James Forsyth

James Forsyth

James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.

Sunday

James Forsyth

Will it be goodbye from Glasgow for Gordon?

From our UK edition

Gordon Brown is, according to The Sunday Mirror, finally going to take a proper holiday. The Brown family will head to East Anglia later this month for a week or so. But if Labour loses Glasgow East on the 24th of July, Brown might find the Labour party sending him off on a permanent vacation. It looks like Labour has finally found a candidate, Margaret Curran—a Glasgow MSP, to stand in what would in normal circumstances be a very safe seat for the party. But as Andrew Rawnsley points out, Labour’s traditional strength here means that the party is not well-equipped to fight a competitive campaign; the Glasgow East branch of the party has less than 200 members and no canvassing records.

Saturday

James Forsyth

The hunt for Bin Laden

From our UK edition

The new issue of Time magazine has a couple of interesting pieces on the hunt for Osama bin Laden. The magazine reports that US counter-terrorism officials have decided that the way they are most likely to catch bin Laden—who some in the CIA think many only have months to lives because of kidney disease—is to catch some of the more junior members of the al Qaeda leadership. To that end, the Pentagon is seeking an executive order from President Bush which would expand the military’s authority to launch cross-border raids into Pakistan from Afghanistan. However, others in the Administration worry about the political effects such raid might have on Pakistan. One senior Pakistani official tells Time that: "If they do a raid and they find No. 3 or No. 4 or No.

James Forsyth

The State and the establishment should stop pulling the rug out from under moderate Muslims

From our UK edition

Matthew Parris and Charles Moore both have important columns in their respective papers today about the Lord Chief Justice’s remarks. Matthew eloquently sums up what is most worrying about the argument made by the Archbishop of Canterbury and supported by Lord Phillips:  the second claim that Lord Phillips endorses is more dangerous. Decoded, Dr Williams is saying that in a multicultural society it is fine for people within a culture to agree not to exercise certain rights, even if English law would allow them to. This is a charter for male dominance. It's a charter for cultural bullying; for peer-group pressurising; for self-oppression.

James Forsyth

Brown’s dirty deal on the expenses vote

From our UK edition

The vote on Thursday night not to fix the broken system of MP’s expenses was a disgrace; it was the kind of behaviour that brings politics into disrepute. It was mostly Labour MPs who blocked this change with 33 ministers and Brown’s bag carriers voting for the wrecking amendment despite the Prime Minister himself suggesting that he backed reform. Today, Peter Oborne goes some way to explaining how this happened: The key to understanding [Brown’s] position is the fact that Thursday's vote on expenses followed an earlier one which involved the equally controversial issue of MPs' pay.

James Forsyth

Ray Lewis stands down

From our UK edition

There is no doubt that Ray Lewis’s resignation is embarrassing for Boris Johnson but I rather feel that sections of the media are rather overreacting to it. Listening to the Today Programme this morning you would have thought that the accusations against Lewis discredited the whole idea of community work. Ross Hawkins, the Today correspondent, said that the resignation had caused damage not only to Boris but also to the party as a whole. He concluded that ‘a couple of years down the line they [the national Tory party] might be able to forget this one’. I suspect that the next set of opinion polls will show that Lewis’s departure has had no impact on the party’s standing nationally.

Friday

James Forsyth

Walking the freedom trail

From our UK edition

Something that I would recommend all Coffee Housers do if they get the chance is to walk the Freedom Trail in Boston. It is brilliantly laid out and gives you a real feel for the spirit of the 1776. It also makes you realise how very British their reasons for rebelling were; as the old Cambridge exam question put it, “The truth that the Colonists were truly British is that they rebelled.” Indeed, no country party man could disagree with the Declaration’s assertion that:  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

James Forsyth

A careless talk

From our UK edition

The Lord Chief Justice’s speech last night at the East London Muslim Centre was, to put it mildly, unhelpful. His point that English law allows people to arbitrate disputes under a pre-agreed set of rules is legally correct. But if the Lord Chief Justice is to step into such a sensitive area he should have had more thought for how the phrase “It was not very radical to advocate embracing Sharia Law in the context of family disputes” would be interpreted. This message is not helpful to community cohesion. First, it is going to undermine the position of moderate Muslims. Second, it might be misinterpreted to deny Muslim women their legal rights—it will be said that if Sharia law is good enough for the Lord Chief Justice then it should be good enough for them.

James Forsyth

And the winner is… | 4 July 2008

From our UK edition

Last week we asked you what small proposal you would like to see in David Cameron’s first Queen Speech, after Fraser outlined what the big ticket items would be in the magazine. We received lots of good ideas and I’d very much like to see, as TGF UKIP suggested, a new set of military hospitals built. But the prize goes to Mark Heenan for this suggestion: “One small measure that would be welcome and would fit in seamlessly with Cameron's drive to invigorate the third sector would be to make CRB checks free for all voluntary and not-for-profit organisations such as junior football clubs, scout branches and the like.” The cost of a CRB check now is thirty-odd pounds.

James Forsyth

How much does a butler’s uniform cost at John Lewis?

From our UK edition

Labour MPs trying to defend the indefensible John Lewis list resorted to pathetic class war attacks last night. Ian Austin, the PM’s bag carrier, reportedly told George Osborne to “F** off you toff”—Austin claims that he actually said “It’s all right for you millionaires.” All of which makes it rather ironic that one of the 33 Labour  ministers who helped block reform of the system was Shaun Woodward who is not short of the odd bob or two to put it mildly. To be sure, there were Tory MPs who voted for the continuation of the John Lewis list last night but the Tory leadership is on the right side on this issue unlike the government. (Although, it is worrying that Andrew MacKay voted for the status quo.

Thursday

James Forsyth

The spirit of the game

From our UK edition

Now that Andy Murray is out of Wimbledon, we can turn our sporting attention to the coming Test series between England and South Africa. It should be a cracking series, as the South Africans probably have the slightly better side, but England have home advantage. After two rather unsatisfactory series against New Zealand, it will hopefully demonstrate why Test cricket is both the most skilful and most entertaining form of the game. The two teams will be playing for the Basil D'Oliveira trophy; it was South Africa’s refusal to accept D’Oliveira’s inclusion in an England touring party that led to the breaking of sporting links with the apartheid regime forty years ago.

James Forsyth

Failing the laugh test

From our UK edition

The confusion that underlies the government’s attitude to testing is illustrated by the interview with Ed Balls in this week’s New Statesman. Martin Bright and Suzanne Moore press Balls on whether children are being stressed out by being tested too much, to which Balls replies: "No seven-year-old should ever know they are doing SATs." Balls goes on to explain this slightly bizarre answer by saying: "The best headteachers will ensure that no six- or seven-year-old knows they are doing SATs. I promise you that is the case. If you are telling pupils in Year 2 that they are doing SATs next week then that's the wrong thing to do. You should not be stressing the children... ...They don't need to do the SATs in a sit-down environment ...

Wednesday

James Forsyth

The laws of war in the war on terror

From our UK edition

I’ve just got round to reading the Christopher Hitchens piece on being waterboarded which everyone is talking about. It is definitely worth a look, it deals fairly with both sides of the argument. Hitchens sums up the case that the proponents of waterboarding make thus: As they have just tried to demonstrate to me, a man who has been waterboarded may well emerge from the experience a bit shaky, but he is in a mood to surrender the relevant information and is unmarked and undamaged and indeed ready for another bout in quite a short time. When contrasted to actual torture, waterboarding is more like foreplay. No thumbscrew, no pincers, no electrodes, no rack.

James Forsyth

There should be a cost to doing business with the Mugabe regime

From our UK edition

A fortnight ago Peter Oborne wrote in his cover story on Zimbabwe about how “The Munich-based company Giesecke & Devrient continues to supply, unhindered, truckloads of large denomination banknotes. This enables Mugabe to bribe his army, police force and irregular militias but only accelerates the total collapse of the economy.” Giesecke & Devrient also manufactures the Oyster card. Today’s Evening Standard reports that Boris Johnson has promised that Transport for London will not renew the contract at the end of the month. This is welcome news, companies that work with the Mugabe regime should pay a heavy price for their actions.

James Forsyth

The Times they are a-changin’

From our UK edition

If you haven’t already done so, do read this morning’s Times editorial on the Conservatives. It argues, correctly to my mind, that the Tories should not be satisfied to win the next election simply on the back of the public’s disappointment with Labour. It concludes that Cameron’s “challenge is to offer British voters a real choice.” The editorial took me—and Nick Robinson —by surprise. The brilliant Daniel Finkelstein recently became chief leader writer of The Times, but today’s leader seems to go against what Danny was arguing just a fortnight ago. Then, he wrote that the “party that is first to let the voters know what it really stands for...

James Forsyth

Saudi moves in Syria

From our UK edition

David Ignatius’s column this morning in The Washington Post on covert efforts to pin back Iranian attempt to establish hegemony in the Middle East, contains this fascinating detail: Saudi Arabia has taken a tougher stand to oppose what it sees as Iranian meddling in the region. There are reports out of Syria, for example, that the Saudi military attaché in Damascus was expelled a few months ago after the Syrians uncovered what they believed was a plot to pay $50 million in subsidies to members of a prominent Syrian tribe. One source said the money was simply intended to support the kingdom's longtime tribal friends rather than organize political opposition to President Bashar al-Assad. But the Saudis have made no secret of their desire for regime change in Syria.

James Forsyth

Et tu, Scott? Bush’s press aide turns on his boss

From our UK edition

‘Yes, I think there are,’ replies Scott McClellan, George W. Bush’s former press secretary, when I ask him if he thinks there are others like him who followed Bush from Texas to Washington but who are now disillusioned. McClellan was one of Bush’s Texas loyalists — he had served the then Governor in Austin, worked on the presidential campaign and then moved to the White House where he rose to become White House press secretary, the public face of the administration. But with the publication of his memoirs he has broken spectacularly with his old boss. The title of Scott McClellan’s book tells you where he is coming from: What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.

Tuesday

James Forsyth

Cherie speaks sense

From our UK edition

Cherie Booth, aka Mrs Blair, was giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee this morning. One of the MPs asked her what she would do to combat knife crime if she was Home Secretary for the day, to which she replied: "I think this idea of taking the glamour out of crime and making a highly visible police presence and harrying criminals is a good approach." Now, this isn’t a particularly innovative approach but it does show how far the debate has shifted that an Islington, human-rights lawyers is advocating something so robust. Reading about yet another knifing in London, it is clear current policing methods are just not working. One even wonders whether it is time to bring back stop and search.

James Forsyth

We’ll go on getting bad results

From our UK edition

Try as I might I can’t get overly excited about Wimbledon—I’m more of a football and cricket man. So Boris Johnson’s column this morning on why England under-achieve at football caught my eye. Here’s the nub of his argument: we should now launch a merciless Kulturkampf against every feature of modern Britain that is inimical to our competitive success. We should summon up our courage and tell our ballooning children to put down their beastly PlayStations and go and play outside. We should encourage them to walk or cycle to school. We should stop the sale of school playing fields. We should finally abandon the ethic of "all must have prizes".

Monday

James Forsyth

A question of timing

From our UK edition

Over at Three Line Whip, Rob Winnett points out that David Cameron really needs to decide what to do about Caroline Spellman before the Haltemprice & Howden by-election. If Spellman is forced out once David Davis has been returned to Parliament, it will be hard for Cameron not to take the opportunity to bring Davis back to the top table. If Cameron does decide that he needs to ask Spellman for her resignation, then there is a simple mini-reshuffle available to him: move Eric Pickles to party chairman and Paul Goodman up to shadow Hazel Blears.