Martin Kettle's Blog, page 27
June 2, 2021
Never deferential, open to all – how the Good Food Guide democratised dining | Martin Kettle
Founded by a socialist who believed good food was a universal right, it will be sorely missed
In the wider scheme of things, and amid so much devastation from Covid, it may seem frivolous to get indignant about the closure of a venerable national publication. Times and priorities change, after all. Tastes and markets alter. Each year, long before Covid, many other publications have died too.
Yet the passing of the Good Food Guide, which was quietly announced last week by its current owner, Waitrose, was a cruel and avoidable death with wider resonance for British life and social history. The annual guide to this country’s best places to eat was in good commercial health as its 70th anniversary approached. As restaurants rebuild, if they can, after the pandemic, the guide’s public service role would have been more important than ever.
Related: Family food radiates joy and memories far beyond the taste of each meal | Alison Rourke
Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...
May 26, 2021
Lone wolf Dominic Cummings continues to howl at the system | Martin Kettle
Cummings’s select committee diatribe blamed everyone in government as incompetents in the grip of groupthink
Dominic Cummings’s marathon appearance in front of MPs on Britain’s coronavirus response was by some distance the most extraordinary Commons event of its kind in a decade. There has been nothing to match it since Rupert Murdoch was finally compelled to give evidence to a select committee on phone hacking, back in 2011. In some ways, though, the two events were important for the same reason.
In both cases, here were immensely powerful men – dethroned in Cummings’s case, throne tottering in Murdoch’s – going through the elaborate pretence of public contrition in front of a governmental body that, at heart, they despised. In both, the glimpses into their minds were compelling. But, in both, the apparent penitent submitted to the process for a similar reason – the hope of emerging to resume their respective crusades against the liberal order.
Related: Dominic Cummings says Covid chaos at No 10 was like ‘out-of-control movie’
Continue reading...May 19, 2021
How quickly Boris Johnson’s triumph has given way to doubt and instability | Martin Kettle
Covid, Cummings and confused messaging are fast taking the shine off the prime minister’s election victories
Treachery, the crafty French diplomat Talleyrand argued, is largely a matter of dates. Boris Johnson, who is no less of a political cynic than Talleyrand, would be wise to remember that this may also be true of triumph. It is only a fortnight since voters flocked to Johnson’s Conservatives in England’s local elections. At that moment, Johnson commanded the political scene, apparently untouchable, to the despair of his opponents.
Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...LSO/Rattle review – a spine-tingling reminder of the live sounds we have missed
Back in the Barbican before a live audience, Simon Rattle and the LSO chose a celebratory programme of Britten and Dvořák, interspersed with Fauré’s more reflective Pelléas et Mélisande Suite
If ever a musical occasion mattered more than the music itself, here it was. Social distancing meant the hall could not be completely full on Tuesday afternoon for the London Symphony Orchestra’s post-pandemic return. But the mere public address announcement “Welcome back to the Barbican Hall” drew loud and prolonged cheering from the LSO’s first audience in 14 months, as well as answering applause and waving from the players themselves. For everyone, it was good to be back.
“I never speak before concerts,” said a beaming Simon Rattle as he took to the podium, microphone in hand, “but if there was ever an occasion to break the habit of a lifetime, here it is.” The sense of grateful reunion was palpable throughout, even if the cold truth for the LSO and London is that Brexit and reduced arts spending mean Rattle is soon to relocate back to Germany at the head of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Continue reading...May 12, 2021
That wasn't quite the resounding Conservative election victory it seemed | Martin Kettle
Johnson dominates English politics. But the incumbency effect, and diverse progressive vote, can’t be discounted.
Britain’s 2021 local and devolved elections can be summed up in three statements. The first is that good results for the Conservatives conceal more problems for them than meet the eye. The second is that the results should not cause the Labour party to panic. The third is that Labour has, nevertheless, panicked.
It can’t be stressed too strongly that these elections were unique. They have taken place as the pandemic emergency appears to be nearing its end. This has been achieved by a pacesetting government- and NHS-led vaccination programme, that is hugely and rightly popular. Other things being equal, incumbents were always in a position to do well in these circumstances.
Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...April 28, 2021
Arlene Foster has been thrown to the wolves by Johnson’s Brexit games | Martin Kettle
Northern Ireland’s first minister has paid the price for believing the promises of the hard Brexiteers
If 23 out of your 27 devolved assembly members, plus four of your eight Westminster MPs, along with lots of your local councillors and party members, have all signed letters calling on you to resign, then politically speaking, you are already toast. This was Arlene Foster’s unhappy fate, duly confirmed today. For the Democratic Unionist party leader and Northern Ireland first minister, it is the end of the road.
Foster’s ousting has many causes and it will have many consequences. It is also an event without local precedent. Remarkably, the DUP has never in its history had a leadership contest (nor, of course, has its rival, Sinn Féin). The DUP’s no-surrender founder, Ian Paisley, led the party into a power-sharing government without being seriously challenged. His successor, Peter Robinson, survived a marital crisis without losing his grip over his socially conservative party. Foster also toughed out the “cash for ash” renewable energy scheme scandal, which shut down the Northern Ireland assembly for three years from January 2017.
Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist
Join a Guardian Live discussion on the growing tensions in Northern Ireland in a livestreamed event, with the Guardian’s Rory Carroll and Lisa O’Carroll, the DUP’s Carla Lockhart and the Alliance party’s Naomi Long. Thursday 13 May, 7pm BST (8pm CEST, 11am PDT, 2pm EDT). Book tickets here
Continue reading...April 21, 2021
An electoral fix alone won’t save Britain’s progressives. Agreeing principles might | Martin Kettle
The death of Shirley Williams is a reminder that balancing capitalism and social justice is still the key task we face
To the end, Shirley Williams always described herself as a democratic socialist. In her 2009 autobiography, easily one of the best political memoirs of her generation, she describes a lifetime spent “trying to hammer out a compromise between capitalism and social justice, a compromise that might attract enough public support to be viable”. It is a carefully constructed sentence that still defines the key task facing progressive politics in modern democracies.
Yet Williams, who died on 12 April aged 90, has now gone without achieving her goal. The compromise that might have attracted enough public support to be viable eluded her to the end. In the same way, it has also eluded many other progressives, not just of her generation, not just of her party, and not just in Britain. But it is a dream that refuses to die.
Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...April 14, 2021
Westminster neglected the union for decades. No wonder it’s crumbling | Martin Kettle
If he refuses a referendum that Scots have voted for, there would be no lawful way to leave the UK. The implications are huge
Three weeks from now, if opinion polls are correct, the Scottish National party will win another term as Scotland’s government. It will do so armed with a mandate to hold a referendum on independence. Elections, of course, retain a glorious capacity to surprise. But it is a mark of the slovenliness of Boris Johnson’s government that its strategy for avoiding the breakup of the United Kingdom is now reduced to two words: fingers crossed.
Related: PM will allow second referendum if SNP wins, says Sturgeon
Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...Tories grapple with Greensill scandal: Politics Weekly podcast
Jessica Elgot and Martin Kettle run through the week’s biggest stories, including the growing Greensill scandal. Rory Carroll and Naomi Long discuss what’s happening in Northern Ireland. Plus, Aubrey Allegretti previews that all-important byelection in Hartlepool
David Cameron finally responded to the story that broke a month ago, that he lobbied current ministers on behalf of the lender Greensill Capital, which recently collapsed. Then on Tuesday we learned that one of Britain’s most senior civil servants began working as an adviser to the finance firm while still serving in Whitehall, with the approval of the Cabinet Office. So, how will the government get through this mess?
Rory Carroll spoke to the Northern Ireland justice minister and leader of the Alliance party, Naomi Long, about what political leaders need to do in response to the riots that broke out last week.
Continue reading...April 11, 2021
Letters: Martin Woollacott obituary
Martin Woollacott showed great kindness to younger colleagues. In the macho world of Vietnam’s western journalists, he was encouraging of my plan to go there, when I was introduced to him in London, and then supportive in Saigon, where mocking and patronising was the default response of others.
As foreign editor of the Guardian decades later, he gave me the opportunity to travel to many places, including China and India for landmark conferences of women and of the Non-Aligned Movement.
Victoria Brittain
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