James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
One of the big questions of the Obama presidency is can he actually use his popularity to go over rulers’ heads and straight to their people. Obama’s interview with Al Arbiya, a 24 hour Middle Eastern news channel, was an attempt to do just that. Obama emphasised his willingness to listen and repeatedly talked about
One poll already puts Labour below 30 percent but there’s almost no chance that Labour will replace Brown as leader. Collectively the party seems to know that it made its decision when it chose during conference to stick with Brown. But what will undermine Brown, as James Kirkup argues, is ministers jostling for the best position
One of the most important political and ideological battles of the next few years will be to determine who—and what—gets the blame for the current financial crisis. The public, and public policy, will react heavily against whoever and whatever is perceived to be at fault. All of which makes Sebastian Mallaby’s comments in the Washington
As someone who thought Israel’s actions in Gaza were justified and that the BBC did not do nearly enough to explain the Israeli position during the conflict, I was fairly cynical about the BBC’s motives in not showing the DEC appeal last night. But having watched it a couple of times, I find myself in
Today started with a good poll for the Tories and it ends with another. The latest ICM poll for The Guardian has the Tories on 44 percent, up six points on last month. Labour are on 32, down one, and the Lib Dems on 16, down 3. Year on year, the Tories are up seven,
One friend joked to me the other day that Prime Ministers should only appoint Chancellors whose eyebrows match their hair colour, pointing out that the last two Chancellors to lead Britain into recession have both had black eyebrows and silver hair. But Alex Massie points out that it might be the schooling not the eyebrows
The New Yorker has a really fun piece this week about a New Republic journalist who was drafted in to drive a car in the president-elect’s motorcade a couple of days before the inauguration. Here’s the bit where she’s given her instructions: The Secret Service guys told her the drill: it would all happen fast;
Today’s Guardian reports that: “The Muslim Council of Britain boycotted yesterday’s national Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration in protest at the Israeli offensive in Gaza this month” The MCB’s decision to vote in December 2007 to end its boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day was regarded by many as proof that the group was moderating and that the
Today’s ComRes poll in The Independent marks an important turning point. Labour has dropped below 30 percent for the first time since September; this means that Brown has dropped back to where he was before the first bank bailout and the return of Peter Mandelson. Brown has already recovered once when most of the political
Nick Cohen’s essay in The Observer Review is written with his trademark honesty and passion and is essential reading. Here’s the crux of his argument: “the paradox of the 1997 Labour government was that it was at once a left- and a right-wing administration. It wanted a huge public works programme. It aimed to redistribute
If anyone doubts that state spending has grown far too large over the past few years consider these numbers: “Across the whole of the UK, 49% of the economy will consist of state spending, while in Wales, the figure will be 71.6% – up from 59% in 2004-5. Nowhere in mainland Britain, however, comes close
It has been rather obscured by the torrent of bad economic news and Obama’s inauguration but the Tories appear increasingly set for a decisive victory. It now appears almost impossible that the British economy will start to grow again in the third quarter of this year as Brown and Darling predicted in the PBR. Instead,
Charles Moore’s column today on the similarities between Gordon Brown and Sir Fred Goodwin, formerly of RBS, is well worth reading. As Charles writes, “What is the difference between Sir Fred and Mr Brown? Mr Brown is still in his job.” Charles also points out how difficult, pace Kevin Maguire, nationalising the banks would be:
As an agnostic, I find the atheist advertising campaign on the buses most odd. First of all, it seems unlikely that an advert on the side of bus is going to change minds about something as fundamental as whether or not there is a God. Second, the slogan, “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying
One of the most alarming things at the moment is that no one appears to know what is going to happen next in this financial crisis. When in today’s Times interview Alice Thomson and Rachel Sylvester asked the City Minister Lord Myners whether there will have to be more bank bailouts, he replied: “There may
If the Iraq War had not happened Barack Obama would not be president. If most Washington Democrats had not discredited themselves in the eyes of the Democratic base by voting for the war, a first term Senator—even one with Obama’s political talents and appeal—would not have been able to win the party’s nomination. In the
With the country officially entering recession today, the Prime Minister went on the Today Programme to make his case. The first part of the interview was, from his perspective, quite effective. He managed to stress that the other major economies were either in recession or going into recession, he hit back using politically astute populist
On the Today Programme this morning, Gordon Brown backed away from the PBR’s claim that the economy would start to grow again in the third quarter this year, adding a slew of caveats about the need for international cooperation to make his actions effective. But looking at the JP Morgan chart above, brings home just
The Bush presidency can hardly be termed a success. But I suspect, historians will soon be boosting Bush’s standing. Why? Because Bush’s answer to the terrorism question is, basically, right. In the short term, you have to disrupt their networks, deny them safe haven and—if all else fails—kill them. But in the long term, you
