James Forsyth

James Forsyth

James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.

Monday

James Forsyth

Labour fails to get bang for its borrowed buck 

The Tories must have been tempted to roar across the Chamber, that all you got Darling? There was little in the speech that we did not know was coming and the overall effect was underwhelming. Indeed, the only numbers that grabbed one’s attention were the debt figures. Also Darling by announcing that the economy will be growing again by the third-quarter of next year has created a yard-stick against which this PBR can be measured. The opposition will be justified in saying that it has failed by the government’s own criteria if Britain is not out of recession this time next year. To further improve the Tory mood, George Osborne turned in his strongest-ever Commons performance. If Osborne had been poor today, the muttering against him would have grown louder.

James Forsyth

After today, Brown is no longer the master of his fate

Brown has revelled in the economic crisis. A Prime Minister who was presumed to be a dead man walking found himself in a position where people had to listen to him. the combination of the severity of the situation and the institutional authority of his office revived him. Since September, Brown has played his cards masterfully. He has forced the Tories onto the back foot and is now in striking distance of them in the polls. But the PBR forces the government to fully lay out its plan for how it plans to get the country out of this mess. After today we won’t be waiting for hints of what he is going to do, but waiting to see if what he has done has worked. Suddenly the pressure will be back on him.

James Forsyth

Tories step around the elephant trap Brown had set for them

The 45p gambit is all about politics not raising revenue. Brown knows jolly well that even on a static calculation it only raises two and a bit billion and in reality will bring in far less. However, Brown is hoping that the move will either lure the Tories into vocal opposition, allowing him to paint them as defenders of the privileged rich, or cause division in their ranks.  (The move, though, does only increase one’s annoyance that the Tories didn’t move to counter-act this by offering their own middle class tax cut over the summer.

James Forsyth

The Tories mustn’t fall into Brown’s trap

The Tories will be desperately tempted to vigorously oppose the new 45p top rate for those earning more than £175,000. But this is just what Brown wants them to do--as Fraser pointed out this measure has far more to do with politics than raising revenue. Brown is hoping to create a situation in which the perception is that he is trying to save the economy while the Tories are just trying to protect their rich friends. Yes such a narrative is rubbish, but it could be politically potent. Falling that, Brown is trying to provoke a Tory split; hoping that Tory backbenchers will demand that the leadership oppose it at all costs. Brown knows that there are still few things the press likes more than a Tory splits story.

Sunday

James Forsyth

Hands off

There is a lot of waste and needles expenditure in Whitehall but it is, frankly, pathetic of Greg Hands to try and make a fuss about Hazel Blears having a couple of Spanish lessons before attending a summit in Spain or Peter Mandelson being taught how to use a Blackberry. The reputation of politicians is low-enough without MPs spending time and money on this kind of absurd gotcha exercise. Hands really should reflect before asking any more of this kind of question; they might get his name in the paper but what good do they serve? However, as Iain Dale notes, The Sunday Times story about Stephen Ladyman does not reflect well on the former minister and suggests that the rules regard MPs lobbying on behalf of companies are far too lax.

James Forsyth

Tactical success for the Tories as Brown boxes himself in on 2009 election

The PBR is being spun like a pre-election budget but today on the Politics Show today Brown came very close to closing the door on the prospect of a 2009 election. Here’s the key quote: “"I am not thinking about that at all. It is almost completely wrong even to consider this. Our undivided attention is on getting these problems sorted out.  I am not planning it at all. I do not think people would think much of me," he said.” Brown has left himself a tiny bit of wiggle room but it is hard to see how Brown can now go to the country without raising questions about his own integrity. The vehemence with which Brown rejected the notion shows that he is scarred by the experience of the election that never was.

James Forsyth

Is Brown’s political positioning VAT good?

I’m unconvinced that a cut in the VAT rate will be that big a political winner for Labour. First VAT is a hidden tax, a lot of the time people don’t realise they are paying it as it is incorporated in the price. Second, sterling’s weakness means that imports are going to become more expensive regardless of this cut. The attraction for Brown, in purely partisan terms, is that it throws the Tories for a loop. Note how David Cameron couldn’t say whether he opposed or supported it on Marr this morning (his, reasonable, explanation was that he had to see the details of the scheme first). Labour will also have noted with relish Ken Clarke’s support for the idea.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Caroline for London

Under the headline ‘This would insult Britain, Mr President’, Peter Oborne objects to the idea of making Caroline Kennedy the US Ambassador to the Court of St James. Peter’s grounds are that some of “ her family were long-standing supporters of IRA terrorism during the Irish troubles” and that her grandfather who, was Ambassador to London from 1938 to 1940, “favoured Hitler over Churchill”. Peter is right about this, if you want to get a sense of how anti-British Joe Kennedy was read John Lukacs excellent Five Days in London, but I would still like to see Caroline appointed.

James Forsyth

The coming Tory attack on Brown

We can expect to see a lot of Ken Clarke over the next few days; the Tories know that he is still on of their most convincing voices on the economy. His interview in The Times today is helpful to the Tory cause. But it is worth noting that he breaks with the leadership in endorsing the idea of a stimulus package albeit one of a very different stripe from the one Brown and Darling are said to be planning, Clarke favours a temporary reduction in VAT to 15 percent. One line from the interview, though, could be the basis of an effective Tory attack: “We keep having ‘this is going to save the world' moments and they're all useless.

Friday

James Forsyth

Will Brown let Darling tell us that he is going to hike the VAT rate to pay for the stimulus package?

As we learnt during the banking crisis, what Robert Peston predicts tends to become reality shortly afterwards. So, his informed speculation on what is in the PBR is well worth reading. This passage is particularly interesting and appears to be the latest shot in the briefing wars, which has reached up to cabinet level, around the Brown-Darling fight over whether or not Labour should explain how it tax cuts and increased spending will be paid for: “But he [Darling] will also announce deferred tax rises and deferred cuts in public spending - to kick in when the economy has recovered a bit. When would that be? Maybe 2010, maybe 2011.

James Forsyth

The Labour arguments for a June 4th poll

The more people one speaks to the more one gets the impression that there might be an election early next year. The principal rationale for a poll in 2009 is ignoble: by 2010 the reality of recession will have caught up with Gordon Brown so he needs to go to the country before then. There are a couple of particular attractions for June 4th—the date floated in the Evening Standard—for Labour.  June 4th is also the date of the European election, this would ease the burden on Labour’s finances—Labour can’t afford to fight serious campaigns in both and so could suffer a momentum-reversing thrashing in the European elections if it waits until 2010 for a general election.

James Forsyth

Who is stoking the early election speculation?

In the New Statesman this week, Martin Bright writes that 'one former cabinet minister who spent a long time at the Treasury told the New Statesman: "Gordon has to get the Obama visit [the G8 summit in April] out of the way then call an election. There really is no other option." Today on the front page of the Evening Standard Anne McElvoy reports that a Brown “ally” told her that: "He would be mad not to think about it. "The date really selects itself if you look at the options.

James Forsyth

Jam today, jam tomorrow but never jam again

This morning’s FT lays out just how bad a state the public finances are in: “Annual public borrowing is set to rocket towards £120bn over the next two years – far higher than City forecasts – forcing Alistair Darling to announce plans for deferred tax rises and public spending curbs when he presents his pre-Budget report next week. ... The consensus forecast is for borrowing to hit 6 per cent of national income, or £90bn, next financial year, but the Treasury expects the rate of deterioration to continue apace, suggesting the budget deficit will hit 8-9 per cent of gross domestic product over the next two years, close to £120bn – three times the European Union’s deficit limit.

James Forsyth

Lord of the Dance

The momentum behind the Mandelson dancing story just keeps building. The latest piece is in the People column in today’s Times: Was it a foxtrot, a waltz or a quickstep? Twinkletoed Lord Mandelson pressed his Strictly Come Dancing credentials by sweeping lobby correspondent Sunita Patel off her feet at his Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform drinks party at Westminster. “He was really very good,” says the Wolverhampton Express and Star reporter. “He asked me if I could dance and I said yes, though in fact it was actually my first time. Let’s put it this way, he didn’t tread on my toes.” Can his Cabinet colleagues say that?

Thursday

James Forsyth

The Parliamentary failings exposed by the tragic case of Baby P

Someone who has followed the Baby P case particularly closely, writes to Coffee House with the following observations: Haringey's lawyers concluded on 25 July 2007 that the "the threshold for initiating Care Proceedings ... was not met" despite medical staff concluding in June that there was "a reasonable probability" that Baby P's injuries had been caused by physical abuse. This suggests that the lawyers believed that Baby P "probably" being deliberately hurt was not sufficient evidence even to argue the case for a Care Order.   Considering that the hurdle that has to be cleared to get a Care Order is that a child "is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm" this seems a bizarre decision.

James Forsyth

Obama’s other challenge

There has been a lot of attention on the immense domestic challenges that Obama will face once he has been sworn in, but the foreign policy problems haven’t gone away. Not only is America fighting two wars but Obama is almost going to have work out what to do about Iran which is far along the path to nuclear status. As The New York Times puts it in its story on the latest IAEA report: “Even so, for President-elect Barack Obama, the report underscores the magnitude of the problem that he will inherit Jan. 20: an Iranian nuclear program that has not only solved many technical problems of uranium enrichment, but that can also now credibly claim to possess enough material to make a weapon if negotiations with Europe and the United States break down.

James Forsyth

Is this how Brown plans to get Labour fired up and ready to go?

I’m still sceptical about the idea of Brown going to the country in 2009, but Martin Bright lays out one potential, and plausible, route to an ‘09 election in his New Statesman column:  It just so happens that, in April, the UK will be taking its turn at the presidency of the G20 group of world leaders, which means this country will be the venue for the next global economic summit. Brown will therefore be hosting Barack Obama on one of the first foreign trips of his presidency. Fortuitous timing indeed, with a possible snap May election to follow. As one former cabinet minister who spent a long time at the Treasury told the New Statesman: "Gordon has to get the Obama visit out of the way then call an election. There really is no other option.

Wednesday

James Forsyth

A little bit of vindication for Osborne

A few weeks ago, George Osborne warned that excessive government borrowing would make it harder for the Bank of England to cut interest rates. Labour responded by calling him “out of his depth”. Now, we see from the minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee meeting that the Bank held off from a deeper cut in rates until it had seen the pre-Budget report—in other words, until it had seen how much more the government intends to borrow. So, Osborne was right after all.