I’ve just watched President Bush’s State of the Union. Not a great speech although it did include some very welcome extra investment in green technologies. The one very strong part of the speech came with President Bush’s remarks on the wiretapping "scandal". The tenor of the remarks suggested that Bush is gambling that American voters […]
David Cameron has appointed Dame Pauline Neville-Jones to chair the party’s policy group on ‘national and international security’. The appointment of Dame Pauline is another sign of Mr Cameron’s embrace of the establishment. A career diplomat Neville-Jones played a controversial role in the Foreign Office’s 1990s Balkans policy. She is an opponent of ID cards […]
The flat-footed Peter Hain used Boxing Day to make an attack on Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary David Lidington’s opposition to the Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill. This Bill had been dubbed the ‘on-the-run’ bill because of its promise to provide unconditional amnesties to fugitive IRA and other terrorists. The bill has now been scrapped after Sinn […]
Washington’s Heritage Foundation has just published a paper by Dr Nile Gardiner and John Hulsman entitled "Britain’s Conservatives Must Reclaim the Anglo-American Special Relationship". The paper recognises "that the Conservative Party has returned as a force to be reckoned with" since David Cameron’s election and it also notes Tony Blair’s decline: "Blair’s days as Prime […]
David Lidington MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, has defended Conservative opposition to the Northern Ireland Offences Bill after the cabinet minister he shadows – Peter Hain MP – had criticised the Tory position. Mr Hain had used a interview with ePolitix.com (that appeared on Boxing Day) to say: "I think we are […]
Brendan Simms of the Henry Jackson Society has written an interesting article about David Cameron’s neoconservative credentials – a UK version of which appears on the Social Affairs Unit’s blog and a US-tailored version on the website of the left-liberal New Republic magazine. Mr Simms makes bold claims for Mr Cameron and there is some […]