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Clive Crook is the FT’s chief Washington commentator.
For ten years, before moving to the United States in 2005, he was deputy editor of The Economist, and before that the magazine’s economics editor, Washington correspondent and economics correspondent.
Previously he was an official in HM Treasury. He was born in Yorkshire, raised in Lancashire, and educated at Bolton School, Magdalen College, Oxford, and the London School of Economics.
In addition to writing for the FT he is a senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly and a columnist with National Journal.
NEW: Read Clive Crook’s Washington Blog - -
Congress misses the point of reform
More than a year after the US financial emergency went critical, the underlying causes have yet to be addressed. When it comes to improving financial regulation, the crux of the matter, there has been a lot of talk – usually about the wrong things – and next to no action, writes Clive Crook
Levon Helm’s new musical life
The multi-instrumentalist is playing again for tiny audiences at his Woodstock home – and he’s as good as ever, writes Clive Crook
Obama is dithering on Afghanistan
Mr Obama must choose a strategy on the war in Afghanistan and persist with it – and to persist with it he must sell it to the American and Afghan people and to the rest of the world. Delay and indecision will make that harder, writes Clive Crook
Passing a bill is just a start for healthcare
One thing this bill will not do if passed is end the controversy over US healthcare. The argument over paying for it would become more intense: while the bill conforms to Obama’s demand that it be ‘deficit-neutral’, for the most part it only pretends to deal with the costs, writes Clive Crook
It is too early to laud Obama – or to be disappointed
The president’s wisest course was to have turned the prize down, saying he had not had time to accomplish the things he wanted to. Accepting the world’s praise for having done nothing looks vain and is not without risk, writes Clive Crook
An American polity blinded by rage
In the coming years, the US has enormous challenges to face – not least, like Britain before it, the trauma of relative economic decline. Right now, its polity looks unfit to cope. ‘A house divided against itself’, said Abraham Lincoln, ‘cannot stand’, writes Clive Crook
Deal with the banks while they are down
With an economic recovery under way, the finance industry’s reticence, such as it is, will disappear – as that happens, the G20 governments must stick together in facing down the pressure for a less onerous bank capital regime, writes Clive Crook
It is never too early to fear inflation
The US economy’s immediate problem is stagnant output, not surging prices – but you do not need extraordinary foresight to see how this could change. It is too soon to worry about inflation in the same way it was too soon in 2005 to be concerned about securitised mortgages and house-price bubbles, writes Clive Crook
A make or break speech for Obama
Despite the heat that the public-option debate is generating, resolving it may not be the key to getting moderates behind both his healthcare project and his presidency. His broader political difficulties arise from his leaning left on so many other policies, writes Clive Crook
Afghanistan is now Obama’s war
Victory will be impossible without greater expense of lives and money, withdrawal involves great dangers and, to complete the president’s quandary, his rationale for fighting does not convince, writes Clive Crook
