Life vs Art

Having included a reference to the Thick of It in my latest piece for the New Statesman, I find an article about In the Loop, Armando Iannucci's film about the Iraq deception, that refers to

further evidence published this month that the dodgy dossier was indeed sexed up.

Relating a recent encounter with Campbell, Iannucci says:

“I think he was confusing fact with fiction. And not for the first time.”

Campbell's guest editorship of the New Statesman has proved slightly less controversial than the dossier itself but has upset a few people. Sarah Brown's diary piece is beyond satire:

The Big Question when I returned from the US was: “What was Michelle Obama like?”

Answer: warm, friendly, smart, stylish and funny. I can’t wait for the British people to see her close up when she joins her husband on their visit to London for the G20 next month.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and her charming academic professor husband came to visit us on Friday, staying overnight for meetings on Saturday. We combined a relaxed evening with a lot of discussion about the international challenges – a demonstration, to my mind, of the courage many of the leaders are showing to take the necessary steps to rebuild our financial future.

So strict we fudged it

I've got a piece in the latest issue of the New Statesman, now online, revealing that the government fixed the third of its "strict" environmental conditions for the third Heathrow runway - that improved public transport access would provide the main "solution" to the expected road and rail congestion.

It turns out that the test wasn't that strict after all.

No election - unofficial

In the latest New Statesman, Martin Bright says, rightly, that "It can be hard to believe James Purnell and Ed Balls are in the same party."

Meanwhile, James Macintyre says there will not be a general election until 2010:

"No one is even talking about it this time," says a source, in reference to the disastrous speculation about the election that never was in the autumn of last year. Downing Street insiders suggest that, if the electorate were to have even a hint that the Prime Minister was putting party politics before tackling the effects of the recession, Labour would collectively pay the price.

Which rather suggests that they wouldn't admit to planning an election, even if they were. Talking about an election and then bottling it is not clever. Not talking about an election and then doing it is quite a lot cleverer.

Dimas threatens enforcement

I've just done a piece for newstatesman.com quoting EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas as looking to take enforcement action if Britain ignores breaches of the new air quality directive resulting from Heathrow expansion.

The piece also reveals the difference between what Department for Transport officials were saying behind the scenes about possible mitigation measures - "let's not bother" - and what they said in the official consultation.

A bit circular

The other day I blogged Jackie Ashley's piece in the Guardian on Heathrow expansion. She wrote this about Labour's inexplicable enthusiasm:

The most cynical explanation, which I have heard buzzing around in the past few days, is simply that ministers who know they have lost the next election are cosying up to the business interests that may help them out in the private sector afterwards.

Yesterday, jossc wrote something very similar on the Greenpeace blog:

The cynical answer is that Labour know they've already lost the next election and are cosying up to industries that will employ them once they're out of government...

Perhaps Jackie has been talking to Joss, who is presumably Joss Garman. On the New Statesman today, Garman approvingly quotes Ashley:

It's surprising that it's taken this long for any serious Labour dissent over this to become apparent, especially when, to quote Jackie Ashley, "a swath of Labour ministers and MPs can expect to lose their seats if Heathrow's third runway is given the go-ahead."

All very circular.

More trouble for Heathrow

Chris Smith, chairman of the Environment Agency and a former Labour minister, has criticised the government for seeking to delay the EU air quality directive while expanding Heathrow, as I report in the New Statesman online today.

The real scandal?

In the New Statesman, Brian Cathcart is very angry indeed about the British press's treatment of the McCanns. On one front he's completely right and for the tabloids to be making up stories about anyone is outrageous. But somehow I struggle with any portrayal of the McCanns as victims, rather than suspects, which they were officially until recently.

I notice along the way that the Sindy thinks that the Statesman's Gideon Donald column is a spoof. I also wonder about Tactical Briefing.

Who's Hoon kidding?

I notice that James Macintyre has moved from the Indy to the New Statesman, which carries an online exclusive interview with Geoff Hoon.

Geoff Hoon warns against the unhealthy habit of briefing journalists, repeats his appeal to stay in government, and says the PM is the right man to see the country through financial turmoil

Unfortunately, Hoon's reputation was irrevocably damaged by the Iraq war and his deliberate deception of the Intelligence and Security Committee over internal Ministry of Defence dissent over the dossier.

Still a mystery?

Tribune says that:

THE mystery of why the New Statesman still hasn’t got a new editor several weeks after John Kampfner agreed to depart is not so mysterious after all. Its owner, Labour MP Geoffrey Robinson, has been too busy negotiating a deal to let 50 per cent of the magazine go to fellow millionaire, businessman Mike Danson, for an undisclosed sum.

But that was two weeks ago, at which point the magazine was reported to be interviewing hopefuls.

'Monster' Hillary claims her first victim

Hillary Clinton has claimed the head of a key member of Barack Obama's campaign who called her a 'monster'. Samantha Power used the M-word in an interview with the Scotsman, apparently saying that the it was off the record.

The paper printed the insult, on the basis that the interview was said in advance to be off the record and therefore that anything Power said was fair game.

Hillary then jumped in and, to prove that she is not someone who eats people up and spits them out, called for Power to be sacked.

There are some challenging ethical issues here. I think when people try to spin things with off the record attacks, it's just hard luck when it backfires. But it doesn't look like Power was doing that. She was promoting her book in the UK with little expectation that anything she said would affect the campaign in the US.

Ironically, the New Statesman has a profile of Power.

Victory - again

The Information Tribunal has rejected the Foreign Office's appeal against the ruling that it should release the secret John Williams draft of the Iraq dossier. I first requested this document under the Freedom of Information Act in February 2005?

The New Statesman is claiming victory, having done a lot to pursue the issue, and Ian Dale, who invited me to make a film when at 18 Doughty Street, is also claiming credit.

I'm not arguing.

See also Martin Rosenbaum on the BBC FOI blog and Index on Censorship.