James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
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Conventional wisdom has it that the governing party recovers in the polls during an election campaign. The theory is that the incumbent party both gests to choose when the election is and benefits from the polls moving from being a referendum on the government to a choice between the parties. But—as Anthony Wells, Mike Smithson
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The Washington Post has an interesting interview with Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the author of the black swan thesis. In it, he’s very dismissive of economists and makes some sensible comments about bonuses. But what struck me as most interesting was his final answer: “My rosy scenario is that a better economic environment will develop, a
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Today’s Observer reports: “Gordon Brown’s hopes of uniting the world’s most powerful economies behind a massive new package of tax cuts and public spending increases suffered a serious blow yesterday when he failed to persuade France and Germany to back his plan to revive the world economy. After talks at Chequers to prepare the way
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Update: Michael Goldfarb now says he meant the Iowa item as a joke. So, this post is no longer operative. Apologies, I thought Goldfarb was being serious. “THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that General Petraeus is planning on delivering the commencement address at the University of Iowa in 2010.” So reports Michael Goldfarb, late of
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James Kirkup has a very astute post up at Three Line Whip about how to gauge the success of the G20 summit in April. Kirkup writes, “The more you hear Mr Brown, Mr Obama and the rest talk about tax havens, the more they have failed to agree on more important things. No one likes tax
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Sometime a politician says something that is so at odds with reality that one almost hopes that it is spin rather than what they really think. Yesterday, Ed Balls said that it was “nonsense” to claim that IGCSEs are more demanding than GCSEs. This is patent rubbish. Pretty much any teacher, or pupil, will tell
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Max Boot and Fred and Kimberly Kagan’s report on Afghanistan in The Weekly Standard is well worth reading in full. The three authors played key roles in making the case for the surge that has helped to transform Iraq and their comparisons of the two countries are instructive and suggest that the situation is less dire
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Steve Richards argues with his typical eloquence for higher public spending today. Unsurprisingly, I disagree with him. But, intriguingly, he endorses an idea that in the medium term would, I think, be incredibly effective in cutting down the size of the state. Steve writes: “The shadow Chancellor, George Osborne has proposed the equivalent of America’s
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Every day seems to bring forward new statistics which illustrate the urgent need for radical education reform. Take this from Camilla Cavendish’s column: “150,000 pupils start secondary school innumerate every year” The state of state education in this country is a national scandal. Its failings are destroying both social mobility in Britain and this country’s
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Camilla Cavendish, who writes with such passion and authority on this issue, sets out why the Serious Case Review into Baby P’s death should be published in The Times today: “I had hoped that he might challenge the refusal of Ed Balls to publish serious case reviews (SCR) in instances where children have died. The
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There’s a smart piece in this week’s Economist on what might be the biggest obstacle to Harriet Harman becoming Labour leader after the next election, the narrowness of her range: “Ms Harman also personifies a rather narrow sect of Labour thought. Unkindly nicknamed “Hattie Harperson” for her political correctness, she has often championed a cultural
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No one could accuse either William Galston or David Brooks of being shrill or wanting the president to fail. But both are worried that Obama is heading for disaster because he is trying to do too much. They argue that he needs to put the rest of his agenda on hold until the financial crisis has
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The Lord Laming review of the progress that has been made in child protection since his report following the death of Victoria Climbie is all well and good. But, surely publishing the Serious Case Review into Baby P—which Ed Balls refuses to do—would do more good? It shows precisely how the bureaucracy made such a
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An article in Mother Jones highlights out one of the most scandalous aspects of the Madoff case, the SEC’s refusal to act on information it was given about Madoff: “Among those that did learn of Madoff’s money management business was Boston-based Rampart Investment Management Company, Inc. In late 1999, Frank Casey, then a senior vice president
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Gordon Brown claims not to know what he should say sorry for. Well, he could start with apologising for his role in Lloyds’ takeover of HBOS. Iain Martin puts it perfectly in today’s Telegraph: “The catastrophe at Lloyds-HBOS is the ultimate New Labour scandal. It has the lot: cronyism, back-scratching, destructive micromanaging by Gordon Brown
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Washington DC’s public schools are some of the worst in America despite having the third highest per pupil spending levels, $14,400 per pupil, in the Union. A small, experimental voucher programme has been running since 2004 which gives around 1,800 pupils from low-income families up to $7,500 a year to go to private schools. The
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From today’s Standard: “Transport chiefs shut Bank’s Central line platforms for 90 minutes last night after complaints that decibel levels from screeching rails were too high. The closure left thousands of commuters facing severe delays just after 5.30pm. They described the decision as “madness”. Transport for London admitted the problem, caused by a lack of
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It is hard not to feel rage when one sees soldiers returning home from serving their country being abused by protestors as they were in Luton yesterday. There are those who are making a free speech argument in defence of the police allowing these Islamists to picket the homecoming parade. But the problem is that
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Media coverage of the dissident Republican groups has focused on the question of how much support they have. But, as Martyn Frampton pointed out on The Today Programme this morning, a terrorist organisation doesn’t actually need that many people to cause serious disruption because the odds are loaded in their favour. As the IRA, who
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Chuck Todd at First Read flags up some fascinating comments from Vice-President Biden on his visit to Nato: “5 percent of the Taliban is incorrigible, not susceptible to anything other than being defeated. Another 25 percent or so are not quite sure, in my view, the intensity of their commitment to the insurgency. And roughly
