James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
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There is something rather tragic about the spectacle of Mohammed al-Fayed sounding off in the High Court about the establishment’s supposed role in the death of Princess Diana. One doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry when one hears about statements like this from Fayed: “Prince Philip rules the country behind the scenes. I think
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The Prime Minister and his puppet Chancellor are currently facing the press and engaging in furious damage limitation. After that, the Chancellor will have to make a statement to the House where he can expect to be mocked by George Osborne and dissected by Vince Cable, who is the only politician to come out of
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Perhaps, the greatest political danger for the government from yesterday’s nationalisation of Northern Rock is that it fits so neatly into the narrative of a government that is incapable of making a decision. On The Today Programme this morning, Alistair Darling was repeatedly pressed on the question of why this step was not taken earlier
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Even David Cameron’s most enthusiastic backers in the 2005 leadership contest might have thought it unrealistic to imagine that after a little over two years in the job he would have opened up a nine point lead over Labour. But despite having done this, Cameron is still plagued by the question of whether the Tories
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Imagine a world in which there was a constant supply of cheap and renewable energy and the world was no longer reliant on oil. Well such a situation may soon be at hand. The Guardian reports on a meeting of futurologists in Boston yesterday where the prospects of being able to harness the sun’s energy
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New Labour’s relationship with business is at a low ebb. As George Parker argues in the FT this morning, the changes to capital gains tax and the whole non-dom business have alienated many—something the Tories are eagerly exploiting. But Labour’s problems go beyond policy here. Business had no fear that Tony Blair intended to make
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At yesterday’s green hustings, Ken Livingstone said that by 2010 the Thames would be the cleanest river flowing through any capital city and that people would be swimming in it. I’m not qualified to say if he has any chance of meeting the first part of this pledge but I’ll go for a dip myself if
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Lib Dem frontbencher David Heath has confirmed that he will vote against the Lib Dem whip and for a referendum on the EU Constitution. Nick Clegg now faces a difficult choice. He can sack Heath and show that he will not back down from enforcing party discipline. However, this approach would highlight the Lib Dem’s
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There are few people less qualified to act as any kind of moral arbiter than Martin McGuinness. So it is deeply comic to see him pronouncing on how television celebrates the demon drink. He told the British Irish Council, “I am not a fan of East-Enders or Coronation Street but my wife and my children,
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Today is the 18th anniversary of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini declaring a Fatwa on Salman Rushdie for writing the Satanic Verses. It was a wake up call to the coming challenge to the freedoms of a liberal society but one that we failed to heed. The Rushdie affair demonstrated the spinelessness of the British political class
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Two Lib Dem frontbenchers are—in open defiance of their party line—supporting a referendum on the EU Reform Treaty, Sam Coates reveals this morning. This is a major challenge to Nick Clegg’s authority: if he lets David Heath and Nick Harvey get away with this then it will be hard for him to enforce party discipline
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The idea that MPs should have to declare in the Register of Member’s Interests any family members who work for them is a sensible response to the Conway crisis. However appropriate it may be in certain circumstances for family members to work for an MP it needs to be placed on the record if the
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Paddy Ashdown, who was going to be the much needed UN special envoy in Afghanistan, until Hamid Karzai vetoed him, has a piece in the FT today laying out how he thinks defeat can be avoided in Afghanistan. The whole piece is worth reading but one sentence stuck out to me: “ We are putting
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David Miliband’s speech on ‘the democratic imperative’ marks an important moment in post-Iraq foreign policy. It is the first time since Tony Blair’s departure that a Labour politician has delivered an intellectually coherent set of remarks on what strategic goals Britain should be pursuing in its foreign policy. After the difficulties in Iraq and Hamas’s
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Americano has reaction to last night’s Democratic and Republican primaries which saw Barack Obama and John McCain both notch up another three victories. With Obama having won the last eight contests, Hillary finds herself on the back foot and fighting for her political life.
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Over at Three Line Whip, Iain Martin argues that the Tories need a plan B as Gordon Brown shifts tactics. This is all goes back to the hares versus tortoises debate, with the hares thinking that the Tories need to be bold if they are to win a majority at the next election while the
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Labour is clearly rattled by the row over it reneging on its promise of a referendum on the EU Constitution. Not content with threatening to withdraw the whip from Labour MPs who support honouring this manifesto commitment, Labour is engaged in a desperate attempt to discredit the cross-party ‘I want a referendum campaign’. Europe Minister
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The Brown re-launch, or strategic readjustment as I expect the Prime Minister would prefer us to call it, is the subject of Steve Richards’s column today. Richards notes how Brown is trying to counter Cameron’s commitment to a fairer society and a smaller state by talking about the kind of enabling government that is needed
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There’s a great piece in New York Magazine about why children lie. In short, they do so because their parent do. The good news if you’re a parent, is that if your child is telling porkies from a young age it is a sign they are quite smart—the brightest start lying around age 2. The speed
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John Mortimer had a piece in The Observer this weekend bemoaning ageism in our politics and contrasting the treatment of the 66 year old Ming Campbell with that of the 71 year old John McCain. But the issue is not one of age but attitude. In outlook, McCain is anything but old—indeed, he is actually