James Forsyth

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 if Mandelson’s memoirs are going to be as frank as he is suggesting and deal with his whole career, then they are going to make comments—some unflattering—about a whole host of still active Labour politicians. There are bound to be comments in there on all three of the serious leadership challengers and the acting leader of the Labour party.

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 you think that he is planning a return. They don’t read like the words of a man planning to quit politics which is what many of his friends feared he might do last weekend. Laws, rightly, points out that his decision not to go public about his relationship meant that he was claiming less in expenses than he otherwise could.

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 making sure that the Coalition agreed on its approach to every issue that came up. Their job was to preempt any dispute between the two parties. A look at the Cabinet Committee structure shows how crucial a figure Alexander was in his role as the minister providing ministerial support to the deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg. (His work as Scottish Secretary was far less relevant to the success of the Coalition).

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 by venality but by a desire to keep his personal life private. It was hard not to well up on reading these line from Laws’ statement last night, "I've been involved in a relationship with James Lundie since around 2001 - about two years after first moving in with him. Our relationship has been unknown to both family and friends throughout that time.

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 exposed when the question of immigration came up, an issue that Burnham has sought to make central to his candidacy. Burnham said that immigration was one of those issues where Labour’s traditional vote felt the Labour government was ‘not on its side’.

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 role in explaining Cameron to the party. He has offered reassurance to the party that their leader is one of them. Criticism from a man who called Cameron the most skillful Tory leader of the opposition since Disraeli cannot be lightly dismissed by the Cameroons.