James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
From our UK edition
By an 85 percent vote the Prison Officers Association has rejected the government’s offer of a 2.2 percent pay rise with the Union’s leadership calling it “disgraceful”. But really Prison Officers in the public sector should not be complaining: they are paid 39 percent more than their counterparts in the private sector. When the value
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The government’s u-turn on road pricing is a depressing act of political cowardice. Steve Richards has a spot on column in The Independent today on the matter: “In this context there is a big risk that the fashionable “new politics”, in which leaders seek a dialogue with the voters on every policy, will lead to
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Over on Americano, a look at how Obama might try and change the story line and what the seven week gap between now and the crucial Pennsylvania primary might mean for the campaign.
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Over at Americano, I’ll be reporting on the resuts from today’s primaries as they come in. Later on, I’ll be heading over to the Obama election night event here in San Antonio.
From our UK edition
It was meant to be the night that Barack Obama sealed the deal. The presidency seemed almost within his reach. Then, against the odds, like the villain in a horror movie, Hillary came back from the near-dead. And by the end of Tuesday night — with a thumping win in Ohio and a victory in
From our UK edition
Tonight, for the first time in a while, the pressure is all on Barack Obama. When I arrived here in Austin on Friday, the general feeling was that Obama was going to wrap things up by winning the popular vote here in Texas and running Clinton close in Ohio. Her last card, the 3am ad, didn’t
From our UK edition
I spent this afternoon at the rodeo talking to voters about the race here in Texas. What was most striking, though, was how even those Bush voters from 2004 who are disappointed in their man still have huge affection and respect for Tony Blair; his popularity here really is something to behold. I’ve written up
From our UK edition
Austin, Texas Tuesday’s contests will decide whether the Democratic primary contest continues or not. If Obama wins both Texas and Ohio then it will be impossible for Hillary Clinton to continue. While if Hillary wins both Texas and Ohio then she will have a new lease of life, she would still be the underdog but
From our UK edition
I’m out in Texas right now ahead of the primary here on Tuesday, a must-win contest for Hillary Clinton is she is to maintain a realistic chance of winning the Democratic nomination. The polls currently show that Hillary has fallen behind in the Lone Star state and yesterday her campaign wheeled out its final weapon,
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David Brooks, one of the finest American writers of his generation, has a lovely column paying tribute to Bill Buckley today. The whole thing is well worth reading but the start is particularly delicious. When I was in college, William F. Buckley Jr. wrote a book called “Overdrive” in which he described his glamorous lifestyle.
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Prince Harry’s brave service in Afghanistan should make us all think more about that country, the forgotten front in the war on terror. As Roger Cohen points out in The New York Times, Europe’s commitment to it has been pitiful. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO secretary general, concedes that the alliance is 10 percent short
From our UK edition
When historians look back at the Blair era, one of the things that will puzzle them is the fact that Tony Blair never attempted anything truly radical when his popularity was at its height. For instance, I’m sure if he’d called a referendum on the euro—which he wanted to join—early on in his tenure, he would have
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Ian Davidson, the Labour MP who has been leading the charge for a referendum, has managed to get down an amendment on whether or not Britain should remain in the European Union; the Lib Dem’s failure to get the Deputy Speaker to accept their amendment on this yesterday led to them storming out of the
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Few journalists can claim to have been as influential as Bill Buckley was. George Will, the conservative columnist, introduced Buckley thus on the 50th anniversary of National Review, the conservative magazine that Buckley founded: This might be a bit of an exaggeration but there can be no doubting Buckley’s influence, few people were more influential
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During today’s protest against a third runway at Heathrow the protestsers draped a banner down from the roof over the side of the Palace of Westminster. Someone from the inside, though, leaned out and cut the banner in two. Over at the Mirror, Kevin Maguire has rounded up the usual suspects and thinks that he might
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Over at The Three Line Whip, Andrew Porter notes how Gordon Brown distanced himself at PMQs from Harriet Harman’s disgraceful praise for the former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Porter reports that her comments about Castro are not the only thing that Harman has said recently that have irritated Number 10. Indeed, if she was not
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The Information Commissioner is wrong to order that the minutes of the Cabinet meeting where the legality of the Iraq war was discussed be published. If Cabinet Minutes can be released so soon after the event, no one will speak their mind in cabinet anymore; it would effectively mean the end of Cabinet government. As Sam Coates
From our UK edition
Political Betting has details of a new YouGov poll which shows Boris five points ahead of Ken Livingstone at 44 percent. Livingstone’s people are reportedly claiming that their polling still has him ahead, but even here the advantage is only a couple of points. It seems that the Jasper affair and the Mayor’s bizarre behaviour
From our UK edition
There’s a fascinating piece in The Times today arguing that rather than building ever upwards in London we should bore down. Certainly, the idea of putting some of London’s hideously congested roads, the slowest in Europe, underground is appealing. Kit Malthouse points out that if the Hyde Park interchange was to go below ground then
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Today’s poll in The Independent is striking not only for the fact that it gives the Tories an 11 point lead but for how broad it finds Tory support with the party ahead among every social group, in every part of the country except Scotland and among all age groups apart from 18 to 24
