James Forsyth

With the opinion polls so tight at the moment, we’re having to look for other ways to try and work out what the general election result will be. One indicator worth watching is which party is spending more time thinking about the leadership contest that would follow an election. Now, there has been plenty of speculation about this on both the Tory and Labour benches in recent times. But in the last few weeks, I’ve picked up more of it from the Labour side. One Labour frontbencher calculates that the focus of ‘half the party is on what happens next’.

Today’s huge Podemos rally in Madrid is a reminder that Syriza’s victory in Greece has emboldened the anti-austerity left across the Eurozone. What worries Angela Merkel and other northern European leaders is, as I say in the magazine this week, that any concessions to the new government in Athens, will lead to Podemos—a party which was founded less than 12 months ago—wining the Spanish elections later this year. But the country that most worries European policymakers isn’t Greece or Spain but France. Its economy is showing no signs of recovering and its politics are threatening to become very ugly indeed. A new poll published this week shows the Front National’s Marine Le Pen topping the first round of the French presidential election.

In the run-up to the Greek election, European figures were adamant that there wasn’t as much to worry about as people thought. They argued that Syriza wouldn’t come close to winning a majority and that it would have to do a coalition deal with Potami who would end up moderating its demands. This complacency was misplaced. Syriza came within a whisker of a majority and then formed a coalition with right wing nationalists, the Greek Independents, who agree with Syriza on very little other than the need to end EU-imposed austerity. Politically, it is very hard to see how the Greek situation can be resolved. Syriza’s entire rationale as a political movement is to renegotiate the terms of the Greek bailout.

David Cameron ran down the clock very effectively at PMQs. With only a few sessions left between now and the general election, Cameron blocked Miliband’s questions on the health service by demanding that the Labour leader apologise for apparently saying that he wanted to ‘weaponise’ the NHS in this election campaign. Despite Cameron now using this line at every PMQs, Miliband had no effective response to it. So, Cameron was able to get away with simply not answering Miliband’s questions. The result: at the end of PMQs, politics was in the same place as it was at the start and with the Tories now convinced that events are moving their way that suits Cameron. By contrast, the Labour bench directly behind Miliband looked particularly glum today.

In recent weeks, European diplomatic sources have regularly argued that Syriza would have to moderate its demand in office. They argued that Syriza wouldn’t win a majority and that to form a coalition it would have to compromise. But this morning, Syriza has formed a coalition with a party that takes just a robust view as it on the need to renegotiate the terms of the Greek bailout, The Independent Greece party. Independent Greece and Syriza have little in common other than their view on the bailout, Independent Greece sits in the same group as the Tories in the European Parliament. That Alexis Tsipras has chosen to do a deal with them rather than the leftist Potami who favour a less confrontational approach to the troika is telling.

Having seven parties in two of the TV debates, as the broadcasters are reportedly proposing, is an admission that what matters is not whether the party will provide the Prime Minister but whether it might have influence in a hung parliament. On this basis, there is no justification for excluding the DUP. The DUP currently have eight seats in the Commons, more than Plaid Cymru, Ukip and the Greens put together. Even after the next election, the DUP are likely to have more MPs than any of these parties. It is baffling that the broadcasters have ended up concluding that Plaid Cymru, who have fewer MPs than the DUP and also only stand in one part of the United Kingdom, deserve an invitation but the DUP don’t.

Tory backbenchers have just finished a long meeting about English Votes for English Laws. The 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers have just spent the last hour and a bit debating the matter with William Hague in attendance. The question at issue was whether the Tories should bar all MPs other than English ones from voting on English-only issues. Or, whether they should limit their plans to only allowing English MPs to vote on English laws at committee stage and giving them a veto before third reading. The leadership is thought to favour the latter option and Malcolm Rifkind and Ken Clarke both spoke up for it. But there was considerable support for option one. Brian Binley argued that this was what Cameron had committed to the morning after the Scottish referendum.

Eric Pickles’s letter to Mosques is pretty anodyne. It is hard to see how it could be objected to. But the Muslim Council of Britain is busy complaining about it. Its deputy secretary general Harun Khan is quoted in The Guardian saying, “Is Mr Pickles seriously suggesting, as do members of the far right, that Muslims and Islam are inherently apart from British society?” Now, if you read the letter it is very hard to argue that this is any way what Pickles is saying. He writes, ‘British values are Muslim values. Like all faiths, Islam and its message of peace and unity makes our country a better and stronger place, and Britain would be diminished without its strong Muslim communities.

For most of this parliament, Downing Street has been thoroughly paranoid about Boris Johnson and his intentions. Any attempt by the Mayor to reach out to Tory MPs was met with deep suspicion. But now, the Tory leadership is actively pushing Boris to see Tory MPs — he was even invited to join the Whips for a Whips Supper at Boisdale last week. This is all evidence of the unspoken deal between Boris and the Tory leadership. He will be loyal and campaign hard for Cameron. In exchange, it will allow him to cultivate Tory MPs; helping him to rectify his biggest weakness ahead of any Tory leadership contest. These arrangements suit everyone involved.

Downing Street was a happy place after David Cameron and Barack Obama’s joint press conference yesterday. The US President was effusive in his praise for Cameron and his seeming endorsement of Britain’s economic strategy has delighted Number 10. But, I suspect, that in terms of actually influencing how people vote, the success of pensioner bonds might be more important. Osborne announced these pensioner bonds in the last Budget and they pay 2.8 per cent interest on a one year bond and 4 per cent on a 3 year bond. They offer the over 65s a far better deal than anything available on the high street.