James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
The implosion of General McChrsytal’s career has refocused attention on Afghanistan. Reading Peggy Noonan’s column on the subject I was struck by this paragraph reflecting on Jonathan Alter’s reporting of Obama’s decision making process when he ordered the surge: More crucially, the president asked policy makers, in Mr. Alter’s words, “If the Taliban took Kabul
The Mail reports that the government will announce a cap on non-EU immigration to Britain on Monday. It also refers to objections from within the Coalition to the policy. But as the paper notes these came from Tories, not Lib Dems. My understanding is that in the Cabinet Committee meeting where the issue was discussed,
There’s one subject that you don’t raise with David Cameron’s circle if you want the conversation to last: the election result. They don’t like to be reminded that they failed to win a majority. The Cameroons have been persuading themselves that coalition government is the best possible result. No. 10 has been dubbed ‘the love
There’s one thing that people want to talk about today and that’s Diane Abbott’s appearance on This Week last night. As you can see above, it was a total disaster for Abbott. She was all over the place on her taxi claims and she got into a total tangle on whether she had meant to
Benedict Brogan, who is extremely well sourced inside Number 10, has a very interesting report on three potential problems that Downing Street is keeping a close eye on. The first is the Cameron Fox relationship. As James Kirkup writes in the Telegraph today, Cameron was not best pleased when Fox announced Sir Jock Stirrup’s sacking in
In the end, Kevin Rudd didn’t even last to the leadership ballot. He agreed to step down as PM and Labour leader this morning and the party immediately replaced him with Julia Gillard, his deputy who announced she was prepared to stand against him yesterday. At the start of the year, Rudd was the most popular
David Cameron did particularly well in the Cameron and Clegg joint interview just now. He has a real ability to read the mood of an audience; the debates could have been very different if the audience hadn’t been required to be silent. The only news made during the interview was Cameron saying that he will
NBC is reporting that President Obama has accepted General McChrystal’s resignation. McChrystal had offered it following the publication of a magazine profile in which him and his staff were reported deriding various members of the administration’s Afghan war effort. McChrystal’s own criticisms of the president were also part of the piece. The BBC is now
Remarkable developments in Australian politics as the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd faces a leadership challenge tomorrow. Rudd is being challenged by his deputy PM Julia Gillard, who would be Australia’s first female PM. Gillard’s strategy might be to try and replicate Bob Hawke who was elected leader of the Australian Labour party and then went
David Cameron was on punchy form at PMQs today. He jibed that in Harriet Harman’s case the Budget Red Book should be called ‘the unread book’ and called Labour backbenchers ‘dunces’ who didn’t know what the last government was planning. The Cameron Harman exchange was interesting. Harman had come armed with some classic follow-up questions
George Osborne’s Budget today was the first dose of pain. The second will be the spending review in October, which I suspect will put far more of a strain on the Coalition than today did. Non-protected departmental Budgets, everything apart from health and DFID, are going to be cut by 25 percent on average. But
The first Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions was the worst of the old politics. I’m all in favour of robust exchanges in the Commons but the Labour side was just shouting at Clegg today. As he was answering one question — and, I mean, actually answering — on Sheffield Forgemasters, one Labour MP tried to drown
Nick Clegg has written to his MPs and party members trying to stiffen their sinews ahead of the Budget. The message is, yes this will be unpleasant, but it’s Labour’s fault—and they shouldn’t be allowed to forget that as they rail against it. It ends with this very David Cameron-esque sign-off, ‘Sorting out Labour’s mess
The exposure of Chris Huhne’s affair could end up affecting the way the Coalition develops. At the last election, Huhne held his seats thanks to the loaned votes of Labour supporters; his literature emphasised how in Eastleigh the only way to keep the Tories out was to vote for him. His majority is 3,864 and
The Energy Secretary’s actions will rather obscure the latest developments in the BP story, but they are well worth noting. First, Tony Hayward has made yet another PR blunder with his decision to attend a yachting event off the Isle of Wight. In a way it might not matter what Hayward is up to—he’s not going
James Forsyth reviews the week in politics From a distance, Tony Blair might be able to persuade himself that the Labour party contest now underway is the fulfilment of his dreams. The ‘brothers’ everyone is talking about are not trade union heavies but two Oxford PPE graduates who have worked their way up through the
The day after Tony Hayward’s pretty disastrous appearance before Congress, BP have announced that Bob Dudley, the managing director of BP, will take over day to day control of trying to deal with the oil spill. BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg told Sky that “It is clear Tony has made remarks that have upset people.” “This
The Coalition’s plan to let teachers, parents and voluntary groups set up their own state-funded free schools has had a particularly good run in the media. The package on the Six o’clock news was one of the most positive pieces I can remember being done on Coalition policy. The free schools idea is a good
The BP chief executive Tony Hayward was always going to be given the roughest of rides by Congress. He has become the bumbling face of BP, the man who personifies its failure to stop this oil spill getting worse by the day. But he turned up today with an apology and precious little else. He had no
The Big Society is a great idea. But its problem has always been that it lacks definition; voters and even some Tory MPs aren’t quite sure what it means. But an idea being floated today gives you a sense of its practical and political potential. It is being suggested that the community right to buy,
