Tag: “Gordon Brown”

Yes that was me tweeting in German last night, digging into my modern languages education to remember all I could, and surprised how much that was. Truth is, as I am about to say to a conference in Berlin when I speak in English, French is the dominant foreign language in my head, and when [...]

Endlich, enfin, AT BLOODY LAST … Europe’s leaders are starting to realise that they might have to do something beyond enjoying the scenery in Davos to address the problem of youth unemployment. This morning’s Observer leads on the raising of jobs and the young to the top of the agenda for the upcoming EU summit. [...]

A word of advice for George Osborne before he delivers his economic statement to the Commons … and before anyone shouts at me ‘why are you helping HIM???‘ 1. He won’t read it, and 2. Even if one of his advisers does, he/she will be too busy to tell him, and 3. Even if they [...]

If anyone has had enough of my tributes to Philip Gould, I will not be offended if you surf immediately to another website. But I feel I should say something about his funeral yesterday, where a packed All Saints church in London W1 said farewell to one of the key architects of New Labour, and [...]

I was speaking at a dinner last night to businessmen and women who know a lot more about how the economy works than I do. So I was a bit alarmed to see how many were nodding along when I suggested that what was happening in the eurozone was, frankly, downright scary. Most situations described [...]

At least the economy is centre stage as Labour’s conference begins. It has to be. And finally, after a year of the main parties arguing over the size and scale of the deficit, and the speed with which it should be reduced, the argument appears to be moving to the much bigger issues that now [...]

It will be interesting to see whether George Osborne appears anywhere near a TV camera today. And it will be interesting to see whether he allows himself to be questioned. With the economy the most important issue on the government’s agenda, and with Osborne being the Chancellor of the Exchequer, you’d have thought he might. [...]

It has been widely and rightly recognised that Ed Miliband has shown real leadership in recent days. He has forced the pace on phonehacking, and the broader issues of media practices and culture which the Leveson Inquiry will now investigare. It has been equally widely recognised that David Cameron has had a very bad crisis, [...]

In 2009 I attended the wedding of News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks. The ceremony took place by a lake, at a country estate. I stood next to TV presenter Piers Morgan, while Paul Dacre, Daily Mail editor, was a few yards away. Rupert Murdoch was closer to the action. David Cameron hung back up [...]

Apart from his weakness over BSkyB, David Cameron – finally – said and did a lot of the right things in his opening statement at his press conference today. Once the questions got under way, however, the arrogance and the peevishness started to creep in. I know part of his defence of his poor judgement [...]