John Rentoul
John Rentoul: Our green lobby prefers selfish gestures and cheap posturing over political engagement
Published: 13 December 2005
John Rentoul: Dave? Terrific. (But he doesn't have a chance)
Published: 11 December 2005
John Rentoul: What kind of prime minister will the new Tory leader face in his deep-end baptism?
Published: 04 December 2005
John Rentoul: Let's get one thing clear about the pensions crisis. There is no pensions crisis
Published: 01 December 2005
John Rentoul: Adair Turner has a tin ear for practical politics. Brown and Blair will see him off
Published: 27 November 2005
John Rentoul: Tony Blair listens, all right. He just refuses to agree with what his party is saying
Published: 20 November 2005
John Rentoul: Two people will save Blair
Published: 13 November 2005
John Rentoul: This is not about the PM's authority. It is about his judgement
Published: 10 November 2005
John Rentoul: 'The PM's authority is leaking,' they cry, and certainly the floor is getting slippery
Published: 06 November 2005
John Rentoul: Blame the Prime Minister. He should not have brought him back so quickly
Published: 03 November 2005
He is a decent and honourable man who has made a mistake. Tony Blair, that is. His big mistake was to bring David Blunkett back into the Cabinet after the election six months ago. It was a touching act of loyalty to a friend and ally to give him a second chance so soon after he had been forced to resign for allowing his office to become involved in a case in which he had a personal interest.
John Rentoul: Come off it, Ruth. You've been in Tony's cabinet for 11 months. What did you expect?
Published: 30 October 2005
John Rentoul: Young, sunny David versus old, snarling Gordon: oh, that life were so simple
Published: 23 October 2005
John Rentoul: Hallucination and delusion
Published: 16 October 2005
John Rentoul: He's young, he's bright, he's Blair reborn. And the Tories know it
Published: 09 October 2005
Not many people know this, but Tony Blair is really a time lord. Not only that, but he is in the process of regenerating, like Dr Who, into a new body. Before the slightly disbelieving eyes of television viewers, the lines of 11 years of care are smoothing into peachy young cheeks, the hair is becoming a thicker, darker, boyish quiff. When he speaks, he sounds a bit different, several grades posher.
John Rentoul: Once Blair goes, anything is possible. Even an Old Etonian at Number 10
Published: 02 October 2005
What the Conservative Party needs is a Tory Blair. It needs niceness, exuded by a leader who is inexperienced, privately educated and vacuous. No wonder David Cameron has had a good week. On the other hand, the last thing the Conservative Party needs is a clone of Blair circa 1994. At the next election, it will be facing a Labour government led by Gordon Brown (or Charles Clarke or Alan Johnson), offering experience, classlessness and a solid record of achievement. No wonder Kenneth Clarke has enjoyed a surprising renaissance.
John Rentoul: The PM's speech effortlessly eclipsed that of the man who wants his job
Published: 28 September 2005
John Rentoul: Gordon is being a good boy. But he'll have to wait a while yet for his reward
Published: 25 September 2005
Tony Blair's tactic of pre-announcing his departure from No 10 has worked. John Reid and Alan Milburn, among others, strenuously argued against it. Sally Morgan, his chief political adviser who left Downing Street at the election, was among those who argued in favour.
John Rentoul: First take off your head. Then run round in circles. Now elect a leader
Published: 18 September 2005
Suddenly, all three parties are asking themselves how they should elect their leaders. (Four, if you include Plaid Cymru, which is currently having one of those spats that is so vicious because, as Henry Kissinger said of student politics, the stakes are so small.) The most obvious is the crisis of internal democracy in the Conservative Party, which announces the result of its postal ballot next week.
John Rentoul: We know far too much about Ken and see far too little of Charlie
Published: 11 September 2005
There are easy answers and there are right answers. The two big easy answers of the summer political season have been Kenneth Clarke and flat taxes. Our opinion poll today exposes the laziness of the assumption that Clarke is the obvious solution to the Conservative leadership conundrum. Two polls last week were hailed happily by the mainly pro-Clarke media as evidence that he was big box office.
John Rentoul: An intriguing thought - could Charles Clarke be the next leader of the Labour Party?
Published: 09 September 2005
John Rentoul: Unlike Clinton, Bush fails as priest in the modern ceremony of death
Published: 04 September 2005
George Bush has done it again. His initial response to the natural disaster that struck New Orleans and other parts of the Deep South was lamentable. It may not have been his fault that he was on holiday when the hurricane landed on Monday. Or that he carried on with a trip to Arizona, because the scale of the crisis was not immediately apparent and he cut his holiday short when it was. But then he bounced off the helicopter on the White House lawn carrying his dog under his arm (where was that little inner voice saying, "ditch the dog"?), and came across as an idiot in his address to the nation's television cameras. Partly, this is the trivial matter of the presidential smirk; he often looks as if he is smiling even when he isn't. But it was also his jarringly upbeat tenor. With every word contradicted by the television news pictures of hopeless squalor, he said: "I'm confident that, with time, you can get your life back in order, new communities will flourish, the great city of New Orleans will be back on its feet, and America will be a stronger place for it." The next day he made things worse by pleading with Americans: "Don't buy gas if you don't need it."
John Rentoul: Clarke was once the right answer. But the question facing the Tories has changed
Published: 02 September 2005
John Rentoul: Arrogant, presidential, isolated. The myths about Blair are set in stone
Published: 28 August 2005
I know it was 10 years ago, but I am still trying to understand what John Major meant on 9 February 1995, when he was asked in the House of Commons if he accepted it "as a responsibility of Government to reduce inequality". He said, "Yes," and sat down. The world wobbled briefly on its axis - there was, as Hansard records, an "interruption", which means some Labour MPs hooted in mock disbelief - and then everyone carried on as if nothing had happened. In other words, everyone carried on believing that the gap between rich and poor was growing, and that one of the main differences between the parties was that the Tories didn't care while Labour wouldn't do anything about it. I was reminded of this by a minor wobble in David Davis's Tory leadership campaign this summer.
John Rentoul: Those who promote or defend jihadist terror should be reported and challenged
Published: 25 August 2005
John Rentoul: Politics is not so full of personality that we can afford to lose more
Published: 21 August 2005
I once interviewed Mo Mowlam in a waste-paper basket. The first part of our conversation was carried on while she stamped up and down, trying to put out a cigarette she had thrown away when I arrived at her Westminster office. You could see why people warmed to her. As the eulogies to her have repeated over the past two days, the way she bore her illness with the same sense of high mischief that carried her through life endeared her to many people who expected to resist her charm. The effect on the stiff leaders of the Ulster Unionists when she asked if they minded her taking off her wig remains one of the more striking vignettes of the Northern Ireland peace process.
