James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
From our UK edition
The mission for the Tories in the New Year is to communicate to the electorate just how bad a state the public finances are in. The Tories need to hammer this message home until the proverbial man on the street knows the numbers. Only when people realise that we were first in and last out
From our UK edition
It is a depressing fact that the Detroit bomber appears to have been radicalised in London. Today, the New York Times takes an extensive look at the bomber’s radicalisation in London. As the paper, which is not prone to hyperbole, says: “Investigators are now, in fact, turning a sharper and retrospective eye to the passage
From our UK edition
Two of the leaders of the organisation that is claiming responsibility for the attempt to blow up a jet over Detroit were released from Guantanamo in 2007, ABC News is reporting. They were sent from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia where they were entered into an ‘art therapy’ programme designed to rehabilitate terrorists. They seemed to
From our UK edition
New York’s ever falling murder rate is one of the wonders of modern urban policy. It is proof that decisive political leadership can arrest and then reverse decline that many had considered inevitable. This year, as The New York Times reports, New York is scheduled to record the lowest number of murders since records began
From our UK edition
Now is not a good time–politically–to be an incumbent. The economic realities mean that tough choices have to be made: services cut, taxes raised or both. So it is a clever move by Jon Cruddas and Chuka Umunna to set up a website, Tory stories, scrutinising the work of Tory councils. It also plays to
From our UK edition
One of the surprises of the Tory leadership campaign in 2005 was how David Davis bested David Cameron in the TV debate between the two men. Those involved in Cameron’s preparations for that debate blame Cameron’s poor performance on how Michael Gove knocked Cameron’s confidence in the run up to it. Gove was Davis in
From our UK edition
The Daily Mail sets about David Cameron in its editorial today. It accuses him of “insulting voters’ intelligence”, tells him to “avoid the PR men, spivs and trashy celebrities with whom he has taken to mixing” and advises him to “spend less time with his spin-doctors, worrying about his image and trying to be all
From our UK edition
Ken Livingstone has added fuel to the fire that Fraser started with his News of the World column revealing that Peter Mandelson was being talked about as a possible Labour candidate for Mayor of London by saying that he had been warned to expect a challenge from Mandelson. But it strikes me that Livingstone might
From our UK edition
Gordon Brown is in an odd position when it comes to PR. As a Labour tribalist he hates it. But he knows that it could be very useful to him as he attempts to save his job. There was huge pressure from within the Labour party on Brown announce a referendum on PR for polling
From our UK edition
David Cameron’s interview with Tim Shipman suggests that the Tory leader is about to undergo a course correction. The Tories have, rightly, begun to be frank with the public about the cuts that will need to be made and have, again rightly, refused to rule out a short-term rise in VAT. But the ‘we’re all
From our UK edition
James Forsyth reviews the week in politics David Cameron is only taking a week off this Christmas. This is a pity, because he is facing a year that would test the stamina of a Spartan. From the moment politics resumes in the New Year, he’ll be in constant campaign mode. Then, if he wins, he’ll
From our UK edition
The last Friday before Christmas is pretty much the perfect take out the trash day and the Conservatives have today published the Legg repayment details of the shadow Cabinet. The person who has had to repay the most is Liam Fox. But as Paul Waugh reports, Fox seems to have had a pretty decent defence.
From our UK edition
Martin Kettle writes in The Guardian today that around “Cameron the response to Brown’s class war rhetoric is utterly different. They can’t believe their luck. Brown has gifted us the centreground for a generation, they say, rubbing their hands. They are not going to spurn their gift.” Certainly, those close to Cameron think that crude
From our UK edition
John Bercow will have the Commons sit in September if he is Speaker after the next election, reports the Evening Standard today. This will be welcome news to the Tory leadership. They are keen for parliament to be in session in September, if they win, for reasons both high and low. The high-minded reason is
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James Crabtree, a Labour SPAD turned managing editor of Prospect, has a good piece in the new Prospect about how the first step to recovery for Labour after the next election, assuming they lose, will be saying sorry. Crabtree argues that even if the Tory majority is small, Labour would be ill-advised to move straight
From our UK edition
Iain Martin has a thought-provoking post up about how the Tories lack an attack-dog. Certainly, the Tories lack a shadow Minister for the Today Programme, someone who can be relied to go on when it is a bad morning for the party and deal robustly with a tough interview. This is a position the Tories
From our UK edition
Greg Mankiw is one of the best academic economists out there and having been chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors has a good sense of how to turn theory into policy. His column last weekend in The New York Times is essential reading for anyone wondering about how Britain can avoid a double dip
From our UK edition
I’m of the view that climate change is happening and that the evidence suggests that man’s actions are playing a significant role in this. I’m even in favour of a carbon tax to deal with the problem. But I’ll admit that this is a political issue as well as a scientific, and one that will
From our UK edition
One of the Tories’ favoured lines recently has been that they are acting like a responsible government while Labour is behaving like an irresponsible opposition. But I wonder if this attitude is entirely healthy for an opposition, or whether it ends up blunting its campaigning edge. For example, the Tories’ refusal to say for definite
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Today’s Guardian has an interesting story on the success of the New School Network, an organisation set up to get parents’ to take up the opportunities offered by the Tories’ planned school reform. The Guardian reports that 200 parents groups and 100 groups of teachers are interested in setting up schools. I suspect that take
