James Forsyth

James Forsyth

James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.

Thursday

James Forsyth

Is this the new ‘John Major tucks his shirts into his underpants’?

One of the many things that undermined John Major’s authority was the idea, first put about by Alastair Campbell, that the PM tucked his shirt into his underpants. Now, it looks like the same is being done to Ming Campbell. Here’s Kevin Maguire in this week’s New Statesman: “Does Ming the Merciless wear sock garters? I ask only because a colleague swears he saw a clip hanging out of the bottom of the Edwardian gentleman's trouser leg.” Let’s see if this story has legs, so to speak.

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Get ready for a row over Europe

After being pummelled at PMQs today, the last thing Gordon Brown wants is an escalation of the row over the so-called EU Reform Treaty, what used to be called the constitution, and Labour’s broken promise to hold a referendum on it. But that’s what he is going to get. During an appearance in front of the Foreign Affairs select committee today, David Miliband promised to produce a letter setting out precisely where Britain’s red lines are protected. This will set off a row over whether these protections are worth the paper they’re written on and highlight just how similar the new treaty is to the old constitution. So, Brown will find himself embroiled in another row about trust and having the courage to put things to a vote.

James Forsyth

Bush’s right-hand man ranks the Republican field

This speech by Dan Bartlett, who was formerly a key Bush adviser, is well worth watching. Most of it is devoted to ranking the Republican contenders to succeed his old boss--of which more in a second, but before that he talks about Vladimir Putin for a few minutes. Although the tone is light-hearted as he tells tales about how Putin used to mock Bush’s dog, you sense the real concern that many of those close to the White House have about Putin and what he might try and pull. The news that Putin intends to step down as president only to become prime minister is unlikely to assuage these concerns. Bartlett’s analysis of the Republican field is far franker than what you’d usually get on camera from a political insider.

James Forsyth

Brown disappoints his own supporters while Cameron cheers his

Columns by two of Britain’s most astute political commentators will not improve Gordon Brown’s mood this morning. In The Guardian, Jonathan Freedland bemoans how Brown doesn’t get the vision thing. He starts by saying, “For those who held high hopes for the premiership of Gordon Brown, who endured the long wait through the Blair years nurturing the belief that something better beckoned, these are testing times”.Freedland goes onto berate Brown’s team for being more interested in politicking than governing and for a conference speech that was long on populist measures but short on argument.

Tuesday

James Forsyth

Olympic Fever

From today's Guardian:London Olympic organisers have been forced to abandon their original plans for the canoe slalom venue after the original site in Spitalbrook, Hertfordshire was found to be severely contaminated.

James Forsyth

The blame game

The fall out from the election debacle continues this morning. The ‘young Turks’ surrounding Gordon Brown—principally, Douglas Alexander, Ed Balls and ED Miliband—are receiving much of the blame. One junior minister tells Rachel Sylvester, “I’m in despair about the cack-handedness of these arrogant little sods...These people don't understand politics, they speak at think-tank seminars, not public meetings." None of the young Turks want to end up carrying the can for this mistake. Hence, all the newspaper reports about who was much less gung ho than we’d realised and urging caution on the PM. A senior MP reports to Sylvester that the three of them are “fighting like ferrets in a sack" to avoid being pinned with the blame for this.

Monday

James Forsyth

Brown’s poll pretence

At his monthly press conference, Gordon Brown is keeping up the pretence that the polls had nothing to do with his decision not to call an election. But this is completely absurd as virtually every newspaper was told that Brown was going to study the polling data and then make up his mind.

James Forsyth

How Gordon got into this mess

In the FT this morning, Philip Stephens neatly sums up how Gordon Brown got into this current mess. There is more to this episode than a miscalculation of the public mood. The story so far of Mr Brown’s premiership has been one of the noise before defeat; of tactics without strategy. It seems an odd thing to say of a politician who has built his career on a reputation as a consummate strategist. But just about everything we have seen since Mr Brown crossed the threshold of Number 10 has been tactical. Instead of offering fresh policies, the government has preferred to take populist positions. Even as it has publicly eschewed the so-called spin of Mr Blair’s administration, it has shown itself practised in the same dubious arts.

James Forsyth

Brown won’t send the young Turks into exile

Perhaps, the best guide to the mood in Brown world this morning comes in Jackie Ashley’s column in The Guardian. Ashley admits that Brown has had a terrible week and that his TV performance was less than convincing. Yet, she writes that Brown is unlikely to take his frustrations out on those who so stoked up the possibility of an early election: "Contrary to reports, he isn't privately furious with ministers like Alexander or Balls; but he knows, and they know, they have all taken one heck of a hit. The young Turks are inevitably becoming the fall guys because there's a lot of resentment, not least from other senior ministers, that Brown has been listening too much to his own little group.

Sunday

James Forsyth

Polls show that the Tories might have won an autumn election

The details of the YouGov / Sunday Times poll show just how dangerous a November election would have been for Labour. The Tories are ahead 41 to 38, but amongst those certain to vote their lead rises to 45-36: very close to the ten point advantage they need for a working majority. The Tories also lead by significant margins—10 and 20 points, respectively—on what would have been the two most important issues for voters in a November election, crime and immigration.  While the Tories also hold a very narrow lead on who would be most likely to raise people’s standard of living. There are good numbers in the poll for Brown. He leads Cameron 40 to 17% on strength, 39 to 26% on trustworthiness and 27 to 6% on being good in a crisis.

James Forsyth

Brown attempts damage control

Gordon Brown’s performance on Sunday AM this morning did little to repair the damage that has been done to his reputation. Brown kept stressing that he had a “duty to consider” an early election but never explained why it took him so long to rule it out. He talked endlessly about how he wanted to set out his vision for the country but didn’t give even a hint of what it was. While his insistence that “the easiest thing I could have done is called an election” sounded disingenuous in the light of this morning’s polls. David Cameron’s charge that Brown is “treating people like fools” will resonate if Brown carries on like this. The challenge now for Brown is to restore his reputation.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Cameron hits Brown hard

David Cameron takes a decidedly more aggressive tone in a piece he has written for tomorrow’s Sunday Times than he did on TV earlier. He writes, “what will now be remembered is farcical weeks of secret briefings, hurried policy announcements and, most shamefully of all, the exploitation of the British troops in Iraq for party political ends.” The Iraq trip really was where everything started to go horribly wrong for Brown. It looked crass and calculating and showed just how far he was prepared to go for party advantage. It is doubtful whether after the last week Brown can rebuild the level of public trust that he enjoyed in the first few months of his tenure at No. 10.

James Forsyth

Why Brown bottled it

The News of the World front page tomorrow blasts, “Poll kills election.” The details of the poll, which the News of the World kindly advanced to us, are grim for Labour and explain why Gordon Brown felt he couldn't take the risk of going early.  77% think the government has done a bad job on immigration, 63% think the same on law and order, 62% on tax and 52% on the NHS. The one encouraging number for Brown is that only 37% of the public think the Conservatives are ready for government. However, one has to assume that this number will rise between now and 2009. Ian Kirby reports that Douglas Alexander is taking a lot of flack over the whole debacle of expectations been raised dangerously high only to be dashed.

James Forsyth

Tories 3 points ahead in the country as a whole

It just keeps getting better and better for the Conservatives and worse and worse for Gordon Brown. A new YouGov poll shows that the Tories are now 3 points ahead of Labour—a remarkable turnaround from last Saturday’s YouGov poll which had them 11 points behind. The only potential dampener on Tory spirits tonight is the fact that the Lib Dems might now move against Ming seeing as there is almost certainly to be an election until 2009. As Tim points out, Lib Dem support has collapsed—it is down to a mere 11 percent. One has to imagine that pretty much any Lib Dem leader would do better than Ming with Nick Clegg being especially likely to appeal to voters in those southern Tory / Lib Dem marginals.

James Forsyth

How much does this hurt Brown?

A relaxed, confident looking David Cameron has just been on the BBC hitting all the right notes about Gordon Brown’s climb-down over the election date. For Brown, the next few weeks will be excruciating. He is being denounced as weak by all and sundry while his reputation for straight-talking is in tatters. Never again will his opponents cower in front of him. The $64,000 question is whether this error by Brown will actually weigh on the minds of voters as they go to the polls in 2009. Labour MPs have been fanning out across the TV studios this afternoon to dismiss this as a mere Westminster story claiming that it will all be forgotten by then. But even if this is the case the last few weeks have been very helpful to Cameron.

James Forsyth

Will he go now?

As Gordon Brown prepares for tomorrow’s crunch meeting on whether or not to call an election the case against going early is getting stronger. A poll for the Daily Politics found that 57% of voters think Brown would be putting Labour’s interests ahead of those of the country if he went now; suggesting that Labour might not get the bump government normally do at the beginning of a campaign. Labour MPs in marginal seats are now telling the press that they don’t want an election this year and the early polling in the key marginals is reportedly “too close for comfort”. Hedged against that is the diffuclty of backing down now. One cabinet source tells The Independent that "It's gone so far now, I don't think it can be stopped.

Friday

James Forsyth

More grim poll news for Brown

Gordon’s decision just got trickier. The latest figures from The Guardian / ICM poll show that 48% of voters want a November poll compared to 43% who don’t. However, 58% of Labour supporters don’t want Gordon to go early. Tory backers are 17% more certain to vote than their Labour counterparts the poll reveals and the people who would be missing from the electoral roll come November are from groups that traditionally support Labour more strongly than the Conservatives. So if Brown goes early there’s a real risk he could end up with a wafer-thin majority or even a hung parliament. But backing down now is not going to be easy with expectations of a poll having been raised so high. Brown’s personal ratings are bound to take a tumble if he chickens out now.

James Forsyth

A week is a long time in politics

Rarely has that old cliché seemed so true. On Saturday, Anthony King wrote that “Mr Cameron looks increasingly like a rich man's Iain Duncan Smith” and with the Tories behind by double digits in the polls he had the number to back up his point. Tory modernisers were fretting about how an increased Labour majority and a fourth defeat would dish the party for a generation. While David Cameron was being repeatedly told that nothing short of the performance of his life could pull the party back from the abyss. A week later and all the pressure is on Gordon Brown. With the Tories now effectively level-pegging, Brown faces the devil of a dilemma.

James Forsyth

Brown’s number cruncher

This morning the chances of an early election have receded considerably but it is not over yet. Gordon Brown receives internal polling today and tomorrow and if these numbers look good he might still go for it. Indeed, if one was a Labour Pangloss one might even say that there is a benefit in the Tory bounce in that if Brown called an election now the first polls of the campaign would see the Tories falling back as the memories of conference faded. The person guiding Gordon through these polling numbers will be Deborah Mattinson. Mattinson is one of Brown’s closest advisers and runs many of the Citizen Juries on which he is so keen. The number of government contracts her firm receives has caused controversy.

James Forsyth

Tories bounce level

This morning’s polls will be causing consternation in Downing Street. ICM in The Guardian finds the two parties level on 38 points and Populus for The Times has Labour ahead 39 to 36.  If Labour went for an election now it is far from certain that Gordon Brown would increase his majority. To go to the country looking for a mandate and come back with fewer seats than Tony Blair achieved in his worst electoral performance would leave Brown a wounded PM.  As Peter Riddell writes in The Times, “Gordon Brown needs an exit strategy, fast.” The debate in Westminster is about how much permanent damage would be done to Brown by pulling back now. Certainly, David Cameron would be able to claim a triumph and the Tories could ridicule Brown as a bottler.