James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
From our UK edition
The Coalition’s first full political cabinet marks a stage in its development. The fact that Tories and Liberal Democrats were prepared to sit down with no officials present and discuss political strategy for more than three hours shows how comfortable the Coalition partners are becoming with each other at Cabinet level. As I say in
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Matthew Parris and Charles Moore are the two of the most eloquent exponents of conservatism. But they represent different strands of conservative thought as their views on AV demonstrate. Matthew argues in his column in The Times today that the Conservative party should let AV pass if that is what it takes to keep the
From our UK edition
James Forsyth reviews the week in politics You wouldn’t know it from listening to the Prime Minister, but the coalition is on course to be a great reforming administration. In its first 11 weeks, it has announced plans to reform all four major public services. At the same time, its first Budget mandated the largest
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Crispin Blunt has been unceremoniously slapped down by No 10 for saying that the ban on parties in prisons will be lifted. The Coalition is following a liberal line on criminal justice but it has no desire to pick a fight on the question of whether prisoners should be allowed to party in jail. A
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Ed Miliband will give his second preference vote in the Labour leadership contender to his brother, he tells the New Statesman’s Jason Cowley. The Ed Miliband interview is part of a really rich set of profiles of the Labour leadership candidates. Diane Abbott inadvertently reveals that it is David Miliband who is taking the
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Anne McElvoy’s report for the Today Programme on the Labour leadership this morning is well worth listening to. It featured all the usual suspect and some classic moments—Tessa Jowell damming Ed Miliband with faint praise and Ed Balls’ henchmen Charlie Whelan going out of his way to praise Andy Burnham—but the really memorable bit came
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David Cameron has just made a quite spectacular mistake. Talking to Sky News he said: ‘I think it’s important in life to speak as it is, and the fact is that we are a very effective partner of the US, but we are the junior partner’. ‘We were the junior partner in 1940 when we
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Nick Clegg comfortably got through his first appearance standing in for David Cameron at PMQs. He was helped by a poor performance by Jack Straw, who made Neil Kinnock look like a model of concision. As Clegg said mockingly at one point, ‘that wasn’t a question it was a sort of dissertation.’ In his final
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John Bercow will need to be in good voice today. For this is the first time that Nick Clegg has stood in for David Cameron at PMQs and he is bound to get an almighty barracking from the Labour side. At the moment, Labour MPs seem to reserve nearly all their disdain and anger for
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A Lord Ashcroft poll of marginal seats suggests, intriguingly, that the Tories could do as well—if not better—under AV than first past the post. Now, this is, obviously, just one poll. But it is the first one that looks the effect AV would have in all the various types of marginals. My first reaction to
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Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Bar, has put down a significant question for Theresa May: ‘Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent reports she has received on (a) investigations undertaken by members of the US Congress and (b) materials held by
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There are some British politicians who are obsessed with American politics, who could at this moment tell you who is most likely to pick up the open Senate seat in Colorado or pride themselves on their ability to name every Republican and Democratic vice presidential nominee since the war. But David Cameron isn’t one of
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The Washington Post today publishes the first part of its series on the intelligence bureaucracy that has grown up in the United States since 9/11. The Post has been working on this report for two years and what it reveals is not pretty. There are more than 1,200 government organisations working in this area and,
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There has been a criticism of how the Coalition is trying to push through its Academies bill before Parliament rises for the summer. Ed Balls, in his typical understated fashion, has compared it to how anti-terrorism legislation is rammed through and the Tory Chairman of the Education Select Committee, Graham Stuart has said that the
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Andrew Mitchell’s decision to prioritise Afghanistan in the development budget is sensible. It demonstrates that Mitchell, a former soldier, understands that the Britain’s overseas aid needs to be in support of Britain’s foreign policy objectives. The Observer reports that Mitchell will announce a 40 percent increase in the Afghan aid budget. This will be paid
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Peter Mandelson’s decision to support Gordon Brown right to the end enabled him to cease being a purely factional figure in the Labour party. The multiple standing ovations he received at the last Labour conference were a recognition of that. As he put it, he was now the prince of stability not darkness. It was
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There have been many interviews with Peter Mandelson this week, but I don’t think any of them have got as much out of him as Patrick Wintour has in today’s Guardian: ‘For he is quite clear in the interview that Labour would be probably be in power now if it had been possible for Brown
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Reading Ed Miliband’s piece in today’s Times on how Labour can win back southern voters, I was struck by this section: ‘We need to be clear that part of the job of social democratic politics is to conserve those things in society that free-market Conservatism would destroy. Our communities are too precious to be dictated
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There is a great letter in The Times this morning from Saul Gresham of West Glamorgan. He writes: ‘Surely we should have several options from which to choose in the referendum? It seems incongruous to be voting by first past the post on such a matter.’ Touché.
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Peter Mandelson’s memoirs are out in just over a week. Despite being one of the last off the stage, Mandelson has beaten his colleagues to the first full account of the Blair Brown era. Tony Blair’s ‘The Journey’ is not out until September. Indeed, some Blair allies think that Mandelson should have had the good