Martin Kettle's Blog, page 61
December 1, 2016
It won’t be easy to stop Brexit. But here are four ways to do it | Martin Kettle
Those of us with only a smattering of knowledge about the ancient world know one thing about Cato the Elder. During Rome’s long wars against Hannibal, Cato ended every speech in the senate with the same words: “Carthage must be destroyed.”
“Brexit must be stopped” is unlikely to last as long as Cato’s catchphrase has managed to. But it focuses the mind. Those who think Brexit must be stopped are not the majority. But they have a case and a cause, and they are right. So how might stoppage be achieved?
When inflation rises and growth slows next year, make sure Brexit’s role is clearly spelled out
Related: Tony Blair: Brexit could be stopped if Britons change their minds
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November 30, 2016
Mahler Chamber Orchestra/Uchida review – outstanding, crystalline Mozart
Royal Festival Hall, London
Conducting from the piano, Uchida’s alert phrasing and integration with the other instruments was totally absorbing, allowing the Mahler’s players to shine
In 2015, the elite players of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra set the bar high in a much-lauded Beethoven concerto project, with Leif Ove Andsnes directing from the keyboard. A similar combination of the MCO and Mitsuko Uchida promised Mozart concertos of equally high distinction and in this outstanding concert they were, if anything, even better.
Few pianists are better exponents of the modern style in Mozart than Uchida, with her constantly alert phrasing and crystalline touch, while the responsiveness of the MCO, playing on mainly modern instruments but in a historically informed manner, was never less than absorbing. With her back to the audience, and directing the orchestra as though she was playing some enormous piano, Uchida had the woodwinds in her direct line of sight in Mozart’s G major Concerto K453 and the more grandly conceived and orchestrated C major K503. The rewards were fabulous, as Uchida combined with Chiara Tonelli’s flute, Mizuho Yoshii-Smith’s oboe and Fredrik Ekdahl’s bassoon so compellingly that the surrounding string playing felt at times almost incidental.
Continue reading...November 24, 2016
Brexiteers will trash anyone who gets in their way | Martin Kettle
The Office for Budget Responsibility shines like a good deed in a naughty world. It was created as an independent statutory body in 2010 to promote more trustworthy government. It was an excellent idea, was widely welcomed and has worked well. It has survived six and a half years. Now, though, it has been kneecapped in a back alley by Brexit provos and its brand has been trashed in the anti-European press’s embrace of post-truth politics.
It may survive the encounter. Let us hope that it does. But this week’s hit-and-run attack means the age of OBR innocence is over. Its cautious forecasts about the impact of Brexit on the British economy had barely been reported by Chancellor Philip Hammond on Wednesday before Brexiteers decided the OBR had to be done over for displaying insufficient optimism in the cause.
Related: Philip Hammond admits Brexit vote means £122bn extra borrowing
Continue reading...November 23, 2016
How will the autumn statement change Britain? Our panel’s views | Matthew d’Ancona, Martin Kettle, Gaby Hinsliff, Aditya Chakrabortty and Polly Toynbee
Our writers give their reaction to chancellor Philip Hammond’s first autumn statement
Related: Autumn Statement 2016: Hammond unveils £122bn Brexit black hole - live
Related: Philip Hammond admits Brexit vote means £122bn extra borrowing
Related: Key points of the autumn statement – at a glance
Continue reading...November 17, 2016
MPs can now see off hard Brexit. The ball is in their court | Martin Kettle
Karl Marx made a much-quoted remark about history repeating itself first as tragedy and then as farce. But Theresa May’s government is turning Marx on his head in its European policy. In its handling of Brexit, it is starting with the farce. Only later will we get to the tragedy.
The farce is being provided courtesy of foreign secretary Boris Johnson. In some ways, Johnson is the leaver in whom pro-Europeans should have most hope. He is not a diehard anti-European. Unlike many Brexiteers he does not dislike foreigners. As a former London mayor, he knows perfectly well that the capital city is what it is because it is open and diverse.
The Conservative party is too ungovernable to coalesce around any practical proposal. Into that vacuum comes Johnson
Related: May defends EU plan as Corbyn accuses her of Brexit shambles
Continue reading...November 10, 2016
It’s easy to hate Donald Trump – but essential to learn from him | Martin Kettle
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The American election feels like the upending of the previously familiar political world because that’s what, in many respects, it is. But not in all respects. It is very important not to exaggerate or to over-generalise what the election of Donald Trump means. Only by not exaggerating and not over-generalising can we understand the true and specific seriousness of what is really happening. One of the things that has happened this week is, after all, very traditional indeed. Since 1950, America has had seven two-term administrations: those of Eisenhower, Kennedy-Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, George W Bush and Obama. Only once – when George Bush Sr was elected in 1988 – did the outgoing president’s party get its candidate returned to the White House. The other six times they failed. After eight years of the same party in power, Americans tend to vote for change, as they did on Tuesday. That looks like an established pattern to me.
Similarly, it makes good headlines to treat Trump’s win as a tsunami of the ignored that overwhelmed the established and complacent. Again, in some respects that is true. But be careful. It hardly squares with the result of the popular vote, in which Hillary Clinton got more votes than Trump this week, only the second time in the past 100 years that a winner has trailed his rival. Nor does it easily explain why Trump, who was supposed to be bringing squadrons of new voters to the contest, actually polled fewer votes than Bush in 2004, John McCain in 2008 and even Mitt Romney in 2012.
Related: One-party control of Washington hands Trump enviable power
Related: The real 'shy Trump' vote - how 53% of white women pushed him to victory
Continue reading...November 3, 2016
After this Brexit ruling, MPs must seize their moment | Martin Kettle
Theresa May can no longer keep her EU plans secret. Parliament should now hold her to account and show what sovereignty really means
It is hard to think of a legal ruling with bigger political consequences than the one the lord chief justice and his colleagues handed down in the high court on Thursday. As a result, the May government’s secretive Brexit strategy will have to be rethought to comply, parliament will have to stop cowering in the corner about the referendum as it has done too often, while the welcome likelihood of MPs using their influence to ensure some form of “soft Brexit” has dramatically increased – as the immediate response to the news in the markets showed.
Related: Will the article 50 ruling stop Brexit? | The panel
Related: Who are the judges who ruled that MPs should vote on Brexit?
Related: Brexit has caused havoc already. Now parliament must save us | Polly Toynbee
Continue reading...US election and Brexit's article 50 court case – Politics Weekly podcast
Heather Stewart is joined by Jonathan Freedland, Hadley Freeman and Martin Kettle to discuss the US presidential election and the high court’s ruling against the government that parliament must be involved in the article 50 process of leaving the EU
High court says parliament must vote on triggering article 50 – Politics live
This year’s US presidential election has been part political thriller and part reality TV show. It comes to a climax next week as polls narrow and stock markets adjust to the renewed possibility of a Trump victory.
Joining Heather Stewart to discuss it all are Guardian columnists Hadley Freeman, Jonathan Freedland and Martin Kettle.
Continue reading...November 2, 2016
BBCSO/Weilerstein review – Dean's Hamlet 'diffraction' whets the appetite
Barbican, London
The BBC Symphony Orchestra under the assured direction of Joshua Weilerstein performed music from Brett Dean’s forthcoming opera, and impressed in Hallman’s Gesualdo setting
Brett Dean’s opera based on Hamlet – note the composer’s own “based on” formulation – premieres at the Glyndebourne festival in June 2017. Dean has been building towards the finished work in a number of recent compositions, with From Melodious Lay, a treatment of Hamlet and Ophelia’s relationship, the latest. This BBC Symphony Orchestra performance under the assured direction of Joshua Weilerstein more than whetted the appetite.
Whether these scenes for soprano, tenor and orchestra transfer in whole or in part into the opera remains to be seen. The scale of the orchestration may struggle to be accommodated in the Glyndebourne pit. But Dean’s “diffraction,” a setting of Shakespeare’s words from the three surviving editions of the play, with some lines reassigned from other characters to the two principals, clearly points to the essentially psychological direction of the treatment. The troubled and oppressive desires of Hamlet and Ophelia are expressed in the slip and slide of eerily erotic harmonies. Allan Clayton, next summer’s Hamlet, commanded the appropriate princely urgency; but Allison Bell’s fragile Ophelia was the musical and dramatic focus. A boldly written orchestral interlude marked the contrast from the music’s interior world.
Continue reading...October 27, 2016
Hillary Clinton will win. But what kind of president will she be? | Martin Kettle
Even with a comfortable victory on the cards, it seems Clinton’s time in the White House could be as tough as Obama’s
Scarred by the 2015 general election and humbled by the Brexit vote, it’s hardly surprising that many in the British political and media class continue to hedge their bets on the 2016 US presidential election, even as the climax of the contest draws near. The instinct for caution is understandable. These have been chastening times in British politics. No one wants to make three wrong calls in a row.
Related: Michelle Obama campaigns with Clinton as Trump hits Ohio – election live
Related: The view from Middletown: 'Trump speaks to us in a way other people don’t'
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