The Mirror Crack'd

Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, has gone through the government's books and discovered a yawning chasm in the finances bequeathed by the Tories' shocking mismanagement. Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather! Who would have thought it? In truth it was largely a piece of parliamentary theatre as Ms Reeves stood at the despatch box in a severe charcoal grey business suit glowering at her predecessor opposite before very publicly eviscerating him. For his part, Jeremy Hunt glared back petulantly, chuntering throughout from his sedentary position, clearly outraged by such effrontery.  Both played their parts well; she the shocked discoverer of incompetence and conspiracy, he the innocent victim of calumny and defamation. As ever with these political set pieces the truth lay somewhere between the two of them, bleeding like a body in the library in an Agatha Christie thriller. Both knew they had had a hand in murder most horrid but neither was about to admit

Olympic opening ceremonies, what's not to like? Quite a lot, actually. They are usually overblown, overlong and at their best when, well, over. The Paris Games opening ceremony last night was no exception. It may have been a tour de force of the genre but, boy, did I want it to finish. In fact about halfway through would have been just fine. Obviously no one dared tell Thomas Jolly, the director, that less really can be more. I felt for my namesake, Jane Austen's Mr Bennett, "you have delighted us long enough". Still, with a backdrop as stunning as the City of Lights (sadly looking rather drab in the teeming rain - though better than a wet weekend in Wigan I suppose) why wouldn't you want to make the most of it? It was a bold decision but must have been a logistical and security nightmare to pull off.  It sort of worked but severely outstayed its welcome - the showman's motto is 'always leave 'em wanting more'. If only! It began well enough with a

I've just watched Joe Biden's televised valedictory address to the American people from the Oval Office officially announcing his decision to stand down as the Democratic Party's presidential candidate. It was a dignified and statesmanlike performance but it also showed quite clearly that the decision, whether voluntary or enforced, to stand down at the end of his term, was the right one. His voice was weak, he occasionally faltered, but he made it through to the end without further embarrassing mishap. However, it was quite clear that his physical strength, never exactly robust, is waning and his faculties may be impaired.  Whatever the reality, it was glaringly apparent that another four years in the White House would have been an impossibility for Biden. He looked frail and vulnerable, which is emphatically not the image a sitting US President needs to project to the world, much less when he is also going into an election as a Presidential candidate. Biden may go on to l

Politics can be a grubby, messy, transactional, sometimes vicious business but senior politicians engaging in tough tactics will claim they are doing it for the greater good; that the end justifies the means. But it's a slippery slope, and never more so than when the party in government commands a massive majority. Labour's landslide victory in the general election of 4 July means it can, in theory, do more-or-less anything it wishes, provided it can find the money for it. And that's a big proviso: Labour's tight fiscal rules and relatively narrow set of manifesto commitments act as a self-imposed straitjacket.  Just as Tony Blair's New Labour government in 1997 shackled itself to Tory spending commitments for two years - and in so doing arguably lost precious momentum - it's as if, after years in opposition, the party daren't be too bold for fear of alienating the electorate. Their motto might almost be 'don't frighten the horses'. Such timidity

Begoña begins the beguine Spain in English carries a report that a   court in Madrid will hear a case against Begoña Gómez on Friday on suspicion of ‘influence peddling and corruption’. In case the name doesn't sonar una campana Ms Gómez is the wife of Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez. The case, brought at the behest of rightwing political parties PP and Vox (Mr Sánchez leads the socialist PSOE party - odd, that), has been dismissed by a government spokeswoman as "trumped up" . ¡Santa mierda!  That man gets everywhere. Parked Despite all the pomp and ceremonial of today's State Opening of Parliament, the former Mrs Parker-Bowles, aka The Queen, was unceremoniously pulled into a siding as her husband (that would be The King) swept by with his long train on the way out. I'm sure the Arab princes looking on at this set-piece of Western democracy in the Mother of Parliaments will have approved of the submissive wife following three paces behind her man. So much

As I sit here on an island just off the coast of North-West Africa I can't help pondering the future of that vast and seemingly unknowable continent, so near and yet so far. I'm writing this in Tenerife, one of the eight Canary Islands forming an archipelago off the coast of Morocco and Western Sahara - tantilisingly close and yet a world away from the 'mainland' of continental Africa. As an Autonomous Community of Spain, the Canaries form an outpost of the European Union (EU). Yet, despite their proximity to Africa, their outlook, politically, culturally and economically, is resolutely European. Africa may as well be Mars, though only a narrow gulf of the Atlantic Ocean separates these offshore islands from their continent. I say resolutely European but that resolve may, little by little, be weakening. There is a growing sentiment, especially, though not exclusively, amongst young Canarians, that they have been sold a pup. True, the economy is superficially buoyant, du

Last October I wrote of the parlous state of our prisons ( Prison doesn't work ), since when things have reached, if not passed, breaking point. The new Labour government is scrambling to implement a policy its predecessor Tory government had already agreed prior to the general election - namely the immediate early-release of around ten thousand non-dangerous prisoners to relieve prison overcrowding. Acknowledging that this was not without risk, the new Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood MP,  painted an apocalyptic picture of the likely societal upheaval if this urgent action wasn't taken. However, this can only be a stopgap measure, offering temporary respite. Once the intolerable pressure on the prison estate is slightly relieved the serious work of reforming the whole system must get underway. The problem is, where to start? Well, somewhere would be good. Unfortunately, it's just another of those 'everything, everywhere, all at once' problems facing this new go

Bring it on I've never been under any illusion that (with the notable exception of Margaret Thatcher) systems run by women are anything other than a jolly good thing. As if to dispel any residual doubt my recent trip to Tenerife has proved the point. Our flight manager, Michelle, was an indomitable African-Caribbean no-nonsense lady who ran a tight ship. Her initial announcement that misbehaviour and bad language would not be tolerated on her watch, and that perpetrators faced arrest on arrival, set the tone for a placid trip. Having got through the chaos of entry on arrival - a process notably (mis)managed by an entirely male team - our bus driver was a woman, who handled a packed vehicle with admirable aplomb. On arrival at Santa Cruz our taxi driver was also a woman. In this macho culture we knew we were in safe hands. Hail to the Veep Despite what Joe Biden now appears to believe, his Vice-president is not Donald Trump but Kamala Harris. Ms Harris is one of the three women surr

Emily knows Poor Emily Thornberry, you have to feel sorry for her. She spends eight-and-a-half loyal years in the shadow cabinet -  the past three as shadow Attorney General - only to be pipped to the post by some KC bloke who hadn't even had to go to the bother of getting elected but was parachuted into Starmer's government via the Lords. She tweeted (or Xed) that she was "very sorry and surprised" at having been rejected but wisely didn't do a Braverman and burn her bridges. She's probably seen as a bit of a loose cannon after sneering at folk flying St George's flags and messing up her figures on live TV. Still, she's the only member of Starmer's shadow front bench team I could have imagined wanting to go for a drink with. The offer is open. Biden their time Meanwhile, across the pond things are getting really tough for Joe Biden after his disastrous head-to-head with Donald Trump on live TV where a stunned nation saw their 81 year-old incumbent

Everyone remembers the Brexit referendum of 2016, many recall the Scottish Independence referendum of 2014, but the 2011 United Kingdom Alternative Vote (AV) referendum had largely disappeared from the collective memory - until now. Proportional Representation (PR) is back in the news following the recent general election, which delivered the Labour Party a landslide majority of parliamentary seats on 34% of votes cast. Initially, there was a widespread sense of relief, if not exactly jubilation, at having finally rid ourselves of the austerity and chaos of fourteen years of successive Conservative-led and -majority governments. But now the results have been digested the manifest unfairness of the First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) system - one shared in Europe only with Belarus apparently - is causing some dismay. And quite rightly The most glaring dis-beneficiaries of FPTP in this election have been Reform UK and the Greens. The Electoral Reform Society claimed the 2024 result was “the most