The commentators 02-10-15...on politicsGeorge Osborne may be coming to regret his plan to lead the campaign for Britain to stay inside the European Union. The Chancellor is now the clear favourite to succeed David Cameron and, thanks to Labour’s implosion, win the next general election. He has even started world tours, like a young regent preparing for coronation. But he also believes he needs to prove himself: to go into a battle and win. A while ago, he decided that this battle should be the EU referendum, so he took personal charge of renegotiating the terms of British membership. It was a gamble that now threatens to destroy him
- Fraser Nelson, Daily Telegraph It is going to require big, authoritative performances from both Cameron and Osborne this week in order to hold the line on Europe, not least because the issue has the potential to drag the Tories to the right and subvert their one-nation and centre-ground claims. The energy in the referendum debate, for both “in” and “out”, is currently all on the Tory side. For those who see Britain’s future in Europe, this is an increasingly alarming prospect
- Martin Kettle, The Guardian The Tory poll lead might be smaller now if voters were being asked to choose between Osborne and Corbyn, not Cameron and Corbyn, and the chancellor is self-aware enough to know that. It’s still unclear whether he is dead set on the job or content to be the power behind another throne. But then at this stage, the moths don’t necessarily need to know. Right now, they’re just doing what moths do; flapping blindly in circles, searching always for the next point of light
- Gaby Hinsliff, The Guardian It is the defining battle of modern British politics. On one side stand the Blairites, self-styled modernisers of the party who want to reform public services and make markets work in a more compassionate way. On the other stands the vanguard of the traditionalists, more atavistically connected to the party they believe, in its heart, to be theirs. Welcome to the Conservative party conference
- Philip Collins, The Times Jeremy Corbyn will not become prime minister and his new old Labour is a shambles. This is conventional wisdom. It is probably right. But he and his colleagues are taking on outworn shibboleths. That is a good thing. Mr Corbyn and John McDonnell, his shadow chancellor of the exchequer, have, for example, put together a brains trust of seven left-of-centre economic advisers. That is what the UK opposition party should have done in the last parliament. It has to move on from New Labour. This is the time to develop ideas on how to achieve the party’s priorities of faster, more widely shared growth
- Martin Wolf, Financial Times Corbyn needs to get to grips with the mainstream media. Shunning Andrew Marr and the Sun is not a strategy that will lead to electoral success.
But the Press, too, must rethink. If people are offended by Corbyn's singalong choices or dress sense, it is fair that they are reported. If his oratory leaves something to be desired, it is fair that that, too, is commented upon. But let's get this into perspective. Those are side issues; the first job of the Press is to report the news, so when a new leader makes his first important setpiece speech, it would be good if newspapers told us what he said rather than what they thought - Editor's blog: All singing from the wrong hymn sheet Comment Awards, 2015Thursday 17 September, 2015 The Financial Times and The Times again lead the way in this year's ei Comment Awards, with eleven nominations apiece in the shortlists announced today.
Sathnam Sanghera is responsible for four of those Times nominations - featuring in the media commentator, diversity, technology and individual comment piece categories. Freelance Yomi Adegoke who founded Birthday Magazine for black teenage girls, is among four writers shortlisted in two categories - in her case young commentariat and media commentator. George Monbiot of the Guardian completes the media line-up and is also nominated as science commentator and Gillian Tett of the FT is listed in both business and economics. Her colleague Janan Ganesh is shortlisted for political commentator and the big prize - commentariat of the year, where he is up against the two most recent winners David Aaronovitch (also nominated for comment piece of the year) and Caitlin Moran. SubScribe is honoured and surprised to find a place on the individual blogger shortlist, and fully expects to come third behind Barrister Blogger Matthew Scott and Stuart Forster of Go-eat-Do. You can see all the shortlists here. Comment archive, 2015 |
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