James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
Douglas Alexander may sometimes hide the meaning of what he says under a layer of jargon but he remains one of the more interesting political strategists on the Labour side. Alexander, a Brown long-marcher turned Blairite, saw before many of his colleagues the need for Labour to level with the public on cuts. He privately
It wasn’t meant to be this way. The Tories used to joke that after a year and a half in office they would be the most unpopular government in history. Instead, they find themselves five points ahead in the polls. To their surprise, and Labour’s consternation, they are in a far stronger position now than
Faisal Islam has a very interesting report from Davos on how at least one bank no longer believes that a euro from Ireland, say, is worth the same as one from Holland or Germany. He writes that: ‘A leading European bank has begun to account for euros differentially, by nation state. That is to say,
Diane Abbott has, the BBC reports, walked away from the all-party talks on abortion because of the government’s proposals on counselling services. But others involved in the talks claim that Labour’s public health spokeswoman was not a particularly active participant. Abbott, who is not always the easiest of people to work with, had already irritated some
Today was one of those PMQs when you sensed that both sides were fairly happy with how it had gone. Ed Miliband turned in one of his stronger performances, cleverly splitting his questions and so allowing himself to have a go at both the economy and the coalition’s troubled NHS reforms. Cameron, for his part,
The political implications of today’s growth numbers are complex. On one level, a contraction in the economy should provide Miliband and Balls with an opportunity to make their economic case against the government. Indeed, Balls is already out with a statement calling the GDP figures a ‘damning indictment of David Cameron and George Osborne’s failed
Cartoonists like to portray Alex Salmond as a modern-day Braveheart preparing to charge the English enemy. But, in truth, Salmond’s strategy is far more subtle — and dangerous — than that. The SNP leader’s piece in The Guardian today — a preview of the Hugo Young lecture he’s delivering tonight — downplays what a
Rarely can a government have been so pleased to have been defeated. The Tories are, privately, delighted that the Lords have voted to water down the benefit cap, removing child benefit from it. The longer this attempt to cap benefit for non-working households at £26,000 stays in the news, the better it is for the
Chris Huhne attacked David Cameron for the EU veto in Cabinet back in December. At the time, one Cabinet minister told me that part of Huhne’s critique was that Cameron had scuppered the chances of a Liberal Democrat MEP, Sharon Bowles, being reelected as chair of the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, which
The longer the row over the benefit cap goes on, the better it will be for the Tories. The cap chimes with the public’s sense of fairness. Polls show massive public support for capping benefits at £26,000 a year for non-working households (the cap won’t apply to the disabled or war widows), and if Labour
Today’s polls make grim reading for Labour. Even three months ago senior Labour or Tory people wouldn’t have thought that the Tories would be five points ahead at this point in the cycle. Part of Labour’s problem is that its positions require too much explanation. As one Number 10 source jokes, ‘Ed Miliband can do
The news that for-profit abortion providers are soon to be allowed to advertise on television suggests there is something very wrong with our society. Abortion may well at times be the least worst option. But even those of us who accept this should feel deeply uncomfortable with it being actively promoted on television. The fact
David Cameron is a sunny-side-up politician. At his first party conference as leader, he declared, ‘Let optimism beat pessimism. Let sunshine win the day.’ This attitude infused his approach to policy as well as politics. His economic doctrine was all about ‘sharing the proceeds of growth’. George Osborne, Cameron’s chief strategist, liked to stress that
Today’s Huhne news, which Pete blogged earllier, has set off all sorts of reshuffle chatter. At the moment, the expectation is that if a reshuffle was required it would be a limited, Lib Dem only one—their version of the one that followed Liam Fox’s departure. The current favourite to replace Huhne is Ed Davey, Vince Cable’s
Today’s speech by David Cameron is one of those ones that give you a real insight into how he sees the world. Cameron said that he wanted to see an ‘insurgent economy, where we support the new, the innovative and the bold’. He talked about the need to ‘encourage the adventurous spirits who challenge the
Boris Johnson was very well behaved this evening when he appeared before the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs. He stayed off the topics of Europe and tax and instead confined his remarks to London, saying that he wanted the capital to be an example of ‘cost-cutting, one nation Conservatism’. Those MPs inside the room say
Downing Street is painfully aware that one PMQs in four is going to be about unemployment. Today, with the monthly figures having come out this morning, Miliband led on the subject. The Cameron-Miliband exchanges were not particularly enlightening. Miliband said ‘it really is back to the 1980s’ and Cameron mocked Miliband for being ‘so incompetent,
Ed Miliband has just done a TV clip full of the kind of quotes that politicians love using. In an interview with Nick Robinson (above), the Labour leader declared that ‘I’m leading this party and making the difficult decisions. And if people don’t like it, I’m afraid it’s tough, because that is the way I’ve
The Labour leader Ed Miliband has been determined not to define himself by picking fights against his own side. He didn’t want to do a Blair or a Cameron and triangulate his way to power. Rather, his model was, in one respect, Thatcher. His team were struck by how she managed to move the political
This morning’s Guardian scoop about Michael Gove’s suggestion that the nation should present the Queen with a new Royal yacht for the Jubilee is the talk of Westminster. But the full correspondence indicates that Gove was not proposing any taxpayer funding for a new Britannia. Gove refers to ‘David Willetts’s excellent suggestion for a
