to get excited about, with the exception of Martha Lane Fox who was there with him:
"He [Gordon Brown] sees 'two competing visions', in one of which the wonderful Miss Lane Fox saves his career, while in the other we are dragged back into the dark ages."
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Commentators are deliberating the merits of yesterday's announcement by Gordon Brown of public spending cuts.
The disbelief that the plans will reduce costs substantially:
"Yet it is misleading for politicians - of any stripe - to imply that the present deficit can be substantially reduced through relatively painless efficiency savings. Fiscal consolidation will mean cuts not just in how the Government spends money, but in what it spends it on. This means that entire programmes will need to be delayed or abandoned."
The Gordon Brown's proposal to onlyu cut the highest-paid jobs is depressing:
"Yet every party clings to the fiction that most of these six million jobs are sacrosanct - that, come what may, 'front-line services' will be protected. This is not possible and it is dishonest to claim otherwise."
The the cuts as inadequate and motivated by pre-election political posturing:
"The fact he fails to acknowledge is that it's highly unlikely Labour will still be in power six months from now.
So his promises about the next four years are all but meaningless."
the cuts fail to cut the mustard:
"If you can neither tax nor borrow your way to oblivion, your only option is to spend less. Regrettably, this is not going to be achieved through cutting back on public sector excess, which is the fiscal equivalent of merely swapping your drinking habits from champagne to Prosecco."
believes there are big savings to be made:
"Some claim that public services are already highly efficient, yet the electorate instinctively doubts this. In polls, a clear majority now favours cutting expenditure instead of raising taxes, yet, at the same time, voters say that they want to retain good services. In my view this is not just an attempt by the public to have their cake and eat it. Voters know that more can be squeezed from the current cash."
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Commentators continue to argue the merits of a so-called super-tax on bankers before Alistair Darling's pre-Budget report on Wednesday.
The a fair taxation would include a windfall tax:
"For its part, Labour needs to remember that it is far easier to design a progressive tax rise than a fair spending cut. Second, the chancellor must not hold back from taxing the banks."
that the pre-Budget report will create some tension between Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling:
"It is at this point that one sees the inevitable difference between Mr Darling and Mr Brown. Mr Darling is thinking about the Budget, and rightly so. No doubt Mr Brown does think about the Budget, but he is responsible for Labour's performance at the general election. The polls are moving against Labour again, at least this weekend. All the steps that the Chancellor would want to take require either higher taxes or cuts in public expenditure."
The undecided whether a windfall tax would do more harm than good. Instead it urges Alistair Darling to make cuts elsewhere:
"Is it too much to hope that in this week's crucial Pre-Budget Report Mr Darling might begin that process by taking an axe to our bloated public sector?"
a tax on bankers "idiotic". Also in the the idea of higher taxes in favour of public spending cuts:
"The key lies in curbing the growth of government and by nurturing small and medium businesses.
Of course, we are doing the opposite. Government bureaucracy is out of control. Instead of lowering burdens, the Government is crushing businesses with higher taxes, charges, National Insurance contributions and quango-imposed bureaucracy. "
that Labour shouldn't appease bankers but should invigorate new industry sectors instead:
"A campaign to rebalance the economy, returning us to a 'make and do' Britain, ought to be central to the pre-budget report and what follows next year. Measures to help the low-carbon economy, such as encouraging electric cars or wind turbines, should be a top priority. This has far more traction than the nature and timing of cuts. Why? Because there is a glimmer of optimism about it. It's about something Labour has found itself almost unable to say over the past 18 months."
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A selection of lines from parliamentary sketch-writers.
After the excitement of PMQs, when Gordon Brown went on the class-war offensive, MPs and reporters returned to the chamber expecting similar scenes on Thursday.
of remarks by the old Etonian Conservative Sir George Young's about Harriet Harman's own public-school background:
"The (tea) pot was calling the kettle noir. How the Tories chortled. 'Declare an interest,' they shouted at Harriet, who looked very head girl."
"It was like watching two people attack each other with teaspoons, little fingers crooked."
But the leader of the Commons did a good job veering away from the whole class issue, using as many driving references as he can to describe events, referring to the car crash she was recently involved in:
"Hotwheels Hattie, as she is known to traffic cops all over southern Britain. The thinking woman's Jeremy Clarkson sped past a Lib Dem attempt to widen the discussion to forced labour and child trafficking without even stopping."
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Later in the Commons chamber, matters turned to Europe. the current minister for Europe, pointing out the length of time and number of attempts that the government has taken to get the right man for the job:
"The Labour Government has, in 12 years, gone through a whole cricket team of Europe ministers."
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After Royal Bank of Scotland directors threatened to resign over bonuses, commentators are discussing how the government should get involved in the affairs of the bank.
for RBS to be nationalised and for ministers not to give in to the threats:
"If the Government has any backbone, it must call the bankers' bluff.
Alas, what is clear from all of this is that Ministers are in a terrible muddle over RBS. They want the executives to continue to compete in the global marketplace, restore profitability and start paying the taxpayer back."
the debate highlights the need for a clear decision on whether RBS would be nationalised. However, it argues that this would be uncompetitive:
"... there seems little choice but for the Treasury to let the bank run itself as if it were still privately owned, sponsoring sports teams, treating lucrative clients to lavish hospitality, taking risks in its investment banking businesses and, indeed, paying big bonuses to successful traders, just as Barclays et al are allowed to. We may not like banks doing some or all of those things, especially the obscene bonuses, and that is why we need to regulate them all as a group."
for the government to call the bankers' bluff:
"If these people threaten to resign, the Government should jump at the opportunity to clear them off the board, with no need for compensation payments of any kind."
However the :
"The uncomfortable logic is that for the taxpayer to recoup its stake in RBS, it cannot allow the bank's rivals to scoop up all the talent. If the British Government is to get its money back from RBS then it needs the bank to be functioning effectively in the marketplace. So bonuses, for now, might be a necessary evil."
Anticipating Alistair Darling's pre-Budget report, the a windfall tax on the bank's profits. It says the only reason RBS has survived is because it received the biggest government subsidy in history:
"All the banks are enjoying unprecedented state support and all are set to pay big bonuses this Christmas. This is unearned money; the only sensible policy is for Mr Darling to impose a windfall tax on all of the banks' bonus pools in next week's pre-budget report - and put the money towards keeping youngsters in jobs."
On the other end of the spectrum, the the tax would be "killing the golden goose" and motivated by political rather than economic reasons:
"Labour has re-discovered its most unprepossessing anti-wealth instincts; bashing the bankers will be an important part of its envy-driven offering as polling day approaches."
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It was a particularly rowdy occasion at prime minister's questions on Wednesday where the big topics were Afghanistan and the economy.
Gordon Brown's performance to that of a triumphant army general, with his soldiers (aka Labour MPs) firmly behind him on this occasion. He chose class as his battlefield, one which he is expected to use in the next general election campaign:
"David Cameron was bombarded for having been to Eton.
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"Not entirely novel but, by jingo, it cheered Labour's parliamentary troops.
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"They behaved as though they were going to win the next election. Haven't looked so cheerful since the 2007 floods."
Gordon Brown had a renewed vigour at the despatch box:
"Gordon Brown was, as if by magic, back on big bruiser form, brimming with confidence, a man of the people who had found his voice again. It was as if the previous year had never happened. Indeed the previous two years.
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"'Alastair Campbell must be back feeding him one-liners,' said observers, in disbelief - it was as if they had seen a ghost - the Ghost of Gordon's Glorious Past."
When the debate turned to the subject of inheritance tax, the PM did not miss the opportunity to refer to Tory candidate Zac Goldsmith in his attack on David Cameron. As Robert Orchard describes it on Yesterday in Parliament:
"[Gordon Brown] was cock-a-hoop, confident he'd comprehensively turned the tables on his Tory tormenter".
Not everyone is of the view that the PM had done so well. As Simon Hoggart points out, he not only said that Spain is a member of the G20 (which it isn't) but he also got US actress Reese Witherspoon's name wrong:
"Mr Brown paid tribute to 'Renny Wutherspoon'. Scottish readers: don't hesitate to tell me this is the way it's pronounced in east Scotland, you English bigot!"
The Independent's Simon Carr has faint praise for the PM's performance:
"Gordon. Was. Actually. Quite. Good.
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"There it is. There you have it.
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"That's not just quite good compared with his usual. He was good enough to stop them talking about changing leaders."
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• Robert Orchard | Yesterday in Parliament
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David Cameron's proposed shake-up of the health and safety laws has got commentators discussing the merits and culture around the current laws.
On researching the story about children wearing goggles to play conkers, found that many health and safety stories have become myths, debunked on the Health and Safety executive's website. That got her wondering about David Cameron's motivations:
"It's almost as if Cameron is playing an elaborate double game, in which he makes a dim-witted, saloon-bar argument to one chunk of constituents, while giving a knowing, conspiratorial wink to his savvier supporters who know how to use a computer."
that it's the culture, not laws that are the problem:
"The prevailing safety culture closely resembles state censorship. It works most powerfully not in its actual application but in people's anticipation of its application, which is much, much worse. Its sin is not to be deliberately obstructive; it is to encourage large numbers of people to disempower others needlessly in a myriad small ways.
David Cameron's proposals as it sees the current situation as "insanity":
"Everyone knows that something has gone fundamentally wrong with the way health and safety laws are applied. They were introduced for very good reason: to reduce deaths and injuries on building sites and at other potentially dangerous places of work. However, a general duty placed upon employers in the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act has developed into a monster that devours common sense, discretion and personal responsibility."
David Cameron's "elf'n'safety gawn mad" policies are driven by ideology, not facts:
"Britain's health and safety culture is one of our success stories, bringing workplace deaths down to a record low and making us one of the safest places in Europe to work"
Among the Labour bloggers, Labour MP Kerry Cameron doesn't do his homework. She points out that the health and safety executive have said there is no ban on playing conkers and that a lot of the stories such as a library refusing to give out scissors are from Tory run councils. Meanwhile a pop at Cameron's priorities:
"So on a day when he could have contributed to the debate on Afghanistan, on the global economy, on the national economy pre-PBR, he comes out with a lot of vacuous nonsense cobbled together with a few Daily Mail cuttings, whose accuracy given the source cannot be taken for granted."
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David Cameron's speech on health and safety was the highlight of Tuesday's parliamentary proceedings.
, the Tory leader's speech at the think-tank Policy Exchange was little more than a list of "'elf and safety gone mad" anecdotes:
"First we had the classic of the genre: the children who had to wear goggles to play conkers. This is an oldie but goody. I could hear the tut-tutting.
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"Then we had the trainee hairdressers who were not allowed scissors in the classroom. Tsk tsk."
Mr Cameron "clearly wants to be the thinking man's Jeremy Clarkson" on the basis of this speech. Mr Hoggart also raises the subject of Europe, usually the culprit when it comes to any talk about unwanted rules and regulations, and the likelihood of its work being undone in future:
"Cameron speaks as if this will be possible. I suspect it is akin to promising bacon butties for our brave lads in Afghanistan, just as soon as we can dispatch flying pigs over there."
Alan Johnson's performance in the Commons on the extradition of Gary McKinnon to the US for hacking into the Pentagon. He says the home secretary came up against a difficult audience, even among his own party's MPs:
"Mr Johnson joked that he had never been called 'spineless and brave in the same afternoon' but the House did not laugh. Instead there was just a rather sticky silence.
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"Mr Johnson's normal bloke-next-door routine was not working. His own backbenchers were unamused."
Yesterday in Parliament's Sean Curran agrees with this version of events:
"He'd lost the popularity contest in the Commons and few MPs were willing to be convinced by his arguments."
the lack of any actual news in David Miliband's announcement on the British sailors being held by Iran:
"[T]he only thing to say is that there's nothing to say. Maybe David couldn't get Iran on the phone. Maybe everyone was off. Maybe when things happen out of the public glare they don't happen.
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"The Commons leapt to its role of scrutiny. Someone asked for an update. Miliband rose to say there was nothing updatable."
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• Sean Curran | Yesterday in Parliament
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Last night, Barack Obama formally announced he would be sending an extra 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. Commentators discuss the merits of the plan.
The the President's delay has cost lives and his announcement of extra troops is late but welcome:
"At last, President Obama appears to have learnt the lesson of the 2007 surge in Iraq. To get out, the US must first be prepared to get farther in."
The that France and Germany have not announced any extra troops. This is seen as further proof that an EU army would never get off the ground:
"The idea of an EU army was always a bad - if frightening - joke. Today, it is simply laughable. France and Germany should hang their heads in shame."
Afghanistan is more important than Americans think and calls this Obama's Churchill moment:
"The troop increase of 30,000, which will take the total number of US soldiers over 100,000 for the first time, is surely the most fateful decision of his presidency thus far, and its success or failure will go a long way toward determining his place in history."
Also in the what Obama failed to mention is what happens if Afghanistan's President Karzai fails to run a functioning government:
"That may signal a lowering of the bar on what defines success, the US satisfied perhaps with an Afghan government that can survive on its own. But even that's a challenging objective.
For now, a war-weary US is braced for more flag-draped coffins and deeply scarred loved ones returning home."
The the US commentators' reactions. Elsewhere on their site the Obama's time-frame unrealistic if the US is really going to leave a stable nation behind:
"Which means that the U.S. forces will either have to remain in Afghanistan for many, many years to come - with Washington being forced to send even more troops and increase it economic assistance to Afghanistan - or that the rising costs of the American occupation will ignite more opposition from the American public and lead to a humiliating U.S. withdrawal a la Vietnam that could prove to be detrimental to U.S. and Western interests."
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Gordon Brown's statement to the House of Commons that 500 more British troops will be sent to Afghanistan was the main attraction in Westminster on Monday.
the flurry of excitement in the chamber, especially among the fairer sex, at the arrival of the soldiers from 19 Light Brigade in the public gallery midway through proceedings:
"There was a tangible turbo-boost to the discussions in the Chamber. It was as though everyone was determined to put on a good show. This was a reverse of the usual carry-on when a politician visits an Army base and everything is given a fresh lick of paint."
Mr Brown does display military leadership, referring to him as "General Gordon" (or "General Gordo") throughout:
"The general's list of what we are accomplishing was ambitious to the point of fantasy (removing corruption, training up the Army, co-ordinating the entire globe, wiping out poppy cultivation) but there was little carping."
However, he doesn't have the ability to rouse an audience as a war leader should:
"Mr Brown's oratory can induce overwhelming feelings of lassitude in those who are exposed to it. He does not have the gift, so essential to a war leader, of raising the nation's spirits and making us feel that together we shall finish off that mad old bat Alky Ada."
His interpretation of the PM's pronunciation of the network controlled by Osama Bin Laden "making them sound like an eccentric great aunt who drinks too much" is .
Simon Hoggart in the Guardian says that this no longer applies:
"Al-Qaida is no longer 'Alky Ada', the drunken old aunt. She has become Al, Kay, Ada - a music hall act of the inter-war years."
Any other business? , at the Chilcott Inquiry where Sir David Manning, "one of the thousand and one knights giving evidence" was talking about a memo he'd written which indicated that the UK secretly supported regime change in Iraq.
"Wouldn't this get the Chilcoteers examining and cross-examining what that meant? On the one hand British policy was set firmly against regime change, on the other hand an official memo showed the prime minister actively but secretly supporting it. And here he was, the author of the memo in front of them, referring to that trip, that visit, that very dinner!
"The Inquiry didn't enquire. Maybe it was ungentlemanly to quiz about something that had been dishonourably acquired."
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Anticipating Labour's pre-budget report next week; commentators are comparing Liberal Democrat and Tory tax proposals.
Cameron's plans for marriage tax allowance, abolishing the 50p tax and raising inheritance tax allowance seem only to benefit his rich friends:
"Taken together, never in the history of postwar taxation will so many citizens be obliged to pay so much to so few."
The exception to the revelation that Tory candidate Zac Goldsmith is non-domiciled in the UK for tax purposes:
"This is not, as the Conservatives say, a minor and private matter. It exposes an obvious hypocrisy: that while the party preaches austerity, in practice that may mean austerity for everyone other than the rich."
While the Lib Dems' tax policies to the Tories', the Times leader column calls Vince Cable's proposed income tax cuts unrealistic and irresponsible. However, it does commend him on supporting property tax:
"These proposals have the whiff of the seminar room about them. Property taxes are electorally difficult. Tax cuts are practically impossible. That is not necessarily the criticism it sounds. The role of the third party is not to pretend that it is preparing for government. It is to make the other parties think."
Although the changes in the mansion tax policy, he thinks the new proposals are inconsistent:
"The latest proposal still flies in the face of one of the Lib Dems' touchstone ideals, that taxes should reflect people's ability to pay. To add insult to injury, the level at which the Lib Dems have waved that touchstone goodbye has been set arbitrarily for political reasons."
is more sympathetic towards the Lib Dems, slapping their wrists for changing their so-called mansion tax proposal so soon after it was announced, but congratulating them for egging on the government to be more progressive:
"Mr Clegg's plans are in distinct contrast with those of the Conservatives, who have unwisely made a cut in inheritance tax their main priority. They also challenge the current government to be bolder. In particular the increases in capital gains tax would provide an overdue rebalancing of tax between income and capital gains distorted by Labour's anxiety to foster investment."
the Lib Dems' tax policy is a "healthier" option than the Tories':
"Whatever one thinks of the inheritance tax brouhaha or the 50p rate for the super-wealthy and no matter how counter-productive one thinks those notions may be, the fact remains that Tory policy, in the case of the former, and Tory preferences, in the case of the latter, impact a tiny number of people."
Also at the the Lib Dems' proposal not to tax income until after £10,000 is a sellable policy - something the Tories are missing:
"At the moment, the Tories have a bunch of smaller policies -- abolishing HIPS, freezing council tax, only millionaires paying inheritance tax -- that by all acounts go down well on the doorstep. But they lack a big policy that defines the party to voters."
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