James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
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Here are some of the early emails exchanged between Damian McBride and Derek Draper about Red Rag (email addresses and phone numbers have been removed). Note who else is copied into the emails: On 13 Jan 2009, at 18:34, “Damian McBride” wrote: Gents A few ideas I’ve been working on for Red Rag. For ease,
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On Wednesday night I was in the Westminster Arms watching the football. Damian McBride was in there as well. Much to the chagrin of my drinking companions, his presence dominated the place. He swaggered around with total confidence. Whatever the polls and logic said, this was one Brown praetorian who gave no outward sign that
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Today’s Telegraph piece on how the Tories plan to fight the next election is worth reading in full. But there are some points in it that deserve special attention. First, the Ashcroft marginal seats campaign is still delivering with the Tories enjoying a 14 point lead in the main marginals. Second, love-bombing the Lib Dems
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Just a quick follow up on Pete’s excellent post on Damiengate, there are two potential resignation issues here. The first is the one that appears in the Telegraph today, the use of a Number 10 email account for a partisan political purpose. Downing Street has conceded this point and appears confident that it can ride
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In his New Yorker blog, George Packer relays a thought-provoking conversation with his roofer: “It turned out that cell phones had become a major headache in his work. Customers called him all the time, expecting him to hear every little complaint even while he was wrestling with a roof hatch. Meanwhile, they were more and
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It is encouraging that President Medvdev is prepared to concede to Obama that American “assessments have been more right than ours” about Iran’s nuclear programme. If Russian really is prepared to acknowledge (trust but verify and all that) that Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons it brings into play the prospect of far tougher UN
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In The Independent today, Steve Richards sets out a fundamental truth about public services: “In order to measure the effectiveness of big public institutions it is necessary to ask only two questions: To whom is the organisation accountable? To whom are its leaders accountable within the organisation? If the answers are clear, the organisation and
From our UK edition
From our UK edition
Steve Richards reports in the New Statesman that Cabinet ministers are again talking about the prospect of an election this year not next. The thinking goes that if Labour clings on until the last minute they’ll lose so better to take the initiative and call an election as soon as they are within striking distance.
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Camilla Cavendish’s column in The Times today contains a message that the right urgently needs to get across before the cuts debate kicks off in earnest: “There are two public sectors in Britain today: the “front line” that does jobs the public understands, often for low to middling wages, and the “back room” that is
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Back in September 1996, the Tories sent Norma Major onto the campaign trail. John Major said that his wife had been his “secret weapon for the past 26 years” and declared “Norma has been accompanying me on tours like this for a very long time. But she now proposes to do that a good deal
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It is hard not to be shocked by this video of the police and Ian Tomlinson last week in London. The footage (after the jump) strongly indicates that Tomlinson was no threat to anyone or anything. He was just someone slowly going about their business. This incident will be yet another blow to public confidence
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Nearly everyone would accept that education is the key to advancement in the globalised, knowledge economy and that now is the worst time in almost a generation to look for a job. So, it is a huge error for the government to now be telling sixth-form and colleges that there is a £60 million shortfall
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The New York Times Magazine profile of Asif Ali Zardari, the president of Pakistan who is known by the nickname of Mr 10 percent, is a depressing reading. It leaves you with little doubt that Zadari is not the kind of effective leader that Pakistan needs now. Then, in its final paragraphs, it turns its
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Steve Richards sets out Brown’s three-step strategy for the coming weeks in his Independent column: ‘The first is to link the G20 decisions to those that are made in Britain. Instead of suggesting that he is moving on to British politics as if it was a separate entity, he will seek to show that there
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There is a great piece by Harvey Mansfield in The Weekly Standard about economists and their role in the current crisis. It is hard not to agree with Mansfield’s contention that economists became far too confident about what they could achieve. As Mansfield writes: “The economists I know are generally, as individuals, sober and cautious,
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Allen Stanford, the Texan millionaire who English cricket leapt into bed with but is now expected to be indicted, has given a quite remarkable interview to ABC News. In it, he emotionally denies that he was running a ponzi scheme or laundering money for drug cartels. But it is this comment that caught my eye:
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A Populus poll out tonight suggests that Labour has not had any kind of sustained bounce from the G20. It has Labour steady at 30, the Tories up one to 43 and the Lib Dems down one to 18. This is, obviously, only one poll but, as Anthony Wells notes, it combined with the mild
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Over at Boulton and Co, Joey Jones points out that many in Westminster think that the publications of the 2005 to 2008 expense receipts will be career-ending for some MPs. A senior Tory MP tells Jones that six or so will have to step down because of it. The other day a campaigner involved in
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Today’s IFS briefing sets out what needs to be done if the Budget is to be back balance by in 2015-16: “For £39 billion to be raised without any further tax-raising measures, growth in total public spending over this period would need to be reduced by 1.1 percentage points a year, i.e. there would need