James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
From our UK edition
It is imperative that the coalition keeps its nerves and its composure during the months ahead. 2011 will try the coalition’s fortitude, its deficit reduction plan and its public service reform programme will both come under sustained attack. It is vital that the coalition continues to explain clearly and patiently why it is doing what it
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Sitting in London it is hard to know what is going to happen next in Egypt but one particular detail in the New York Times’ latest report makes me think that Mubarak’s fall is fast becoming more likely than not: “In Ramses Square in central Cairo Saturday midday, protesters commandeered a flatbed army truck. One
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The night Ed Miliband was elected leader of the Labour party, his advisers sent him to bed before midnight and confiscated his mobile phone. The night Ed Miliband was elected leader of the Labour party, his advisers sent him to bed before midnight and confiscated his mobile phone. Half a mile away from where the
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In another sign of how the pace of Gove’s reforms is quickening, the education secretary has told local authorities that all new schools should be free schools or academies. This is a big step towards changing the default nature of the system from state-funded and state-run to state-funded but independent. Local authorities will not
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Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, has written a highly readable piece chronicling his paper’s tempestuous relationship with Julian Assange. Keller does a good job defending how The New York Times handled the documents that Wikileaks passed it, the steps it took to minimise the risk posed to the lives of
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The government’s decision to increase the period which employees have to serve before they can bring a case of unfair dismissal from one to two years is welcome. But if it wants to encourage small and medium sized enterprises, the engine of the economy, to hire more people then they need to take the shears
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There’s a febrile atmosphere in Westminster tonight. The coalition is poised for a frontal assault on the privileges of the House of Lords and there is an expectation that today’s dramatic developments in the phone hacking saga are the beginning of something not the end. The coalition’s actions on the Lords have been prompted by Labour’s filibustering of the
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Danny Finkelstein’s column in The Times today (£) is well worth reading. Finkelstein sets out two worries, first that the Tories do not have enough of a strategy for winning re-election and second that the NHS reforms might compromise Cameron’s standing as a different kind of Tory. On the latter point, Finkelstein is echoing the
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These provisional GDP figures showing that the economy shrank in the fourth quarter have come as a shock, the consensus was for growth albeit at a slower pace than in the third quarter. These figures can, obviously, be significantly explained by the winter weather which brought the country to a halt. The ONS is saying
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Danny Finkelstein has written an interesting post objecting to Channel 4 referring to the ‘Conservative-led coalition’ last night. Finkelstein’s objection, and a valid one to my mind, is that ‘Conservative-led’ makes a judgment about the nature of the coalition. Of course, this whole spat has been set off by a clever letter from Ed Miliband’s
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David Davis’ interview on Jon Pienaar’s show this evening has revived the debate about whether or not it matters how posh the Cameron top table is. Andy Coulson was the most senior person there who understood what it is actually like to work your way up the ladder and with him gone that experience is
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I suspect the identity of the Prime Minister’s next director of communications is of far more interest to those who work in Westminster than those in the country at large. But the identity of Coulson’s successor will reveal something about the balance of power in the coalition and at the Cameron court. I’m told that
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Charles Moore has an important piece in the Telegraph today criticising Baroness Warsi’s muddle-headed speech [a speech which interestingly doesn’t appear on her page on the party website]. In it, he reveals that the Prime Minister himself has been devoting much thought to the question of how to deal with Islamic extremism. Charles writes that
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It is easy to tell when David Cameron is wading into trouble during interviews. He becomes defensive, audibly irritated and — as an emergency self-calming measure — tries to force a little laugh. He performed this telltale routine on the radio on Monday, when challenged over his NHS reforms. He had promised the country no
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Of the two resignations of the past 24 hours, it is Alan Johnson’s that will change the contours of politics. The appointment of Ed Balls makes the dividing line on the economy far starker. But the Coulson resignation is still a highly significant moment. Those Tories who worked with Coulson are downcast today and will
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Andy Coulson has resigned today. David Cameron has issued a statement paying effusive tribute to his departing communications director. But there will be questions asked about his judgment in appointing Coulson after he had resigned from the editorship of the News of the World over the phone hacking scandal.
From our UK edition
More soon
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Both The Mail and The Sun are running on their front pages that Alan Johnson’s wife is allegedly having an affair with his bodyguard. There are, though, other rumours referenced in other papers. The Tory view this evening is that they now face a tactically harder fight but a strategically easier one. They fully expect
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One thing worth noting before we discuss Balls’ appointment is that the reasons Johnson have resigned are personal. It is not about his competence or otherwise. The Tories are wasting no time in getting stuck into Ed Balls. One just said to me, ‘the man who created this economic mess is back. He designed the
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Ed Miliband has just taken the biggest risk of his leadership in appointing Ed Balls as his shadow Chancellor. Balls’ is not a man who take orders and his view on the deficit is noticeably different from Ed Miliband’s. He is also the person most closely associated with Gordon Brown’s economic record. George Osborne will