Simon Carr
The Sketch: Out with the old and in with the... old
Published: 19 December 2007
A new politics: that's what Nick is promising us. A new way of doing politics. Yes, a new and ambitious politics. There will be opportunity for all. Nobody will be held back. There'll be social justice. It'll be out in the country away from the Westminster hothouse. It'll be a listening politics, an ambitious politics listening to ordinary men and women. The reporter next to me turned off her tape recorder. And why not? If it's all going to be so new, why is he giving us the same rubbishy old crap?
The Sketch: Why Gordon is not what women want
Published: 18 December 2007
Bear in mind that the Prime Minister's support has collapsed among women. It's why backbenchers are going round with their bicycle clips on. Fear works in unpleasant ways, I agree. Now, ask yourself whether these refractory or disenchanted women can be wooed back to the Prime Minister's part, and if so, how? Language is important, obviously. Tone and manner counts. Content has its place.
Simon Carr: Pessimism is the only response to politics
Published: 17 December 2007
I've become less cynical about politics recently. It's a tactical retreat. You have to believe a bit, if you want to do more damage. Now, I'm less cynical but more pessimistic. There's an intractable problem underlying the set-up of representational democracy. It's the flocking. It's our flockable nature we can't get away from. Willie Donaldson alerted me to it, years ago, but I didn't realise that the low instinct had a higher application.
The Sketch: He wants the worst of both worlds. It's a Scottish thing
Published: 14 December 2007
He's mastered basic smiling, by the look of it, and now he's started on lounging. These are early days but it's going well. He leaned this way and that, he spread out his arms on the table, he slung one arm over the chair back. The Tories may be in trouble. They have relied on him crouching and rocking forward over his folded arms and chewing his nails down to his knuckles. But the Prime Minister may have stopped getting worse.
The Sketch: A stinging rebuttal Brown was not pre-prepared for
Published: 13 December 2007
"Pre-prepared", he kept saying. It sounded like a stutter but it was a solecism (he meant "prepared"). The PM said the leader of the Opposition "pre-prepares" remarks for use in the Commons. So when he used a pre-prepared remark himself it was very satisfying to see it come back at him so fast it took his ears off (along with the smile from his face).
The Sketch: Balls toys with the House
Published: 12 December 2007
The trouble with Balls. He knows too much. It makes him think he knows everything and omniscience is the first stage of madness. He may be in to the second stage already.
The Sketch: Much of Labour's law-making is just cleaning up its own mess
Published: 11 December 2007
An encouraging fact for cynics, sceptics and others of a treasonable nature. The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, passed to make much, much easier the repeal of regulations, has failed to repeal a single regulation in its first year of existence.
Simon Carr: However ill you are, don't upset the porter
Published: 10 December 2007
When we get a "care crisis" in the media, the letters columns fill up with two sorts of reports. The first give us saintly doctors, angelic nurses and bedpans you could eat you dinner out of. The second gives us Bladerunner hospitals and bedpans that you have to eat dinner out of. Both sets of experiences are true, I'm sure.
The Sketch: Hatty Harman's new dawn is a false one
Published: 07 December 2007
Harriet Harman's style as Leader of the House has had its admirers in the Sketch, but the new dawn she promised is as far away as ever. There are three problems with her tenure:
The Sketch: We're sated with the old scandals
Published: 06 December 2007
Wot, no new scandal? We don't like surprises like that. We're creatures of habit. We were expecting news that the Labour Party's overdraft had been paid off by some headline-worthy donor. Osama bin Laden, perhaps, to keep up with the scale of things.
The Sketch: Maude makes a mess of his moment in the spotlight
Published: 05 December 2007
The Government would have been pleased with that debate. The whips did well. Get in there, they would have said, make as much noise as you can, do that yelping thing, and the whooping, lots of barracking, and give us two volunteers to get your kit off – not you, Pound. Remember, we're fighting for the dignity of politics, the noble cause. Sion, you've been mud-wrestling with pigs, you kick it off.
The Sketch: Millions on spin won't save Harman from a kebabbing
Published: 04 December 2007
The fragrant figure of Hatbox Harman floated in at the end of Defence Questions. She must have been looking for inspiration. What her defence is going to be no one yet knows. The £40,000 that was undeclared in her campaign for the deputy leadership of her party is, on the face of it, indefensible. For a week now she's been slowly turning on her personal spit, and it looks very much like she will end up as the first Donor Kebab.
Simon Carr: I am serenely calm... right until I explode
Published: 03 December 2007
Age. It's not all consolation prizes and feather bedding.
The Sketch: It's not cash-for-questions, but this is sleazy enough
Published: 30 November 2007
I said yesterday the dodgy donor issue wouldn't run. So let me address this scandalously bad prediction in the normal way.
The Sketch: Cable to Brown: you've gone from Stalin to Mr Bean
Published: 29 November 2007
The scandals have knocked government business out of the news, and that worries them. But they're coming so often they're knocking other scandals out of the news and that worries us.
The Sketch: Beware the proverb: Divided we stand, but together we fall
Published: 28 November 2007
The PM was doing so well it was hard not to look for an explanation. No, not Prozac. I think, in retrospect, he was displaying the impregnable calm of a man who knew at a very profound level that he hadn't done anything wrong.
The Sketch: Dirty secrets and the evil that men do
Published: 27 November 2007
Dirty, dirty, dirty! Or in that way horrified mothers used to pronounce it: "Dutty!" Denis MacShane was lambasting men. Not all men, just the dutty ones. Dutty old men. Dutty middle-aged men. Dutty young men. These men who go to massage parlours were more than dutty; by the middle of his question they had become "desperately evil". No punishment is too harsh for evil duttiness. "Naming and shaming" is surely just the start. Denis wants any man paying for sex in a massage parlour to be named, shamed and (I think) prosecuted. It would be hard to let a "desperately evil" man go uncharged, when we're prosecuting women for reading out the names of the war dead in Whitehall without permission.
Simon Carr: Spare our children lessons in business
Published: 26 November 2007
So everyone wants to start a business. Schools are joining in the effort to make Britain the most enterprising country in the world. Here's some alternative advice for would-be entrepreneurs: don't do it. It's just too difficult.
Simon Carr's Sketch: Darling takes a dip in the Brown stuff
Published: 23 November 2007
I've heard of Freedom of Information but that was ridiculous. Maybe my own FoI request will be sent to me on two discs in the unregistered post containing every darkest secret in the Treasury. Then you would see some genuinely apologetic faces in the Commons.
The Sketch: Gordon's raving all right, beneath a sky full of chickens
Published: 22 November 2007
We all like a morality tale. But only if we're not in it ourselves. There's no telling how they turn out. Here's poor Gordon Brown right in the middle of one, and taking the starring role. Well, he applied for the role, he auditioned for it, he nobbled the star who already had it. He got the job he wanted so much. And he's no good at it.
The Sketch: Signed, sealed, delivered – a good name ruined
Published: 21 November 2007
I hadn't heard the news but there was clearly blood in the water. You could tell by the way the blood-seeking creatures started to gather.
The Sketch: Cable shows he's the leader his party lacks
Published: 20 November 2007
The worst thing was the Labour back bench pretending they knew what was going on. Nine-tenths of them have less idea of what a subordinated loan is than I do. How could we tell? Oh, by the way they were sitting. The way they laughed artificially at hostile questions. The way they barracked and jeered and behaved as though they were in private.
Simon Carr: If it's not outlawed yet, it soon will be
Published: 19 November 2007
The country's changing faster than we think. Here are some changes you may not have noticed:
Simon Carr's Sketch: A daffodil in their buttocks for three billion pieces of information
Published: 16 November 2007
It couldn't be true, that 53 pieces of information would be required before booking a ticket into Britain. That was reported in the papers as a new anti-terror measure. David Heath cast doubt on it in Business Questions. He said it was 92 pieces of information. If this is the case, the executive is going mad. It may be going so mad that it starts dancing in the Mall with daffodils waving from its buttock cleft. Thirty million journeys a year in and out of Britain with 92 pieces of information for each trip. That's three billion pieces of information. They're talking about travel queues that stretch from here to Jupiter. They're talking about concrete fortifications that we had in the Second World War when we were expecting Nazi parachute troops in St James's Park.
Simon Carr's Sketch: The iron fist needs all of its rivets tightening
Published: 15 November 2007
Watching Gordon Brown perform, one thing is clear. Being PM is much more difficult than he thought it was. I began to think he may need his rivets tightening soon, he takes the bumps very hard.
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