James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
From our UK edition
With the TUC conference coming up, Derek Simpson, leader of Unite, flexes his muscles in an interview with The Independent. He tells Jane Merrick that Labour couldn’t fight a proper election campaign without Unite’s financial backing: “What are the consequences of us not giving Labour money? That will really impair, fatally damage, any chance of
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The question of Gordon Brown’s leadership won’t go away, but there’s a feeling that nothing will happen for a while yet. Andrew Grice writes in The Independent today that the coup might come in December: “Labour’s hard left and the trade unions are the dogs that have not barked. The assumption is that they stick
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There’s a good article in the New York Times today about how little has changed in the way Wall Street does business since the collapse of Lehman—employment in the sector is only down eight percent, Goldman employees will earn on average $700,000 this year and derivatives are still not being traded on an open exchange.
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David Cameron doesn’t give much away in his interview with the Telegraph. He again commits the Conservatives to making cuts and implies that taxes will have to be raised. But there are no specifics given. On the one hand, the lack of detail is frustrating—surely the party would have more of a mandate in government
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That the news that the government wants everyone who gives children a lift anywhere to be CRB checked broke on the same day that it emerged that Haringey council had sent a child to live with the ringleader of the airline bomb plotters is beyond satire. How have we got to a state where parents
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“What did he mean by that?” is the question one is left with after reading Derek Simpson’s interview with the Mirror. Simpson tells the paper that New Labour is dead and that “if you could convince me there is somebody who could take over and go down the Old Labour route without hesitation I’d share
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Charles Clarke has sounded off so often during the Brown premiership that it is tempting not to pay too much attention when he does. But his latest broadside is interesting in that Clarke is having a go at Brown as much from the left as from the right. He again attacks the abolition of the
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Peter Mandelson’s warning of a double-dip recession is in pretty much all the papers today. There’s no doubt that there is a risk the recession could turn into a W shaped one because the underlying problems in the financial sector have not been properly dealt with. But it also plays into Labour’s political strategy which
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The Guardian has a story today about how field sports enthusiasts are donating heavily to Nick Herbert, the shadow DEFRA secretary. The paper links the donations to the fact that the Tories are committed to holding a vote on the repeal of the hunting ban. As the Norwich North by-election showed, Labour will have a
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Over at ConservativeHome, Tim Montgomerie has written about a ‘war game’ that Portland PR held yesterday. The idea was to explore the various challenges that would face the next government. Portland had gathered together an impressive group including key Tory advisors, a senior figure from the Blair government, a former US government official, a senior
From our UK edition
Jon Cruddas’s speech tonight poses a question that cuts right to the heart of Gordon Brown’s leadership, ‘what does Labour stand for any more?’ There is no clear answer to this question, which explains why Labour has no clear domestic policy message. The retreat into ‘the philosophical framework of the right’, Cruddas argues, means that
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Alistair Darling’s speech today gives one a good idea of what Labour’s pitch is going to be this autumn. He stresses the importance of a strong, active government and argues that Labour will cut costs but not services. As he puts it, ‘Some seem in a hurry to cut services. We are focussing on cutting
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Andrew Grice has just blogged about a new poll in the Indy tomorrow which has the Tories 16 points ahead. The poll also shows that the majority of the population favour scrapping Trident. However, the public wants real term increases in health and education spending every year.
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Jackie Ashley complains in her column today about Labour misters going on ‘mic-strike’ saying that it will lead to Labour being beaten so badly that it might not be able to come back. Ashley is speaking for a lot of people in the Labour party, one hears frequent complaints these days about Minister who are
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David Miliband on the Today Programme on September 2nd: “We did not want him [Megrahi] to die in prison.” Ed Balls on the Today Programme on September 7th: “None of us wanted to see the release of al-Megrahi” Considering that Megrahi was sentenced to life imprison for his role in the Lockerbie bombing, I cannot
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To my mind the most interesting political story of the weekend is tucked away inside The Sunday Times. Jonathan Oliver reports that Unite, a trade union which donates huge sums of money to Labour, might be taken over by those who believe that the union should stop funding Labour. (The new leadership would not be
From our UK edition
Andrew Grice has an interesting column in the Independent today laying out Number 10’s plans for an autumn fightback. The six-step strategy is as follows: “1. Labour will focus on the policy choice between the two main parties because the Tories are more vulnerable on policy than their current opinion poll lead suggests. The Tories
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This quote from a retired aide to General Petraeus about the British performance in Basra is, as Alex Massie says, devastating: “The British failure in Basra was not due to the conduct of British troops, which was exemplary. It was, rather, a failure by senior British civilian and military leaders to understand the political dynamics
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Nick Clegg’s statement today on Afghanistan strongly suggests to me that by the time of the next election the Lib Dems will be for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Clegg told the BBC that: “I think there’s a tipping point where we have to ask ourselves whether we can do this job properly, and if we can’t
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In a move that is sure to overshadow the Prime Minister’s speech on Afghanistan tomorrow, Eric Joyce, a former army office, has tonight resigned as PPS to the Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth. In his resignation letter, published on the Channel 4 website, Joyce says that the public would “appreciate more direct approach by politicians” to