James Forsyth

This YouGov poll in the Daily Mirror makes for depressing reading. 42% of people don’t believe that it is safe to go out at night, while 11% don’t ever feel secure in their neighbourhood. 50% say they are less safe than when Labour came to power. The poll also shows that 89% of the public

Alice Miles argues in her Times column on the climate change protests at Heathrow  that, “Pretty much anyone without shares in BAA would not wish another runway on that particular part of England (if, indeed, upon any of it).” I really don’t think this is true, even if some people won’t admit to wanting another

Charles Moore has a must-read in the Telegraph today about the Dispatches programme “Undercover Mosque” that the CPS and the West Midlands police have criticised. They claim that the programme apparently took the quotes of various Islamic preachers out of context. But, as Moore points out, no one is claiming that the quotes were made

I would have thought that the idea of granting asylum to those Iraqis who have served as interpreters for British troops would be fairly uncontroversial. But Neil Clark has issued a ferocious broadside against it today on Comment is Free, saying “let’s do all we can to keep self-centred mercenaries who betrayed their fellow countrymen

It is safe to go back in the water in Cornwall. It turns out that the the great white shark that was supposedly seen off Newquay was actually photographed in South Africa by a Cornish nightclub bouncer who sent the photos into the papers claiming he had snapped them off the Cornish coast as a

Over at Conservative Home, Peter Franklin has written a hard-hitting piece setting out some ‘home truths for the right.’ He accuses various bits of it of being self-indulgent, hypocritical and living in the past amongst other things. I wouldn’t agree with everything he says, but it is well worth a read. 

‘Food miles’ is one of the new eco buzz phrases and makes people think that buying local food is inherently better for the environment. But an op-ed in the New York Times today flags up some new research that shows this is not the case when you consider all the energy used in producing the food

It is good news that the government has finally got round to making certain that forced marriages are illegal. (How on earth it took this long baffles me. It is hard to imagine a more clear cut case of denying someone their rights than forcing them to marry someone against their will). But as Sunny

Nick Robinson has a funny little blog post up on the ongoing needle between him and President Bush. Back in December 2006, Robinson asked Bush if he was in denial on Iraq. Bush bristled at the question, he doesn’t much like Fleet Street’s finest who he reportedly views as a bunch of smart alecs and

This week’s Newsweek has a piece on what it calls “Britain’s post-Blair identity crisis.” Most of the article is about Gordon Brown’s current obsession with Britishness but this fact in it stood out: “every second child in London is now born to an immigrant mother.” This isn’t a problem if these children are being brought up

To date, Cameron has got the better of Brown at PMQs but the clunking fist had some good lines today. I’d bet that this one–“The wheels are coming off the Tory bicycle; it’s just as well he’s got a car following him!”—will be on the news tonight. As Tony might say, clunk!