James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
From our UK edition
The Tony Blair Show was back in town today. The former Prime Minister was clearly less nervous in front of this inquiry than he was in front of Chilcot; there was little of the passion and intensity in his voice that there was that day as he defended his decision to take the country to
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Nick Clegg did not show his Berlin speech on the Euro crisis to Number 10 or the Foreign Office before releasing it to the media. This is quite remarkable. Up to now, there has been a recognition that while the Liberal Democrats may try and differentiate themselves from the Prime Minister on various things, the
From our UK edition
Theresa May’s suggestion that Britain could suspend the free movement of people in the event of a Eurozone break up is a reminder of just how transformative an event the falling apart of the single currency would be. The Home Secretary is a cautious politician who picks her word carefully, so when she says that
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Nigel Farage is relishing the chance to sow discord in Tory ranks Nigel Farage looks round with mild disgust at the antiseptic Westminster restaurant in which we’re meant to be having lunch. The leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party tilts his head back and sniffs the air theatrically, then whispers, ‘Why don’t we just
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The Lake District is, to my mind, the most relaxing place in England. I think it’s the good walking, sheep gambolling on the fell-side and exceptional food that makes it so very therapeutic. At any rate, I think we can all agree that there are few things better in life than a day’s walking on
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Adam Smith’s Leveson ordeal is now over. The testimony we’ve heard from Smith and Fred Michel has left Hunt’s position weaker in one key regard. The crucial allegation is that he misled Parliament when he said that he had not tried to influence the quasi-judicial decision on News Corp’s bid for BSkyB when it was
From our UK edition
Fred Michel’s testimony this morning at the Leveson Inquiry was embarrassing but not devastating. The texts between him and Jeremy Hunt are cringe-worthy but my read is that the Culture Secretary is not in a weaker position than he was this morning. More important for Hunt’s survival prospect is the appearance of his former spad
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Nigel Farage’s suggestion of joint UKIP / Tory candidates at the next general election is part serious offer, part mischief-making. Farage knows that if the polls stay the same this will be an appealing offer to Tory candidates. As one leading Eurosceptic Tory MP said to me when I put the idea to him, ‘the
From our UK edition
Ed Balls succeeded in getting David Cameron to lose his rag at PMQs today. The shadow Chancellor sledged the PM throughout the session, apparently asking him how many glasses of wine he had had today and the like. Towards the end of the session, Cameron snapped and called Balls ‘the muttering idiot sitting opposite me’.
From our UK edition
The debate over the Beecroft report is now the politics of the viscera. For Tory MPs it has become symbolic of how the Liberal Democrats — and Vince Cable, in particular — are holding them back from doing what they need to get the country out of this economic emergency. On the Liberal Democrat side
From our UK edition
Personally, I’m in favour of gay marriage. But it is precisely the kind of issue that should be subject to a free vote and all the indications are that the government intends that when the legislation comes to Parliament it will be. So, it shouldn’t be a big deal that the Northern Ireland Secretary Owen
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Senior Conservative sources are confirming that, as Guido Fawkes reported this morning, Susie Squire will take over from Henry Macrory as the party’s head of press. Squire, who is currently Iain Duncan Smith’s media special adviser, is highly-thought of in Number 10 where she is credited with ramming home the party’s advantage over Labour on
From our UK edition
A coalition bust-up was avoided today by Vince Cable’s absence from the Commons for the urgent question on the Beecroft Report. Tory MP after Tory MP got up to make warm noises about a report which Vince Cable has been gleefully trashing, describing one of its proposals as ‘bonkers.’ That Cable couldn’t make it back
From our UK edition
Vince Cable’s reaction to the coming publication of the Beecroft report — which Pete blogged earlier — suggests that the memo on a more cooperative, coalition attitude to growth hasn’t reached the Business Department. The full-on hostility from Cable’s crew to the proposals shows that he remains set against any further deregulation of the labour
From our UK edition
The publication of the Beecroft report on Thursday is a big moment for the coalition. The Lib Dems have long been dismissive of it but it is now a crucial part of any coalition grand bargain on growth. In recent days, those close to David Cameron and Nick Clegg have been talking about a more
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I suspect that ‘Weekend secrets of the “chillaxing” Prime Minister’ (£) is one of the last headlines that Number 10 wanted to see this Saturday. It is acutely sensitive about the idea that Cameron doesn’t work hard enough, a charge that it thinks is as unfair as it is damaging. But perhaps more interesting than
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In the past few difficult months, the Cameroons have taken comfort from their belief that Ed Miliband will never be prime minister. After the local elections earlier this month, when Labour took far more Tory seats than expected, the silver lining for the government was the thought that Ed Miliband would now stay on as
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I doubt that Angela Merkel is looking forward to the G8 summit very much. It will mostly consist of the other world leaders telling her to give ground on austerity. But I suspect that Merkel won’t budge much, if at all. She clearly believes that the Greeks can be whipped into line by telling them
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The Cameroons have long taken comfort in their belief that Ed Miliband will never be Prime Minister. They have seen him as a firebreak between them and electoral defeat. Three things have driven their conviction that the Labour leader will never make it to Number 10. First, their belief that he fails the blink test:
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David Cameron’s speech today is a sign of his frustration with the eurozone. Numbers 10 and 11 are increasingly irritated by how eurozone leaders are refusing to accept the logic of their project. What Downing Street is keen to avoid is another wasted year as Angela Merkel gears up for her reelection campaign. So, intriguingly,