Martin Kettle's Blog, page 32
August 12, 2020
Kamala Harris for president in 2024? This might be Joe Biden's thinking | Martin Kettle
Such is the scale of rebuilding the US after Trump and Covid, Biden might already be futureproofing the Democrats
Joe Biden’s selection of Kamala Harris as his Democratic vice-presidential running mate in November’s American election is by turns audacious and cautious, radical and conservative, historic and same-old. Nevertheless, although there were several other qualified candidates for the role, Harris is likely to prove a smart choice.
You can see this, in a brief and minor way, by the tsunami of abuse and contempt from Donald Trump and his supporters that didn’t materialise after the announcement on Wednesday. With next week’s mainly virtual Democratic convention in Milwaukee days away, the vice-presidential pick was always going to open a window of opportunity for Trump to get into the Biden henhouse and make trouble. That hasn’t happened yet – though doubtless he will try. But it suggests Harris was not the pick Trump had been hoping for.
Related: How Kamala Harris's friendship with Beau Biden united her with Joe
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President Kamala Harris in 2024? This might be Joe Biden's thinking | Martin Kettle
Such is the scale of rebuilding the US after Trump and Covid, Biden might already be futureproofing the Democrats
Joe Biden’s selection of Kamala Harris as his Democratic vice-presidential running mate in November’s American election is by turns audacious and cautious, radical and conservative, historic and same-old. Nevertheless, although there were several other qualified candidates for the role, Harris is likely to prove a smart choice.
You can see this, in a brief and minor way, by the tsunami of abuse and contempt from Donald Trump and his supporters that didn’t materialise after the announcement on Wednesday. With next week’s mainly virtual Democratic convention in Milwaukee days away, the vice-presidential pick was always going to open a window of opportunity for Trump to get into the Biden henhouse and make trouble. That hasn’t happened yet – though doubtless he will try. But it suggests Harris was not the pick Trump had been hoping for.
Related: How Kamala Harris's friendship with Beau Biden united her with Joe
Continue reading...Wagner: where to start with his music
The German composer was the most influential musician of his era after Beethoven, reinventing opera and leading the way to musical modernism – yet his music’s association with the Third Reich leaves him with a complex legacy
Of all composers, Wagner remains the most controversial. No other classical musician arouses such fanaticism, for and against. Almost all of his important works are operas, a form that he reinvented, and the main ones are written in an unbroken span of music. They are also very long.
Continue reading...August 5, 2020
John Hume’s politics went far beyond Northern Ireland – his vision is as urgent as ever | Martin Kettle
His stubborn work of bridge-building and political compromise is exactly what the UK needs in this time of bitter division
It is more than 40 years since my first interview with John Hume. It took place in a smoke-filled bar in Derry after a boxing match. Up the hill on the Diamond, Derry’s central square, armed soldiers scampered from doorway to doorway to avoid the danger of sniper fire. Down in the Bogside, a pub bore the slogan Informers Will Be Shot. The IRA hunger strike was still two years in the future. Ceasefire was on no one’s agenda, let alone political agreement. But the first and main thing that Hume talked about that day was power-sharing and the road to peace.
Back then, half of his life lay ahead. Yet even then it was as if Hume carried a historic burden on his hulking shoulders. He talked quietly, I remember, and he measured every word. He explained what he believed was needed for Derry, for Northern Ireland, and for the island of Ireland. He wanted the different traditions equally recognised. He wanted them to accept each other within a shared political space. And he wanted them to make the best of it, together, for the common good, rather than turning every last issue into a zero-sum battle. Yet the way ahead seemed dauntingly impenetrable.
Related: I held John Hume in awe. His political bravery gave my generation peace | Séamas O’Reilly
Continue reading...Leon Fleisher: there's much more to the US pianist's career than tragedy | Martin Kettle
The 92-year-old, who died this week, is remembered for his eventual return after losing the use of his right hand aged 36 – but forgetting his masterful early recordings and inspiring work as a teacher is to do him a great disservice
Some may be tempted to describe the career of Leon Fleisher, the American concert pianist who died in Baltimore this week aged 92, as a deeply poignant one, and even as a tragedy. But that would be a huge misreading of his story.
Even so, there was indeed a tragic dimension to Fleisher’s long life. A child prodigy pianist and a pupil of one of the greatest of all keyboard masters, Fleisher had already climbed to the international pianistic heights when, in 1964, he found that the fourth and fifth fingers of his right hand were involuntarily curling up.
Related: Leon Fleisher, US pianist who lost use of his right hand, dies aged 92
Continue reading...July 23, 2020
The Russia report reveals that MI5 and MI6 have lost their way | Martin Kettle
The intelligence services’ mission is to ‘defend the realm’. Yet they failed to intervene over a threat to our democracy
If you listened to Boris Johnson on Wednesday, you would have got the idea that the Russia report was nothing but an attempt to subvert Brexit. But it wasn’t – in fact, the intelligence and security committee report is far more original and important than anyone expected. The real story it has uncovered isn’t even primarily about Russia. It’s about the UK intelligence agencies themselves.
Related: The Russia report points to wilful negligence by the British government | Dominic Grieve
Continue reading...July 15, 2020
Liberalism is fighting for its life. There is only one way to survive | Martin Kettle
Parties that draw on liberal traditions face a choice: find common ground, or keep on losing to conservatives
You can be forgiven for not knowing there’s a Liberal Democrat leadership contest going on. You can also, to a degree, be forgiven for not caring very much either. For the record, the candidates are the acting leader, Ed Davey, who is a green and a centrist, and the education spokeswoman, Layla Moran, who is more on the party’s left. The result, due on 27 August, is likely to be met with almost total indifference outside the party’s own ranks.
It isn’t hard to see why. The Lib Dems have not recovered from the 2010-15 coalition. A decade ago they had 57 MPs. Today they have 11. Hopes of a revival in the 2019 election proved fanciful. Foolish enthusiasm for an early election, the failure of the party’s Brexit revocation policy, Jo Swinson’s heavy-footed leadership and some bad seat-targeting combined to roll that latest Lib Dem bandwagon back down to the bottom of the electoral hill.
Related: Radical proposals in Lib Dem policy review suggest shift to the left
Related: Keir Starmer faces a daunting challenge. But opportunities beckon for Labour
Continue reading...July 9, 2020
Daniel Barenboim: 'If I could never conduct a live Ring cycle again, I don't know what I would do'
The pianist and conductor has been busy in lockdown, practising the piano and arranging a festival of new music. But his fears for the future of music pre-date the pandemic
It takes more than a global pandemic to stop Daniel Barenboim. The pianist and conductor is not merely one of the modern world’s pre-eminent musicians and public intellectuals. He is also one of those people who is temperamentally unable to let a crisis go to waste.
On the phone from Berlin, Barenboim admits the past few months have been a challenge. “I will have been making music in public for 70 years next month,” he says. “But in the last 60 I have never had so much time as now.” He has filled the gap by practising the piano at home, including a lot of works he has not played for decades. “I have enjoyed it tremendously,” he says.
Continue reading...July 8, 2020
Despite Rishi Sunak's statement, we still don't know what kind of economy he wants | Martin Kettle
The chancellor has been forced to spend for now, but he may revert to the low-tax small-state agenda the Tory faithful love
Rishi Sunak is now the most important person in the Conservative government, Boris Johnson included. This is quite an achievement for someone who has only been chancellor of the exchequer for five months. It reflects, in large part, the lack of competition from one of the least weighty cabinets of modern times. But it also reflects the severe damage that Johnson has done to himself during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Sunak has emerged as hard-headed, clear-spoken and on top of his brief. Thus far, he has proved himself equal to events. The contrast with Johnson on all levels is increasingly stark. Unlike the prime minister, Sunak does not bluster, bully, thump the table or make things up. Talk of Sunak as the next party leader is common, though this also reflects the low level of most of the alternatives.
Related: Summer statement 2020: the chancellor's key points at a glance
Continue reading...July 1, 2020
Johnson and Cummings are up to their old tricks: sleight of hand and scapegoating | Martin Kettle
Cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill is the latest fall guy in the pair’s ruthless coronavirus blame game
There are many reasons, some of them good and more of them bad, why Sir Mark Sedwill is quitting as Britain’s senior civil servant. Together they tell us a lot of important things about Boris Johnson’s government. Perhaps Sedwill himself will cast more light on his own exit at a Commons committee hearing next week. But the strange thing is that what looks to me like the principal reason for his departure has barely been mentioned at all, even though it is standing there in plain sight.
Related: Mark Sedwill v Dominic Cummings is a Whitehall call to arms | Jane Dudman
Related: Sedwill's exit seen as just the start of Whitehall revolution
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