James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
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There has been understandable outrage about the role that those blue-tracksuited heavies played as the Olympic torch made its ignominious way round London. But now The Independent is reporting that these guards are members of the People’s Armed Police, a paramilitary force that has played a brutal role in putting down the recent protests in
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The message from General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker’s opening statements to the Senate Armed Services Committee is that there has been significant progress in Iraq since September, but that his progress is fragile and that any rapid change in strategy would endanger it. The main news in Petraeus’s testimony was his commitment to a 45
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Steve Richards’s column in The Independent is, as ever, worth reading. Richards is surely right that education is fast becoming the main dividing line between the two parties. But I’m puzzled by this question that he poses about the Tory plans for independent, state-funded schools: “And if these schools are “independent” of political control, as
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Politics Home, which is becoming an indispensable resource, flags up tomorrow’s poll in The Times which shows the Tories ahead 39 to 33. The Tories will be disappointed not to be above the psychologically important 40 percent mark but the guts of the poll contain much encouragement for them. Seven in ten voters say that
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It is hard to imagine that this week could be as disastrous as last week for Nick Clegg, but Ming Campbell’s interview in the Independent this morning won’t have put a spring in Clegg’s step. Ming’s praise for his successor is hardly gushing. Take his response to this question: Would an experienced parliamentarian like yourself
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You really couldn’t make this up, the snow that fell today led to 100 flights being cancelled at Terminal 5. Now, I’ll grant you that you don’t expect snow in April but it was hardly a blizzard. One wonders what is left to go wrong at Terminal 5. Stephen has more on the whole T5
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David Rothkopf’s Newsweek essay on the global super class is well worth reading if only for this anecdote: “I once overheard a dinner conversation among the CEO of a leading aircraft manufacturer and a senior member of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee. “Here’s the deal,” said the CEO. “I want to sell a plane
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The last thing that Nick Clegg needed this morning was the claim in The Independent on Sunday that if all the votes had been counted Chris Huhne would have been elected leader. Clegg won the leadership by 511 votes but the paper claims that if the 1,300 postal votes which arrived after the voting deadline
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The consequences of the fighting in Basra and the subsequent cease-fire are still unclear. Some see events as testifying to Sadr’s strength, others point out that it was him who was forced to sue for peace. Kimberly and Fred Kagan, key advocates of the surge, have a piece in this week’s Weekly Standard which
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Nick Clegg has had a disastrous week. His comments about the number of women he had slept with have made him into a laughing-stock while his party’s position on the Lisbon treaty becomes more incoherent by the day. Clegg’s interview with The Times this morning shows how difficult it is going to be for him
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Forty years ago today, Martin Luther King was assassinated. Here is the end of the last speech by this great man and Bobby Kennedy’s moving words on King’s death which are, as Joe Klein says, some of the finest ever spoken.
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Most of the press attention on Tony Blair’s speech last night has concentrated on what he said about faith, and understandably so. But to my mind, the most interesting section was when Blair talked about what he sees as the new dividing line in politics today: “The world is interdependent today, economically, politically, even to
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I have very little time for Ken Livingstone but I can’t think that tonight’s revelation about his private life is going to make much of a difference to his political fortunes. I expect the fuss will die down fairy fast as none of the usual ingredients required to keep this kind of story going are
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Is it a bigger scandal that six state schools are asking parents for voluntary contributions or that 100,000 children do not get into their first choice school? Ed Balls clearly thinks it is the former as he has gone into full Laura Spence-outrage mode over it, naming and shaming the schools involved. One can’t help
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Peter Riddell is not a man prone to hyperbole so when he writes that “The malaise is real and it is widespread. The Brown Government is in deep trouble” we should sit up and take notice. As Peter notes, much of the problem stems from the teething troubles surrounding the arrival of new people at
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The Politics Home Index, a poll of 100 political insiders which has just launched, is going to provide a fascinating insight into what the Westminster Village is thinking. Earlier this week, the panel were surveyed on what they expected the result of the next election to be—the results, provided exclusively to Coffee House, make for
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It is quite incredible that the problems at Terminal Five have still not been resolved. It is expected that 50 flights will be cancelled today, bringing the total since Thursday to over 400, while 28,000 bags are somewhere in this mess. This is nothing short of a national disgrace and aside from the inconvenience being
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If anyone doubted that British political parties are doing a poor job of both using the internet to drive their message and exciting voters, then just consider this from Tom Watson’s blog: “Barackobama.com was the 11th most visited site for UK Internet users in February. In September last year it was 172nd. During the week of
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Talking about the situation in Basra today, John McCain makes the point that the problems in the city reflect not on the current strategy in Iraq but on the mistaken initial strategy: “This goes back to when we didn’t have enough boots on the ground, after the initial military success,’’ he said. “Iranian clerics moved
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The Institute for War and Peace Reporting latest update on the Zimbabwe election quotes source with knowledge of the results saying that Mugabe actually came third. He is, however, set to claim victory. The key thing to watch for is how South Africa reacts to his announcement.