James Forsyth

James Forsyth

James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.

Thursday

James Forsyth

Prisoners of their own demands

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 of the occupational pension is included, this gap rises to 61 percent. All this matters because labour costs are by far the largest part of the prison service budget, 80 percent in 2006/7 with this set to rise to 90% by 2010-11. Also, prison officer pay can’t be that disgraceful if the resignation rate is only 2.2 percent.

James Forsyth

The price of political cowardice

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 bad rather than better government. Petitions would have stopped some of the most effective policies over recent decades, many of which were unpopular at the time and became popular later.… Sometimes leaders must take tough decisions and hope the plaudits will come later. Tough decisions will not be taken if leaders are so obsessed with short-term popularity, the instant verdicts on the internet and the petitions of unthinking protesters.

Wednesday

James Forsyth

What’s next?

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.

James Forsyth

No sleep till Denver: Hillary, the unlikely underdog, takes it to the wire

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 the popular vote in Texas — she had earned the right to take this contest to Pennsylvania on 22 April and, maybe, all the way to the convention in Denver in August. Obama remains the favourite to win the nomination but for the first time Clinton has a credible reason why she should be the nominee even if she does not win the most delegates. The result in Texas, where she won the popular vote but trails heavily in the caucus, provides her with a terrific argument.

Tuesday

James Forsyth

Will the Democratic race twist again tonight?

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 seem to have worked and Obama had the energy and the momentum. But over the past few days things have changed. Hillary has closed strongly. She has shown her human side with funny appearances on a bunch of comedy shows while Obama has had a bad few days with the Nafta flap and his poor handling of questions over the trial of his former friend Tony Rezko. On reflection, yesterday’s press conference might mark a turning point in Obama’s press coverage.

Monday

James Forsyth

Blair more popular than Bush at Texas Rodeo

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 a fuller report on the whole thing on Americano.

Sunday

James Forsyth

Can Hillary hold the Alamo?

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 she would have earned the right to stay in the race until at least  Pennsylvania on April 22nd.  For Hillary the minimum she needs to do to credibly carry on is to triumph in Ohio, where she currently leads in the poll, and the popular vote in Texas, where she trails narrowly according to the latest numbers.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Hillary plays her final card

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, the argument that Obama is dangerously inexperienced for a president. A new TV ad asks voters who they wanted to answer the phone at 3am in the White House in an international crisis. The ad doesn’t really work as most voters won’t instantly think of Hillary when asked that question but it is pretty much her campaign’s last chance to change the dynamic of the race before Tuesday. If they can’t, there might not be a race after Tuesday.

Friday

James Forsyth

Remembering Buckley

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. Since I was young and a smart-aleck, I wrote a parody of it for the school paper. “Buckley spent most of his infancy working on his memoirs,” I wrote in my faux-biography.

James Forsyth

Thinking of Afghanistan

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 of its requirement. While the febrile nature of the political situation is summed up by the fact that,  “Zalmay Khalilzad, the Afghan-born U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has been getting daily calls from Afghan politicians urging him to run for president next year.

Thursday

James Forsyth

What Cameron should learn from Blair’s experience

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 won. One of the reasons Blair was so cautious was his belief that the Tories were not dead but only sleeping. Steve Richards has a great example of how concerned the Blairites were of a Tory revival in his column today: “I remember having a cup of tea with Blair during the first term, when he was still seen widely as the messiah walking on water and 30 points ahead in the polls.

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Europe Referendum back on the cards

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 Commons. Davidson has succeeded where Nick Clegg failed by proposing a two question referendum which would ask: “Should the United Kingdom retain its membership of the European Union?” “If it remains a member of the European Union, should the United Kingdom approve the Lisbon Treaty?” The amendment will appear on the Order Paper tomorrow and will come to a vote next Wednesday.

James Forsyth

RIP William F. Buckley Jr

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 in the creation of the American conservative movement than he. In his 55 books and more than 5,000 beautifully written newspaper columns, Buckley remade the intellectual landscape of America. “Let me invite you to take credit for winning the Cold War. The argument goes like this: Without Bill Buckley, no National Review. Without National Review, no Goldwater nomination.

James Forsyth

The press takes direct action

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 have identified the culprit.

James Forsyth

Here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into Harriet

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 effectively un-sackable one would begin to wonder about her position. I have a pet theory that many of Brown’s problems can be traced back to Harman’s election as deputy leader. If Alan Johnson had got the job, there would have been someone in the Cabinet who would have had license to stand up to Brown and to throw cold water on Ed Balls and Douglas Alexander as they got over excited about the prospect of an early election.

Tuesday

James Forsyth

Too much information | 26 February 2008

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 puts it:  “Cabinet Ministers need somewhere they can discuss, debate and disagree about policy in private. This is surely sensible (if they did not have a chance to raise concerns, how can they exercise collective responsibility?) and this is why Cabinet discussions and the minutes are secret.” One of the things that all the various enquiries into Iraq revealed is how pernicious sofa government is to good government.

James Forsyth

Boris leads London mayoral race

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 are taking their toll.

James Forsyth

Building Down

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 “the three great parks of Central London could be united. You could walk from Parliament Square to Queensway, about three miles, without crossing a road. Park Lane would be freed up for redevelopment, and a grand new public square could be created at Marble Arch.

James Forsyth

Polling cheer for Cameron

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 year olds. This far out from an election, one poll isn’t particularly meaningful and Come Res, The Independent’s pollsters, are generally more favourable to the Tories than other pollsters. But even with these caveats, this poll is a nice boost to the Tories and suggests that while they might have failed to land a knock out blow on the government over Northern Rock, they still have the advantage over Labour.