James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
Reading New York Magazine’s profile of Tony Blair, I was struck by this quote from Blair: “Actually,” he says, “what’s interesting is I’ve spoken to several European leaders—I won’t name them—who I didn’t really think were religious at all, and was rather surprised. They know I’ve started this foundation. And they’ll say, ‘That’s really interesting,
It was widely thought that welfare reform would be one of the victims of the downturn. But interestingly, the political case for it—as opposed to the practicality of actually doing it—seems almost easier to make at a time when everyone is tightening their belts. Certainly, Purnell’s proposals faced less opposition from the left than one
Anthony King, the polling sage, has an op-ed in the Telegraph today setting out the polling case for why the Tories should go into the New Year in good heart. King notes that the Tories—who have led in the YouGov poll for the last 15 months with forty percent plus support—have not been in such
Vanity Fair has a long series of interviews looking back on the Bush presidency. A lot of the ground covered is familiar—9/11, torture, Iraq and Katrina—but this comment from Mark McKinnon, Bush’s chief adman during his presidential campaigns, touches on an aspect of Bush’s election victories that people don’t think about enough: “The interesting thing
There is a strange tendency when viewing the Israeli-Palestinian dispute to imagine that because might does not make right it must make wrong. By this logic, the fact that Israel can inflict greater damage on Hamas than Hamas can on Israel makes Israel the aggressor. But in reality, it is Hamas who is responsible for
One of the political themes of 2009 is going to be how Labour tries to shift the blame for the fact that the economy is not recovering. Just before Christmas, Pete highlighted how Brown was suggesting that the forecast that the recession would be over by the third quarter might be too optimistic because the
Ever since the end of apartheid it was clear that the ANC would win every election it contested until it split, its role in the liberation struggle determined that. But this one party dominance was always going to be a bad thing for South Africa; a fully functioning democracy requires competition between political parties—a party
In The Observer’s feature on what will happen in 2009, Andrew Rawnselys says this about an early election: “The case for an earlier election is that things will get worse for Labour. I don’t see [Gordon Brown] wanting to believe that. Such is his contempt for his Tory opponent, he will reckon that waiting will
Charles Krauthammer has an important piece in the Weekly Standard joining those calling for an increase in the gas tax in the US compensated for by an equivalent reduction in the payroll tax. Here’s what he is proposing: “A net-zero gas tax. Not a freestanding gas tax but a swap that couples the tax with an equal
It is worth returning to Channel 4’s decision to have President Ahmadinejad deliver its alternative Christmas message. Predictably, those who have attacked the decision have been accused of opposition to free speech—just look at some of the comments on the Skimmer’s post. But this criticism misses a crucial distinction: there is a difference between allowing
Ben Brogan has an important update to the story about the shadow Cabinet and their outside interests: “what seems to have happened is fairly straightforward: Dave and George Osborne wanted to call time on part-timers, but when the idea got out there was a backlash behind the scenes. I’m told that three members of the
Obama’s victory speech on election night was not the triumphant hallelujah that some of his supporters wanted. Rather, it was an exercise in expectations management. Ever since his victory became a racing certainty, Obama has been trying to damp down expectations—the inspirational, the ‘planet will begin to heal’ rhetoric has taken a back seat in
The saga of the shadow Cabinet and their second jobs took another turn today with a report in the FT that David Cameron will not force them to give up their outside interests. This strikes me as a mistake. A general election is less than 18 months away and the part-time nature of much of
Yes the England team lost the series in India and yes there were things to critics about their performance—Shane Warne’s jibe about Monty Panesar’s lack of guile has never rung truer than after this tour, Steve Harmison’s attitude away from home is still deeply frustrating and in continuing to pick Ian Bell ahead of Owais
The latest estimate for the cost of the stimulus package that Obama will ask Congress to approve is $850 billion. That is, as Playbook points out keying off a Washington Post story: “ more than the inflation-adjusted cost of the Vietnam War ($698 billion), the Iraq war ($597 billion), the Korean War ($454 billion), the
One would imagine that a prerequisite of heading the Met’s counter-terrorism branch would be having good judgement. This is something that Bob Quick, who signed off on the Damian Green arrest, seems to lack. This morning a story in the Mail on Sunday reported that his wife runs a wedding car hire service from their
General elections are decided in the marginals; it was polling from them that led Brown to call off the election in 2007. The economic conditions in these seats are going to have a disproportionate impact on the election result. The Independent reports today that unemployment is rising faster in Labour-held marginals than in the country
I said the other day that Obama’s national security appointments were as good as a hawk could hope for. Well his pick for US Trade Representative is much better than what free traders expected. The former Mayor of Dallas Ron Kirk (pictured with Obama) is on the right side of the issue which considering Obama’s
Bagehot has some sensible advice for David Cameron in The Economist: smile more. He writes that: “Labour’s caricature of [Cameron’s] astringent economic approach as “do nothing” is unfair but evocative; it has awakened an almost olfactory memory of Tory responses to past downturns. Meanwhile, Mr Cameron pursues his theme of the “broken society”, his catch-all,
Peter Oborne has an important column this morning on just how seriously the option of printing more money is being taken by the Bank of England and the government. But what caught my eye is the fall in sterling that Oborne details: “This systematic debauchery of the country’s finances has caused sterling to collapse. In