James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
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I see from today’s Evening Standard that the film that Peter Mandelson allowed to be made about himself during the election campaign has been pulled from the Hay Festival at his insistence. Now, in these cases there is often an innocent explanation: I would suspect that we’ll get to see the film soon enough But
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As I say in the column this week, there’s an expectation in Westminster that David Laws will be back in the Cabinet sooner rather than later. The broadly sympathetic public reaction to his resignation suggests that there’d be little public opposition to him returning in six months or so. Laws’ quotes today do rather make
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Michael Gove announced in the Commons’ chamber earlier that 1,100 schools have applied for Academy status since he wrote to all schools asking them if they would be interested in doing so. 626 of these are schools rated outstanding by Ofsted which means they are pre-approved for academy status. One would expect the vast majority
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The shootings in Cumbria this morning meant that today’s PMQS was always going to be a subdued affair. David Cameron was impressive, though. You wouldn’t have guessed it was his first time answering questions and he controlled the pace of the session expertly. There were fewer people on the front bench than last week meaning
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Today is the first PMQs of the new term. Given the Coalition, the whole thing will be a bit different from what we’re used to. The leader of the opposition will, as before, have six questions. But no other MP will have more than one question. There’ll be a couple of little things I’ll
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With the Coalition facing its first major test, it is easy to forget that there is a Labour leadership contest going on. But there are two interventions in that race worth noting this Bank holiday weekend. First of all, Jon Cruddas and Jonathan Rurtherford have anessay in the New Statesman sketching out a ‘new covenant
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Apart from Nick Clegg, David Laws and Danny Alexander were the two most important Lib Dems in the first iteration of the Coalition. Laws as Chief Secretary to the Treasury ensured that the two sides were equally committed to deficit reduction, the main task for this government. While Alexander was responsible alongside Oliver Letwin for
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David Laws’ departure from government is a massive blow to the British public life, to the coalition and this country’s chance of returning to fiscal sanity. It is depressing beyond belief that a man with David Laws’ talent has been driven out of public life. His breaking of the rule on expenses was motivated not
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James Forsyth reviews the week in politics In this era of ‘new politics’, one might have expected a new, more consensual style of debate in the Commons chamber. But judging by the opening days of the debate on the Queen’s speech, we have got quite the opposite. MPs are keener than ever to shout each
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Next week in Westminster is going to be dominated by the election of deputy speakers and select committee chairmen. On the select committee front, the party whips will agree on which party will chair which committee. Then, the chairmen will be elected by the whole House. There are some intriguing races in prospect. I’m told
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The newly-elected 1922 Executive is another demonstration of the strength of the right wing of the Conservative party. Paul Goodman notes that of the seven MPs elected to the executive who were are not new to Parliament, six are on the right. The only one who isn’t is Nick Soames, who is a special case.
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Vince Cable’s resignation as deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats has, predictably, sparked speculation about his motives. But one definite effect of his resignation will be to create a contest for the deputy leadership. The deputy leader is elected by the parliamentary party. So it is unlikely that anyone will stand on a coalition-sceptic position.
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The results of the 1922 elections show that Conservative backbenchers are distinctly right-wing and keen to assert independence. In the race for chairman, Graham Brady — the only man to resign under David Cameron’s leadership on an issue of party policy — romped home by 126 votes to 85. This result suggests that Brady would
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A referendum on AV was the concession that Nick Clegg felt he needed to get a coalition deal with the Tories past his party. But the referendum poses obvious dangers to the coalition, just imagine the sight of Nick Clegg and the leader of the Labour party sharing a platform to denounce the Tories’ ‘reactionary’
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The opening of the Queen’s speech debate is, traditionally, a light-hearted affair. Peter Lilley opened up with a rather witty speech. He compared the Liberal Democrats to the bastards of the Major Cabinet, it is better to have them inside the Cabinet pissing out than outside the Cabinet pissing in. He went on to warn
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Sunshine might have won the day but today was also the start of the age of austerity, as George Osborne and David Laws laid out £6.243bn of cuts. Despite the fact that they were cutting ‘wasteful’ and ‘low priority spending’, both men were keen to insulate themselves against the Labour attack that the coalition is
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Another Sunday, another Labour leadership contender on Marr. But Andy Burnham’s performance this morning did him few favours. His argument for his candidacy seems to be that because he’s northern and from a working class background he’d be a better leader than either of the Milibands or Ed Balls. The limitations around Burnham’s candidacy were
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Charles Moore’s column in the Telegraph today on Cameron and the 1922 is quite an indictment of the way that the new Prime Minister has treated his parliamentary party. Charles has long been an advocate of Cameron. As Thatcher’s official biographer and the most trusted Conservative-leaning journalist of his generation, he has played a crucial
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James Forsyth reviews the week in politics The entry of a forty-something, privately educated white male Oxford graduate into a political contest normally does little for its diversity. But when Ed Balls jumped into the Labour leadership race he did at least expand the pool beyond members of the Miliband family. Even now, all three
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During the coalition negotiations, the Tories agreed to introduce the Lib Dems’ plan to raise the income tax threshold to £10,000. As part of paying for this, they agreed to increase Capital Gains Tax to 40 percent. But, crucially, this increase only applies to non-business assets. What makes this so important is that there is