James Forsyth

James Forsyth

James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Is Cameron headed for a fall?

David Cameron exudes a worrying confidence these days. He strolls through the corridors of the Palace of Westminster with the air of a man already thinking of victory at the next election. His head is tilted slightly skywards, as if already enjoying the sunlit uplands of victory in 2015. But this confidence is misguided, even dangerous, as some of those closest to him are well aware. They, by contrast, do not look relaxed at all. They look anxious, pained, bundles of nervous energy. Their fear is that the Prime Minister is on the brink of making mistakes that could endanger his premiership: that he is about to sabotage his own reform agenda. The story of Cameron’s leadership to date has been one of laidback calm interrupted by periods of productive anxiety.

Friday

James Forsyth

Michael Gove to appeal Shoesmith verdict

Whitehall sources say Michael Gove will appeal the Court of Appeals judgement which decided Sharon Shoesmith’s dismissal was so ‘legally flawed as to be null and void’ to the Supreme Court. Although Gove recognises that Balls blundered in the way he dismissed her, he also believes that there are important constitutional principles at sake in this case about how Ministers make important and urgent decisions and what the role of the courts is in challenging such decisions. Gove wants the Supreme Court to consider these issues because of the huge importance of judicial reviews, which are being used repeatedly by opponents of the government to try and stymie its agenda.

James Forsyth

Shoesmith in line for up to a million in compensation following sacking over handling of Baby P case

Sharon Shoesmith, who was head of children services in Haringey at the time of the Baby Peter case, is set to receive a sum that could be as large as a million pounds in compensation. The Court of Appeal has ruled that the way Ed Balls, then the secretary of state, and Haringey took the decision to dismiss her was procedurally unfair to Shoesmith and so she was not lawfully removed, entitling her to compensation possibly including full pay and pension for the last couple of years.    Shoesmith might be legally entitled to this money. But given the circumstances in which she is receiving it and the institutional flaws exposed by Haringey’s approach to the Baby Peter case, the honourable thing to do would be to not accept it.

Thursday

James Forsyth

Tory MPs launch NHS reform counter-offensive

Nick Clegg’s speech on the NHS today has fanned the flames of the Tory backbench rebellion on the issue. Tory MPs’ tribal instincts have kicked in and even those who were worried about the Lansley plan are now swinging behind it. As Nick Watt revealed earlier today, there’s currently a letter from Nick de Bois urging Tory MPs to set out their red lines on health service reform. One thing that Tory MPs keep repeating to me is that they are not prepared to see the Lib Dems ‘take the NHS backwards’. This is their most fundamental red line and it translates to a determination not to have the level of competition and private sector involvement in the health service reduced.

James Forsyth

Lansley’s original reforms are off the table

Nick Clegg’s speech on the NHS this morning was not as bad as many feared it would be. It recognised that there is a role for competition in the NHS, something that the Lib Dems were questioning last weekend, and that the NHS needs to be opened up to any qualified provider. But, on the other hand, the idea that any willing provider should be able to deliver NHS services — an idea which was in the manifesto of all three parties — will now only be introduced at a glacial pace. There’ll also be a two-tier NHS for the foreseeable future with some areas having GP-led commissioning, while NHS managers continue to do it in other parts of the country. And Monitor will not be able to enforce competition.

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Obama re-affirms the special relationship

The speech was not a classic but Barack Obama's address to both Houses of Parliament covered the bases today. He started with a winning line, remarking that the previous three speakers in Westminster Hall had been the Pope, the Queen and Nelson Mandela which is either "a very high bar or the beginning of a very funny joke."   As is traditional in these kinds of speeches, Obama paid tribute to the special relationship, lauding it as the embodiment of the values and beliefs of the English-speaking tradition. He went on to say that both the British and the Americans knew that the "longing for human dignity is universal." Indeed, at times Obama sounded remarkably like the last president as he proclaimed his own freedom agenda.

James Forsyth

A good day for Cameron

Today is one of those days when David Cameron gets full political benefit from being Prime Minister. He is basking in the president of the United States’ reflected glory. The papers this morning are full of him playing table tennis with Barack Obama and tonight’s news bulletins will lead on their joint press conference at lunchtime. As Cameron stands next to Obama, he’ll look both a statesman and a centrist. It’ll be hard for Labour to attack Cameron as an extremist on deficit reduction when he keeps stressing how he and Obama agree on a sensible level and pace to get their budgets heading back into balance. There are, obviously, substantive foreign policy issues for the two men to discuss. Both Libya and Afghanistan are in need of urgent attention.

Tuesday

James Forsyth

A good time to go

Today is, as the saying has it, a good day to bury bad news. With President Obama on the ground and an ash cloud in the air, not much else is going to get a look in on the news’ bulletins. But it is worth noting that Nat Wei, the government’s big society advisor, has quit his role today having scaled back his involvement in February. Wei has been pretty detached from Downing Street for the last few months, his role rather usurped by Cameron’s big society ambassadors, Shaun Bailey and Charlotte Leslie. So his departure won’t make much difference to the government. But it is still rather embarrassing as it gives the press another chance to dredge up all the political problems with the whole Big Society agenda.

James Forsyth

Gove strikes to ease the removal of bad teachers

The quality of teaching in schools is one of the main determinants of how well a child does. But, shockingly, in almost half the local authorities in England a teacher hasn’t been sacked for being incompetent in the last five years. Retaining sub-standard teachers has harmed the life chances of goodness knows how many children. So the news that Michael Gove is now consulting on rules that will make it far easier to fire bad teachers is welcome. The Gove proposals give heads much more control and enable them to get rid of a poor teacher in a term; at the moment it takes at least a year and is a bureaucratic minefield which is why so many schools shy away from taking action against those who aren’t up to the job.

Monday

James Forsyth

Hemming divulges

‘Mr Speaker, With about 75,000 people having named Ryan Giggs on Twitter it is impractical to imprison them all and with reports that Giles Coren is facing imprisonment’ This was as far as John Hemming got in his question to the attorney general before the Speaker interrupted him to warn that he should be talking about the principles involved in super-injunctions not the people. But now that it has been said in parliament it can be reported by the press, although I do not believe any newspaper is allowed say which super injunction he has taken out or whether those naming Giggs on Twitter are correct. There were gasps in the chamber as Hemming mentioned Giggs by name and there was cold anger in John Bercow’s voice as he upbraided him for mentioning him.

James Forsyth

What the attorney general needs to do

I’m sure that all CoffeeHousers know who the footballer is with the super injunction preventing newspapers from publishing anything about his affair with the Big Brother contestant Imogen Thomas. But if you didn’t, the papers would have made pretty odd reading over the past few days because the press keeps making little in jokes that are only funny if you know the player’s identity. David Cameron this morning announced that he knew the identity of the player.  This highlights one of many ironies of the situation, which is that far more people are now aware of who the errant footballer is than would have been if the news had just come out and been a two day tabloid story.

Sunday

James Forsyth

Prospects for fiscal sanity in Washington take a hit as Mitch Daniels decides not to run for president

Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana and the Republican establishment’s pick to take on Barack Obama, has announced that he won’t run for president. It appears that Daniels’ wife concerns about a run have prevented him from running. Explaining his decision, he said, “On matters affecting us all, our family constitution gives a veto to the women’s caucus, and there is no override provision”. It is thought that Daniels’ wife was worried that a presidential run would lead to a lot of media attention to the fact that she left him and the children and moved to California for four years during the 1990s before returning and remarrying Daniels.

Saturday

James Forsyth

How the US presidential campaign will change American foreign policy

Whoever wins the Republican nomination and takes on Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election is going to campaign hard on the issue of the US national debt and the idea that constantly running deficits is dragging the nation into decline. This is going to have a serious impact on the foreign policy debate in the US. It is striking that John Huntsman (pictured with Barack Obama), the former US ambassador to China who was governor of Utah and is running as a middle of the road Republican, has chosen to introduce himself to voters in New Hampshire with criticisms of the cost of the Libya mission. He said, ‘I think we have to be very careful about where we choose to spend our money and what we define as being important to our national security interest.

James Forsyth

Politics: Cameron in chains

When Conservative leaders come to address the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, they are required to stand outside Committee Room 14 of the House of Commons until the rest of the agenda is completed. When Conservative leaders come to address the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, they are required to stand outside Committee Room 14 of the House of Commons until the rest of the agenda is completed. Only then are they summoned in. David Cameron likens the experience to ‘waiting outside the headmaster’s study’. But it is worse than that — as he waits, half a dozen journalists watch his every move. If he perspires, it’s on Twitter. Cameron has done his utmost to get out of this ordeal.

Friday

James Forsyth

Brown hasn’t contacted Cameron or Osborne about IMF job

‘Brown makes pitch for IMF job with plea to rich nations to meet education pledges’ reads the headline on page 3 of The Guardian today. This is all part of a growing body of evidence that Gordon Brown really does think he is in with a chance of succeeding Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Certainly, the usual suspects are out and about talking up his chances. Realistically, Brown is not going to get the job. But if Brown really does want to have a go, it is bizarre that he’s not tried to contact either David Cameron or George Osborne to reassure them about how he’d behave if he got the job; Danny Finkelstein gave a typically well informed take (£) about Cameron and Osborne’s worries about how Brown would use this bully-pulpit on Wednesday.

Thursday

James Forsyth

Clarke for the high-jump

Dominic Grieve’s fate as shadow Home Secretary was sealed by a lunch at News International headquarters in Wapping. Grieve went to lunch with various Sun executives and rather than talking tough on crime he laid into the paper for how it covered the issue, claiming that it stoked fear of crime. The word then came back to Tory high command, via Andy Coulson, that the paper would not endorse the Tories as long as Grieve remained in that job. He was duly replaced by Chris Grayling in the 'pub-ready reshuffle' of January 2009 after less than a year in the job. So one can only imagine how Downing Street feels about this morning’s edition of The Sun. It starts with the front page headline: ‘Clarke’s a danger to women…He must go’.

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Cameroons livid with Ken

It is hard to overstate the fury with Ken Clarke in the Cameroon circle today. One well-informed Tory source just told me, ‘they [Cameron and Osborne] just can’t wait to see the back of him’ before pondering whether Clarke was now just too old for frontline politics. Another bemoaned that Clarke had managed both to deepen the party’s problems with women and further undermine its reputation as the party of law and order. While one more couldn’t believe how on a day when unemployment fell, two men were charged with the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the Queen and PM were marking a new era in Anglo-Irish relations, the coalition had managed to get a series of bad news stories to top the bulletins.

James Forsyth

Is Clarke’s fate sealed?

Ken Clarke is in the middle of a media firestorm following his comments on rape. The remarks were typical of Clarke’s dismissive attitude to the victims of crime and Downing Street is clearly furious about them. It has ruled out sacking him, but I suspect that Clarke's fate is now sealed come the much expected March 2012 reshuffle. Clarke is of the never explain, never apologise school of politics. But Number 10 clearly want him to ‘clarify’ his remarks. I suspect that Clarke, who has been busily defending his comments, will not want to do that. This could well be the cause of the next row between Clarke and the centre. Leaving aside the dubious content of the Justice Secretary's comments, his timing was also particularly unfortunate.

James Forsyth

Coalition’s NHS battle turns personal

David Cameron’s ‘love for the NHS’ is a critical part of his political persona. It is, his advisers believe, what proves that he is a different kind of Tory. So it is remarkable that Nick Clegg is questioning it in semi-public. In a speech to Lib Dem MPs and peers last night — that Clegg would have known was bound to leak, he criticised politicians — eg, the Prime Minister — who express their love for the NHS but take advice from people who see NHS reform as a chance for private companies to make big profits. What makes this intervention all the more remarkable is that Downing Street has been on a full court press to deny the Observer’s piece which set this story running.

Monday

James Forsyth

Leak shows that Fox objects to plans to spend more on overseas development

A second letter from the Defence Secretary to the Prime Minister has leaked out. Tomorrow’s Times reports on a note that Liam Fox sent to the Prime Minister opposing the government’s plan to legislate for Britain to spend 0.7 percent of gross national income on overseas development aid. It won’t come as a huge surprise to anyone that Dr Fox is sceptical of aid spending. But for another letter from him to the PM to reach the press will further strain relations between the MoD and Downing Street. There will be those in the Cameron circle who think that it is not a coincidence that both of the missives that have leaked out have shown Fox taking the more classically robust Tory position than the Prime Minister.