James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
From our UK edition
If I was Gordon Brown, one of the things that would worry me most is how much more relaxed Labour figure are becoming about expressing unhelpful thoughts. Just today we have Matthew Taylor, Tony Blair’s former chief strategic adviser, telling The Guardian that the Brownite handling of donor-gate has been “inept” and that it’s “too
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Mitt Romney’s campaign has released extracts from his speech today on the role on faith in public life, or more cynically his explanation of why his Mormonism shouldn’t bother voters. Throughout the speech, Romney is keen to stress that there is more that unites religious folk than divides them. But a large part of the
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Fraser explains the absence of Douglas Alexander and Ed Balls from the airwaves in the past week in this week’s cover story and today brings further news on what this dynamic duo are up to. Alexander has pulled out of Question Time tonight, begging the question of what should replace him. (Iain Dale has a
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Tony Blair recently complained of how in Britain people think of politicians as nuts if they talk about God. But Blair was a lot better off than Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts who is running for the Republican presidential nomination. Tomorrow, Romney is delivering a speech which could be entitled why a Mormon
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Bob Baer, a retired CIA officer who has been deeply sceptical of the Bush administration’s approach to the world, has an interesting take on the whole Iran NIE business: “The real story behind this NIE is that the Bush Administration has finally concluded Iran is a bridge too far. With Iranian-backed Shi’a groups behaving themselves,
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Iain Dale is out with his monthly ranking of the shadow cabinet’s media appearances but it is actually his Lib Dem numbers that are most interesting. If anyone had asked me whether Nick Clegg or Chris Huhne had got more press last month, I would have said that it was pretty even but with Huhne
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The Jersey based businessmen whose donation to Wendy Alexander’s leadership bid should not have been accepted, has revealed more about his contacts with the Alexander campaign. He alleges that Charlie Gordon, MSP assured him that he was allowed to donate the money despite not being on the electoral roll. Speculation is now rife that Gordon
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One inevitable consequence of donor-gate is that Labour will find it even more difficult to raise money. If things were hard after the whole ‘cash for honours business’, just imagine how much worse it will be now. For a party, that’s £20,178,392 in debt this is a serious problem. Guido, though, has found a silver
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The speed with which things are unravelling for Labour at the moment is quite extraordinary. But the big question is, can Gordon recover? I’ve always been inclined to say yes. Brown is nothing if not resilient as his ability to remain the heir apparent for 13 years demonstrated. But there are reasons to believe that Gordon
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The lacklustre nature of Nick Clegg’s public performances is becoming more and more bizarre. This morning on the Today Programme he let Chris Huhne comprehensively out muscle him. Indeed, at times it seemed like he was acting as the set up man for Huhne. Listening to the candidates you would also have thought that Huhne—not
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The Labour fundraising scandal has taken another twist this morning with the news that there is a hunt on for the mole in the Scottish Labour party who is supposedly leaking these damaging documents. But the Tories need to be ready for the coming counter-attack from Labour. Andrew Porter reports that Gordon Brown pledged to go
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A new report signed off on by the various US intelligence agencies says that Iran halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003. This declaration is, to put it mildly, a major surprise and reverses the judgement of the 2005 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It also transforms the political and diplomatic debate about
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This morning the general view was that Wendy Alexander was staying in post because Gordon Brown feared the consequences of her quitting. Yet when Brown was offered the chance to defend his embattled counterpart, the best he could come up with was this: “”Wendy Alexander is of course subject to an Electoral Commission inquiry,” the
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Following this weekend’s release of a YouGov poll that showed Nick Clegg ahead of Chris Huhne by 56 to 44, the Clegg camp have released their own internal numbers which show him with 61 percent of the vote. But things might not be as comfortable for the front runner as these figures suggest. A party
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Perhaps, more extraordinary than anything going on south of the border with donor-gate is the situation in Scotland. When it was revealed on Friday that Wendy Alexander had sent a letter to the Jersey businessmen Paul Green thanking him for his donation, which he was unable to make under electoral law and which Alexander had
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Last week events drew forth plenty of “worst week ever” headlines in the Sunday papers. But there is reason to think that this week could be even worse for Gordon Brown. First, there’s the situation in Scotland where Wendy Alexander’s position looks increasingly untenable. Second, there is the fact that David Abrahams has no intention
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If you haven’t already, do read John Rentoul’s column in today’s Independent on Sunday. It is the first time that a major commentator sympathetic to New Labour has seriously suggested that Gordon Brown won’t make it to the next election. Rentoul predicts that Brown will recover and then fizzle again. Here’s what happens next in
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David Abrahams has plunged the hierarchy of the Labour party further into crisis with an article in the Independent on Sunday describing how he donated to the party. Here’s the passage that is generating headlines this morning, My political friends in the party’s northern region were unaware of any donations whatsoever that I was making;
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As this scandal drags on it is becoming clearer that Gordon Brown made a huge political mistake on Wednesday morning. When Jon Mendelsohn confirmed Nick Robinson’s report that he was aware of the arrangements by which David Abrahams was funding the Labour party, Brown should have sacked him. Brown could have issued a statement saying
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Any Tory feeling almost light-headed about the speed with which things are collapsing around Gordon Brown, should read this typically intelligent posting from John Rentoul on the danger of the Tories thinking they can just coast to victory. Another sobering thought comes from Martin Bright, who writes “In terms of the loss of trust in
