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John Rentoul
John Rentoul is chief political commentator for The Independent on Sunday, and visiting fellow at Queen Mary, University of London, where he teaches contemporary history. Previously he was chief leader writer for The Independent. He has written a biography of Tony Blair, whom he admired more at the end of his time in office than he did at the beginning.
"The Independent's must-read man" - Daniel Finkelstein
You can contact John in the comments area or email him at j.rentoul@independent.co.uk
"The Independent's must-read man" - Daniel Finkelstein
You can contact John in the comments area or email him at j.rentoul@independent.co.uk
The John Rentoul blog, with its Questions to Which the Answer is No and incisive World Cup commentary ("Is that the game with 11-a-side and a round ball?"), is moving to the new-look Independent Blogs. You can find my blog here, or as part of the Eagle Eye group blog here.
So update your Google Reader, click the RSS feed, do whatever techie stuff you have to do.
Or follow me on Twitter, which will still carry links to my blog posts.
(It turned out, briefly, that the title of this post was number 337 in the very series to which I referred above, as the new Indy Blogs site was overwhelmed by a grateful public and promptly crashed.)
Photograph: Teri Pengilley
Number 336 in my series of Questions to Which the Answer is No is asked by Al-Jazeera English TV channel. If you want to hear a pointless shouting match between Hassan Issa, a Egyptian "former diplomat", who is under the mistaken impression that 1 million Iraqis have died as a consequence of the 2003 invasion (a wildly inaccurate figure to which I shall return shortly), and Brad Blakeman, a not necessarily ideal spokesman for a fair and balanced assessment of the Iraq war.
And number 335 in my series is asked by Alex Barker at the Financial Times. It is actually a rewording of a question asked by The Guardian's The Incredibly Secretive Police State Was Hiding Important Stuff From Us Unit, stuff which has now been published and of which we cannot make head or tail:
Barker answers the question authoritatively:
We're starting to get really interesting results our of the data now. This shows resource spending - which is what the government spends each month just keep things running. That spike at the end is in the run-up to the election. Are the two related?
Barker answers the question authoritatively:
Sorry to disappoint, but the answer is probably no.
Number 334 in my series of Questions to Which the Answer is No is asked by Left Foot Forward. Nor should they. I simply cannot believe the softheadedness of some colleagues who think it would all be jolly nice and pluralist if poisonous anti-Labour elements such as John McDonnell should be included in leadership election.
If he is wrong, he is wrong, and we should be relieved that there are fewer than 33 Labour MPs deluded enough to disagree.
If he is wrong, he is wrong, and we should be relieved that there are fewer than 33 Labour MPs deluded enough to disagree.
Number 333 in my series of Questions to Which the Answer is No is asked by frequent contributor Mike Smithson at Political Betting. Easy to misremember in retrospect, but the Foreign Secretary's resignation would never have dislodged Gordon Brown, much as it should have done. Brown would have dismissed James Purnell and David Miliband as embittered Blairites, and the bottom line in June 2009 was that Labour MPs did not want an early general election, which would have been the consequence of getting rid of Brown.
I thought Brown could have been ousted in the autumn, because then an election in May this year would have been soon enough. But the party lacked the ruthless instinct, and Brown also pulled back to striking distance - I never thought he would be capable of depriving David Cameron of a Commons majority.
Number 332, meanwhile, was asked, sarcastically, by Tim Montgomerie:
I thought Brown could have been ousted in the autumn, because then an election in May this year would have been soon enough. But the party lacked the ruthless instinct, and Brown also pulled back to striking distance - I never thought he would be capable of depriving David Cameron of a Commons majority.
Number 332, meanwhile, was asked, sarcastically, by Tim Montgomerie:
Does William Hague have a plan to stop arms smuggling to Hamas?
Number 331 in my series is asked by regular contributor Mike Smithson of Political Betting. Although, to be fair, he is simply repeating Tom Harris's attempt to rewrite history, in which he asked:
Forgive me for repeating myself:
Why didn’t Gordon Brown simply resign as Prime Minister on the Friday after polling day when it became clear Labour had lost?
Forgive me for repeating myself:
If he quit, for whom would the Queen send to form a new government?
It is his duty to remain in post until David Cameron and Nick Clegg complete their negotiations. As I write today in The Independent on Sunday, Cameron is likely to be invited to form a minority government on the understanding that the Liberal Democrats will abstain on the Queen's Speech and the Budget. But if Clegg's party will not agree even that, it may still come back to Brown to try to form a rainbow coalition (for example, Labour + Lib Dem + SDLP + Plaid Cymru + Alliance + Caroline Lucas = 323, which would be a majority if Sinn Fein do not take their seats and Labour provides two Speaker's deputies to balance John Bercow and Sir Alan Haselhurst).
Brown is not only entitled to stay in No 10, he is obliged to do so.
It is his duty to remain in post until David Cameron and Nick Clegg complete their negotiations. As I write today in The Independent on Sunday, Cameron is likely to be invited to form a minority government on the understanding that the Liberal Democrats will abstain on the Queen's Speech and the Budget. But if Clegg's party will not agree even that, it may still come back to Brown to try to form a rainbow coalition (for example, Labour + Lib Dem + SDLP + Plaid Cymru + Alliance + Caroline Lucas = 323, which would be a majority if Sinn Fein do not take their seats and Labour provides two Speaker's deputies to balance John Bercow and Sir Alan Haselhurst).
Brown is not only entitled to stay in No 10, he is obliged to do so.
Number 330 in my series of Questions to Which the Answer is No is asked by Jon Snow. I do not think he means it is the fault of the British because of the Balfour Declaration and all the rest of it. His bleeding-heart-ism is woollier than that: Why has the international community allowed the isolation of Gaza to continue?
This inevitably precedes the cry of anguished metropolitan leftism:
Why no word of, or from its special envoy Tony Blair?
Anyone who can be bothered, can check Blair's frequent comments on the situation in Gaza at his website.
Thanks to Iain Martin who, like me, is not at the Hay Festival.
Photograph: Reuters
Number 329 in my series of Questions to Which the Answer is No is asked (and answered, actually) by Charles Arthur at The Guardian.
Thanks to Arieh Kovler.
Thanks to Arieh Kovler.
It was number 287 in my series, asked by Charles Arthur a month ago:Has Apple really passed Microsoft in market value?
And now it has. Charles comments here. The New York Times reports:
In intraday trading shortly after 2:30 p.m., Apple shares rose 1.8 percent, which gave the company a value of $227.1 billion. Shares of Microsoft declined about 1 percent, giving the company a market capitalization of $226.3 billion.
The only American company valued higher is Exxon Mobil, with a market capitalization of $282 billion.
Number 327 in my series of Questions to Which the Answer is No is asked by Political Betting. Who did not see it on my blog yesterday and did not copy it. Number 328 is asked by Will Heaven of the Telegraph:
Did Tony Blair personally torpedo a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition?
This is a claim made by Paddy Ashdown, who has blamed David Miliband and now Blair for the failure of his preferred option in post-election discussions.
No doubt Andrew Adonis will put Ashdown right in his book on the five days of fruitless Lib-Labbery. But meanwhile allow me to explain.
By Monday night it was obvious that Labour, with or without Gordon Brown, could not guarantee to get a referendum on changing the voting system through Parliament. The Tories could.
Or, in words of one syllable: A. Deal. Could. Not. Be. Done.
