James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
Gordon Brown’s Mansion House speech lacked the rhetorical flourishes of any Tony Blair address on world affairs but it was substantively far more similar than one would have expected. Indeed, there is, judging by David Cameron’s recent Berlin speech, far more difference between Brown and Cameron than Brown and Blair on the question of Britain’s
Political Betting has a must-read post up on why it would be a mistake to write off Gordon Brown. As Mike Smithson points out, Labour’s current performance compares favourably to its rating at the end of the Blair era. While for a governing party being in the mid-30s in the middle of parliament is far
The more that comes out about the Brown-Blair tensions, the more you realise quite how damaging they were to good government. Just take this example from the forthcoming BBC documentary on the Blair years that the Daily Mail reports today, “Left-wing Labour MP Ian Gibson reveals how Mr Balls – now Schools Secretary – told
There is yet another story about Lord Ashcroft’s role with the Tories in the Guardian today. This time the news is that Ashcroft gave David Cameron a ticket to and a flight home from the Rugby World Cup final in Paris. At the risk of coming over all hair-shirt, this strikes me as a mistake.
Gordon Brown’s Mansion House speech tonight will be pored over for hints about the direction of British foreign policy. As Jackie Ashley, a columnist normally sympathetic to the Prime Minister, writes in The Guardian, “Brown’s “vision” for foreign policy remains even more opaque than his domestic vision.” There is no desire in Downing Street for
Jonathan Aitken’s return to Tory politics to lead a review on prison reform for Iain Duncan-Smith’s Centre for Social Justice makes me uneasy. As Peter Preston writes in The Observer, “to this day, we still don’t know why the minister we trusted to oversee our defence procurement was in Paris that long-ago weekend to meet the Saudis. We
The Tories will be encouraged by the latest ICM poll which puts them at 43%, up 3 on the last one. Labour are steady at 35% with the Lib Dems on 15%, a drop of 3 points. The poll indicates that the Tories would likely have a small overall majority and is the highest level
The interview that the head of the Muslim Council of Britain has given to The Daily Telegraph today is phenomenally unhelpful to the cause of community cohesion. Muhammad Abdul Bari throwing around analogies to Germany in the 1930s is only going to polarise the debate. Yet, it is his response to the news that one
If George W. Bush goes down in history as the most disastrous US president since Herbert Hoover, it will be because of his foreign policy mistakes. Yet the person who tutored candidate Bush on foreign policy, co-ordinated it in his first term and was its public face in his second term is probably the most
The debate over torture in the US has descended into tragic farce. Some on the right are so determined to always take the toughest position possible on any war on terror question that they sound like a Stephen Colbert parody of themselves. The most recent example of this is Deroy Murdock, normally someone whose writings
The real reasons behind the timing of Lord Drayson’s resignation are beginning to seep out. Writing for Comment is Free, Robert Fox reveals that Drayson had intended to stay until the summer but brought forward his departure because of No 10’s refusal to sign off on a new defence industrial strategy which was designed to
Nick Clegg went on Political Betting this morning to answer questions from the site’s users. Most of his answers were fairly standard, but he did hint that Lord Carlile might have the Lib Dem withdrawn from him under his leadership if he carried on advocating an extension to the 28 day pre-charge detention period.Here’s the
The row over the influence of Lord Ashcroft takes another turn with a story in The Guardian this morning about whether or not Lord Ashcroft has returned to the UK and is now paying tax in this country. Labour and the Lib Dems are keen to stoke up this issue and David Heath, the Lib
Time magazine are inviting people to vote for their person of the year. The shortlist is Al Gore Hillary Clinton Hu Jintao Steve Jobs Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Barack Obama General Petraeus Vladimir Putin Condoleezza Rice JK Rowling. To my mind, it has to be Petraeus. At the beginning of this year, Iraq looked like a lost
Andrew Sullivan’s Atlantic essay making the case for Obama is well worth reading. His key point is this, Unlike any of the other candidates, he could take America—finally—past the debilitating, self-perpetuating family quarrel of the Baby Boom generation that has long engulfed all of us. So much has happened in America in the past seven
The internecine warfare at Respect just took another turn with George Galloway denying that he has left the party. There now seems to be a bitter dispute between Galloway’s faction and the Socialist Workers Party about which group is going to have to be the one to actually break away. The SWP are claiming that
Tara Hamilton-Miller has a great little blind item in this week’s New Statesman: A shadow secretary of state, who shall remain nameless, decided to sing and briefly weep to a Radiohead song in a northern university student union (determined, clenched, porcine fist punch ing the air during the rocky bit). She sang with such feeling
Respect is finally collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions. Daniel Finkelstein reports that George Galloway has kicked out the Socialist Workers. However, this is only the beginning of the fun. Danny points to a statement posted on the party’s website: Dear Members, Respect has been locked out of its head office. Overnight the locks
The Met have been convicted of breaching of Health and Safety Laws, the London Assembly has passed a vote of no confidence in him but still Sir Ian Blair clings onto power. At some point, actually a long time ago, Blair should have done the decent thing and resigned. Arguing, as Livingstone does, that all
Today is a big day in the race for the Republican nomination with both Rudy Giuliani and John McCain (pictured) rolling out major endorsements from influential Christian conservatives. Giuliani wheeled out Pat Robertson, the one time presidential candidate and a hugely powerful figure in the movement. Robertson’s backing should help reassure those who fear that