James Forsyth

Ed Miliband’s admirers are hailing his speech on Friday as an attempt to change how we think about leadership. It might have been that, but it was also a very political attempt to deal with the ‘Ed problem’, the fact that he trails David Cameron in the leadership stakes by a potentially fatal margin.  

Last summer, parliament was recalled after President Assad’s forces used chemical weapons in Syria. David Cameron wanted the Commons to support air strikes against the Syrian regime in response. But the Commons refused, defeating the government motion. Whatever you thought of the decision, it was a bold move by MPs. They had demonstrated that even

The economy is now, at last, larger than its pre-recession peak. The coalition parties are keen to claim vindication this morning. Nick Clegg has declared that ‘The rescue has worked’ and used today’s numbers to justify the Liberal Democrat’s decision to go into coalition. While George Osborne is celebrating a ‘major milestone in our long

Nigel Farage has promoted a slew of women to senior roles in his reshuffle of the Ukip front bench. Diane James, who came close to winning the Eastleigh by-election, becomes the party’s home affairs and justice spokesperson. Louise Bours, a newly elected MEP, takes on the health brief. Her job will be to rebut Labour

In the last reshuffle, David Cameron made Tina Stowell the leader of the House of Lords. But, astonishingly, he didn’t make her a full member of the Cabinet, giving her only the right to attend. This, understandably, outraged peers; they quite rightly feel that the leader of the second chamber should be in the Cabinet.

Reading the papers over the last few days, you’d be forgiven for thinking that no teachers backed Michael Gove and his agenda. But a letter in The Sunday Times yesterday told a very different story. Signed by 76 people, most of them head teachers of outstanding schools in deprived areas, it praised him as ‘a man

It is the Sunday after the reshuffle before. Today’s papers are brimming with post reshuffle stories; and not of the kind that Downing Street will like. The Mail on Sunday reveals that Philip Hammond demanded an assurance that he wouldn’t just be keeping the seat warm for George Osborne at the Foreign Office. While the

On the hottest weekend of the year, few people would want to be stuck inside in Milton Keynes. But that is where the Labour hierarchy finds itself. For this weekend is the party’s national policy forum. Ed Miliband’s speech today is meant to try and show that while he has moved on from New Labour

‘There’s no shame in a cabinet to win the next election,’ declared an exasperated senior No. 10 figure on Tuesday night. This week’s reshuffle was not one for the purists: it was designed with campaigning, not governing, in mind. With less than ten months to go to polling day, politics trumps policy. This is why

David Cameron cut his political teeth on the 1992 election campaign. He has long told colleagues that he think 2015 will be a very similar election to 1992. Today he seized on what the Tories see as this cycle’s Labour ‘tax bombshell’. He gleefully read out this quote from Harriet Harman: ‘I think people on

Michael Gove‘s departure from the Department for Education is the biggest shock of this reshuffle. Tory MPs have been even more surprised by it than they were William Hague’s leaving the Foreign Office. Downing Street is keen to stress that the education reform agenda doesn’t leave the DfE with Gove. The changes to the junior

Philip Hammond’s promotion to Foreign Secretary means that we now have a Foreign Secretary who is on the record as saying he would vote to leave the EU unless substantial powers are returned. This is a major challenge to Foreign Office orthodoxy. listen to ‘Hammond: Britain should leave the EU if powers aren’t returned’ on

Vote Farage, get Miliband might not have quite as much resonance with voters as the Tories would like. But it is certainly effective with donors. If Ukip is seen as Ed Miliband’s passport to Number 10, it will be far harder for it to raise the money it needs to fight a successful general election

Next week, EU leaders will meet to parcel out the top jobs in the next European Commission. So David Cameron doesn’t have long to decide who he is going to nominate—and Berlin is already bugging him for his pick. Here’s The Spectator‘s run down of the runners and riders. Andrew Lansley: Until recently the firm