James Forsyth

James Forsyth

James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.

Tuesday

James Forsyth

How is it strange that only British citizens can vote in British elections?

From our UK edition

Michael Crick has just blogged about a ‘strange quirk in the British political system.’ Writing about a Lib Dem councillor he says ‘interestingly, because she is a Danish citizen, double-councillor Lockington isn't just disqualified from standing as a candidate in the coming general election, she can't even vote in it.’ But what seems strange to me is the idea that people who aren’t British citizens should be able to vote in a British general election. PS I should, of course, point out that Irish citizens can vote in UK elections because of a reciprocal agreement made at the time of the foundation of the Irish Republic, which the Irish then reneged on. Commonwealth citizens resident in the UK can also vote.

James Forsyth

The Ulster effect

From our UK edition

The electoral map that most of the broadcasters use misses off Northern Ireland entirely. But if the election is as close as people expect, then those 18 seats across the Irish Sea could become vital.   The first thing to note is that Sinn Fein remains committed to its policy of not taking its seats at Westminster. So every Sinn Fein MP elected reduces the number that a party needs to have an effective majority in the Commons. Iris Robinson, expenses and the rise of Traditional Unionist Voice have all rather dented the DUP, the largest party in Northern Ireland at the last election. But it should still send back a fair few MPs.

Monday

James Forsyth

With three days to go, Brown delivers his best speech of the campaign

From our UK edition

We have now seen the party leaders at the same event for the last time before polling day. This afternoon, Cameron, Clegg and Brown took it in turns to address the Citizens UK Assembly, a collection of urban community and faith groups. Citizen UK had a six point manifesto they wanted to test the leaders on:  Agreeing to meet with the Citizens Assembly twice over a term, a living wage for workers, a cap on interest rates at 20 percent, an ‘earned citizenship’ scheme for illegal immigrants, an end to child detention in immigration centers and community land trusts. The audience was heavily pro-Labour, Brown got a standing ovation for just walking in. But even given that, Brown was on impressive form.

James Forsyth

Talking Balls | 3 May 2010

From our UK edition

The parties’ education spokesmen are debating on the Daily Politics shortly and so Ed Balls will be singing his favourite tune, investment versus cuts. In a classic Balls move, he is alleging that the Tories plan to make £6 billion of efficiency savings across government would lead to 14,000 teachers losing their jobs. Balls gets to this figure by assuming that £1.1 billion of these savings would come from the schools’ budget and that £860 million of this would come from staff redundancies. This is very odd as Balls himself says there are £950 million of efficiency savings that can be made in schools and presumably these savings don’t include laying off teachers.

Sunday

James Forsyth

Tonight’s polls are in hung parliament territory

From our UK edition

ICM for The Guardian and YouGov for the Sun tonight both point towards a hung parliament. ICM has the Tories on 33 down three from the last ICM poll, Labour down one to 28 and the Lib Dems up one to 28 and others up four to 12. YouGov puts the Tories on 34, the Lib Dems up one to 29 and Labour on 28. Polling on a Bank holiday weekend is particularly difficult. But these two polls will put a bit of a dent in the media narrative that a Tory majority is becoming the most likely result.   It'll be interesting to see if some of the Tory support that The Guardian poll finds has moved to UKIP comes back on polling day.

James Forsyth

The next test for Nick Clegg

From our UK edition

Whatever one thinks of his polices, Nick Clegg has played his hand very well in this campaign. Few would have expected Clegg to make as much use of the leaders’ debates as he has. But now the debates are over, Clegg has to find another way of making an impact if his party is to hold onto second place. In the final days of the campaign, there’s going to be a tendency among the media to concentrate on the outgoing PM and the prospective PM. This is going to be heightened by a sense that the Tories might, in the end, get a majority. To an extent, Clegg is protected by the broadcasting regulations. But there's a danger that he's relegated to the end of every package.

James Forsyth

The morning after the election before

From our UK edition

Before the final leaders' debate, the studio audience was kept entertained by the screening of an episode of Yes Minister. It was an appropriate choice given that an indecisive result will give the mandarins huge power as they advise the parties on how to make a deal and the palace on who to invite to form a government once Brown has failed to do so. If David Cameron does not win an overall majority, I expect he’ll move straight onto the attack: demanding that Gordon Brown recognises he has no mandate to govern and that Nick Clegg rules out any deal with Labour.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Two more polls indicate a hung parliament with the Tories as the largest party

From our UK edition

Two more polls have just come out, YouGov for the Sunday Times and BPIX for the Mail on Sunday. The two polls both point towards a hung parliament with the Tories as the largest party and both put the Lib Dems in second. YouGov have Tories 35, Lib Dems 28 and Labour 27 and BPIX Tories 34, Lib Dem 30 and Labour 27. If the Tories get the most votes and the most seats, as all the polls today suggest they will, Cameron will end up as Prime Ministers. The Lib Dems have said too often that the party with the most votes and the most seats has a mandate to govern to go back on that. The two big questions of the last few days are can Cameron close strongly enough to eke out a majority and can the Lib Dems hold on to second.

James Forsyth

ComRes shows a ten point Tory lead

From our UK edition

The ComRes poll tonight will also cheer the Tories. It has them with a lead of 10 points. The numbers are Tories 38, Labour 28 and the Lib Dems 25. The Tories are up two and the other two main parties are each down one. On a uniform national swing, this would leave the Tories 11 seats short of a majority. But I would be very surprised if the Tory operation in the party’s target seats did not produce a majority from a ten point lead.

James Forsyth

Marginals poll suggests the Tories are on course for a majority of four

From our UK edition

An ICM poll of Labour Tory marginals for the News of the World has Cameron getting a majority, albeit one of four. (Although, the write-through saYS that the majority of four assumes that every Unionist MP returned from Ulster will back the Tories which is not a given). These marginals polls are expensive and so are done rarely, but they are a more useful than standard polling as they show you what is happening in the seats that will make most difference to the result. It was famously one of these marginals polls that led to Brown calling off the election in 2007.

James Forsyth

ICM poll points to hung parliament with the Tories as the largest party

From our UK edition

The Sunday Telegraph’s ICM poll has the Tories up three to 36, Labour up one to 29 and the Lib Dems down three to 27. Paddy Hennessy reports that the paper calculates that this would translate to the Tories having 279 seats, Labour 261 and the Lib Dems 78. Nick Clegg has always said that the party with the most votes and the most seats has a mandate to govern and so in these circumstances would likely allow the Tories to form a minority government by not making any deal with Labour. As I write in the column this week, the Tories would then press away with their emergency budget as planned. They are confident that the Lib Dems would not want to risk being blamed for the market and political chaos that would follow it being voted down.

James Forsyth

The ‘what if’ that must haunt Labour

From our UK edition

I wonder how those Labour Ministers who didn’t move against Gordon for ‘the good of the party’ during the various coups feel this morning. They made a calculation last June that if Brown had been toppled in what would have been seen as a Blairite coup it would have taken the party a generation to get over the recriminations. But looking at the polls today and sensing the mood in the air, the partry could be just days away from coming third in the popular vote. It is hard not to think that an alternative Labour leader would have done better in this election than Brown. Indeed, the return of Blair to the campaign trail has reminded the Labour machine of how much better their previous leader was.

James Forsyth

Can Mr Cameron hang tough?

From our UK edition

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics When the head of state herself has declared, after a lifetime of study, that ‘the British constitution has always been puzzling and always will be’, one wonders what hope there is for the rest of us if we wake up on 7 May to a hung parliament. We have become used to going to bed in the wee hours of Friday morning knowing who the new Prime Minister is. But this time the only thing that might be certain is the uncertainty. The Cabinet Office guidelines for a hung parliament are thorough and detailed. But they will not help with the media frenzy that is likely to be unleashed from Friday onwards: the news helicopters hovering over Downing Street, the 24-hour rolling commentary.

Friday

James Forsyth

The Guardian endorses the Lib Dems

From our UK edition

I suspect that newspaper endorsements interest journalists and politicians a heck of a lot more than they do voters. But The Guardian backing the Lib Dems (albeit with a caveat about anti-Tory tactical voting in Labour-Tory marginals) does feel like a significant moment. In a way, the endorsement is not too surprising. Having called on Labour to depose Brown, it would be quite hard for the paper to then argue that its readers should vote for the party he still leads. There is also considerable overlap between the Guardian leader line and the Lib Dem manifesto. The endorsement will not only help the Lib Dems at this election but in the post-election period.

James Forsyth

Tactical voting and the race for second

From our UK edition

Compass, a pressure group on the left of the Labour party, has today endorsed tactical voting after its members backed it overwhelmingly in a poll. The Compass endorsement of tactical vote fits with a pattern where Labour supporters in Lib Dem Tory seats will vote for the Lib Dems to try and keep the Tories out. But, interestingly, I hear that Lib Dem supporters tactically voting in Labour in Labour-Tory marginals is unwinding. Lib Dem supporters who have voted tactically in the past are now conscious of how significant it would be if the Liberal Democrats finished second in the popular vote and so are backing their own party. (There are, obviously, other reasons revolving around Labour’s failures for Lib Dem supporters not being prepared to vote Labour in these seats).

James Forsyth

Tonight David Cameron turned in the performance he needed to. In the post-debate polls, Cameron has won three comfortably, one narrowly and tied the other

From our UK edition

For the first forty-five minutes it was rather like the first debate. Brown attacked Cameron, Cameron hit back and all the while Clegg soared above it. But then immigration, Clegg’s Achilles heel, was thrown into the mix. Cameron went hard for Clegg over his amnesty policy, and Clegg had no clear answer—initially backing away from the policy, before coming back to it. Throughout this exchange, Cameron had covering fire from Brown. Clegg appeared knocked back as he came under the most sustained attack of the campaign and didn’t get back into his groove until his closing statement. In the meantime, Cameron capitalised; delivering some of his strongest answers of the whole debate series.

Thursday

James Forsyth

Cameron’s tactical dilemma

From our UK edition

One thing to watch tonight is David Cameron’s strategy for dealing with Nick Clegg’s plan to take peoples’ first ten thousand pounds of income out of tax. This policy is clear and appealing and one that many Conservatives like. Indeed, Cameron himself called it a ‘beautiful policy’ in the first debate. So it is imperative, that the Tories have a way to try and defuse it. During the campaign, the Tories have used two different attacks on it. One is to criticise it from the left, to argue that the policy is not progressive as it does not help the lowest paid: you have to earn more than ten thousands pounds a year to get the full benefit of it.

James Forsyth

The morning after the duffing up

From our UK edition

It will be hard to isolate the influence of ‘bigot-gate’ on the polls as any taken after today will also include the effect of the final debate. But a few things are worth noting. First, this will be a ‘slow-burn’: Brown’s dismissal of such a large section of the electorate will take a while to sink in. It’s the kind of thing that is going to get discussed for days. I was doing a phone-in on Radio Five last night and those working on the programme told me that it was one of their highest ever volumes of calls.  Second, its ultimate result might be reduced Labour turnout—note how Mrs Duffy is just not going to vote now rather than switching to the Tories or the Lib Dems.

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Brown’s apology to Labour members

From our UK edition

This message has just been blasted out to Labour members: As you may know, I have apologised to Mrs Duffy for remarks I made in the back of the car after meeting her on the campaign trail in Rochdale today. I would also like to apologise to you. I know how hard you all work to fight for me and the Labour Party, and to ensure we get our case over to the public. So when the mistake I made today has so dominated the news, doubtless with some impact on your own campaigning activities, I want you to know I doubly appreciate the efforts you make. Many of you know me personally. You know I have strengths as well as weaknesses. We all do. You also know that sometimes we say and do things we regret. I profoundly regret what I said this morning.

James Forsyth

Will there be a backlash against criticism of Brown?

From our UK edition

Gordon Brown badly needed Mrs Duffy to come out of her house after his 40 minute meeting with her and grant him public absolution and declare that she’s voting Labour after all. But she chose to stay firmly inside. There’s now no footage to replace that of the initial gaffe on the nightly news tonight.   In his statement after his meeting with her, Brown said he had ‘simply misunderstood some of the words she had used.’ But it is hard to see how he could misunderstood what she said.   Some are asking if there’ll be a backlash to the criticism of Brown as there was after the Jacqui Janes letter. I don’t think there will be.