James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
From our UK edition
The Lib Dems should be leading the charge against Michael Martin. It is the kind of issue where the Lib Dems can emphasise their outsider status and come across as the party prepared to break up the cosy Westminster consensus. Considering the public disquiet about how MPs are using the expenses system, the Lib Dems
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Harriet Harman comes out with one of the most disgraceful statements by a government minister in a while, in today’s Independent. Here’s the exchange: Now, Castro is not some cuddly Marxist but a brutal dictator. Harman’s statement is either an expression of extreme ignorance or of a double standard which sees no evil on the
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Anthony Cordesman, the respected US military expert, has an important piece in the Washington Post today on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As he reports, both conflicts are at a critical moment: “No one can return from the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, as I recently did, without believing that these are wars that
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Northern Rock has not fatally wounded this government and Gordon Brown is slowly getting back on the front foot. The government, it appears, will not lose the next election all by itself. So how should the Tories should try and win it? Here, the divide is between the tortoises and the hares—or, the infantry and
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Michael Martin’s spokesman has resigned for unwittingly misleading a journalist over the recent story about the Speaker’s wife’s £4,000 taxi expenses. The spokesman had said that she had been accompanied by a Commons administrative official when she was actually with her housekeeper. No one in the Speaker’s office who knew the truth had prevented him
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Over on Americano, all the latest from the US elections including reports that Hillary aides are thinking about a dignified exit for her if Ohio and Texas don’t go her way in 10 days time. Plus, thoughts on whose reputation has been damaged most by the New York Times’s story about John McCain’s supposed relationship
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The idea of vastly increasing the tax on alcohol to deal with Britain’s ‘binge-drinking’ problem is gaining ground. The Tory Social Justice policy group was keen on the idea and now the British Medical Association has come out in favour of it. It certainly appeals to the ‘something must be done’ school of thought but
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Iain Martin has a great post over at Three Line Whip about the rather disastrous effect that media training has had on Yvette Cooper’s manner—proof that things can get worse. For the Kremlinologists of this government, the relationship between Alistair Darling and the newly arrived Chief Secretary to the Treasury is going to be fascinating, not least because
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Today’s Economist poll on Northern Rock is a belated birthday present for Gordon Brown. Only 5 percent believe the government is most responsible for the crisis and people are more impressed with Brown and Darling’s handling of it now than they were a month ago. But what will really cheer up the PM is that
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Putting the words Auschwitz and gimmick together is ill-advised and for a politician to do this is particularly foolish. Whatever the substance of David Cameron’s criticisms he has opened himself up to some awful headlines. The Tories would be wise to back down gracefully and quickly. If they don’t, they will open themselves up to
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In the Telegraph, John Kampfner makes the case that Gordon Brown is as ‘uncritically’ adoring of the super rich as Tony Blair ever was. He argues that this attitude stems from Brown’s fear of being seen as anti-business, his acceptance that the wealthiest just won’t pay their fair share of tax and his conversion to
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The Lords has just defeated the government on its plan to exempt Northern Rock from the freedom of information act, the issue which David Cameron raised at PMQs yesterday. Brown and Darling now have a choice: they can either overturn the vote in the Commons and send it back to the Lords or they can
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Gordon Brown should be casting nervous glances across the Atlantic because a defeat for Hillary Clinton, which is now the most likely result, would be bad news for him. First, it would remove any chance of Brown getting some easy opportunities to play statesman. A President Hillary would likely have teamed up with Brown on
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Do read Lesley White’s sympathetic profile of Lembit Opik in today’s Times. There is, though, no getting away from the fact that Opik has some strange views and none stranger than this: “He talks about the transference of psychic energy, how his crossness that our Virgin train was late had put a spring in the
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Americano has analysis of Obama’s big win last night and wonders whether Hillary can recover before the crucial March 4th contests.
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This video of Ken Livingstone laying into the London Assembly is quite breathtaking. If he carries on like this, he’s going to lose in May Via Play Political
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Ron Sandler, the Treasury appointed chairman of Northern Rock, is a non-dom, Robert Peston confirms. Add to this the brewing row about how much the new management team is being paid and the political connections of some of those appointed to the board and you can see how Northern Rock is going to be a constant
From our UK edition
David Cameron is calling for his head, the City has lost confidence and the bookies are offering 5/2 that he will be gone from the Treasury by the end of the year. Yet, I suspect that Alistair Darling has more job security than most. Darling was a temporary appointment; no one believes that Brown will
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The issue of whether or not to recognise Kosovo demonstrates once again why the idea of a common European foreign policy is absurd. On this issue—as on pretty much any other contentious foreign policy decision you can think of—the European Union is split. 17 of the Union’s 27 members either have recognised Kosovo or will
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Alistair Darling really should send Mohamed al-Fayed a thank you note. Fayed’s testimony is bound to bump Northern Rock off at least the front pages of the tabloids tomorrow. Perhaps this knowledge explains why Darling produced a calmer and more confident performance in the Commons today than many of us expected he would. The most