Bright's Blog

The post-Gordon era is upon us. Some within the Labour Party talk about the Prime Minister as if he were gone already. Ministers avoid the subject where they can, and his old enemies are openly hostile. Tortured discussions among backbenchers twist around turning points and tipping points. Was it George Osborne's inheritance tax speech, the election that never was, or the 10p tax rate that really did for him? Will ... read more

I went yesterday lunchtime to hear New York state asssemblyman Rory Lancman talk about the Libel Terrorism Protection Bill at Policy Exchange. He is concerned that rich individuals are able to use the British courts to sue American authors even when only a few books have been sold in the UK. He used the example of Rachel Ehrenfeld who was successfully sued by Saudi banker Khalid bin Mahfouz over claims ... read more

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a Demos event refereshingly free of connections with the Islamic extreme right. The speaker was Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organising Without Organisations. Ed Miliband is a big fan of the NYU professor's work on the political implications of the internet, but it has yet to have a real impact on the political scene on this side ... read more

So David Davis now has a majority of 15,355 votes. And to think he was a candidate for "decapitation" in the last election.

With a turnout of 34 per cent, it would be tempting to agree with Home Office minister Tony McNulty that this was "a vain stunt that became and remains a farce". Although his majority increased by over 10,000 votes, Davis still had fewer people voting for ... read more

Since becoming a high-profle critic of Ken Livingstone (whatever did happen to him?) I'm sometimes asked what I make of Boris Johnson.

It's a bit early to tell, but the Ray Lewis saga suggests that the new Mayor should have reformed the processes in City Hall before appointing his advisors. A proper confirmation hearing in front of the London Assembly would have flushed out some questions about Lewis's past. ... read more

I was very uncomfortable about accepting an invitation to speak at IslamExpo this year. What appears to be a celebration of Islam is, in reality, a rally for a particular brand of Islam based on the thinking of the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-i-Islami.

I am particularly concerned about its connections to Mohammed Sawalha, the President of the British Muslim Initiative and a supporter of Hamas. Sawalha is the holder ... read more

This past week, I found myself hunting people traffickers and drug smugglers with the immigration minister, Liam Byrne, off the coast of Southampton. The crew of the Vigilant, one of five "cutters" that patrol this island's waters, put on a good show for the minister and assembled media. At one point, a five-man team of customs officers in a speedboat circled and boarded a yacht to check for traces of ... read more

Gordon Brown's speech on Britain's food storage habits was a strange political moment. Could this be his version of John Major's Cones Hotline: not a bad idea in itself, but somehow redolent of the man himself. When the Prime Minister becomes a red-faced motorist in a traffic jam it's demeaning of his office. The Steve Bell image of Major with a cone on his head was almost as iconic as ... read more

I rushed home last night hoping to watch the release of Ingrid Betancourt, the former Colombian presidential candidate held by FARC guerrillas for six years. The story had everything. Revolutionary terroists infiltrated by the Colombian army, government agents disguised as aid workers and the very human tale of a woman who wanted to lead her country almost crushed by years of captivity in the jungle.

Sky News at least ... read more

There was a curious story on page three of the Sunday Times at the weekend. With the headline "Universities told to favour poor schools", it concerned one of the most intriguing institutions created by Gordon Brown's government when it was still in its full honeymoon flush.

The National Council for Educational Excellence (NCEE), chaired jointly by the Prime Minister and his two secretaries of state, Ed Balls (Schools) and John ... read more

We interview Ed Balls the day after yet another terrible murder of a teenager in London. Sixteen-year-old Ben Kinsella was stabbed four times in the neck and chest following a party to celebrate the end of his exams. Kinsella was described as a model student who was likely to get a string of A grades at just the sort of inner-city comprehensive the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and ... read more

A fascinating spat is developing between Daily Mail columnist Peter Oborne and the Shadow Business Secretary Alan Duncan.

Writing in the Mail on Saturday, Oborne warned that the Tories' capacity for sleaze was not over. He suggested, for example, that Duncan's links to the oil trading company Vitol were worth a look.

Vitol are an interesting company. I once had a meeting with them during which I asked about ... read more