James Forsyth

James Forsyth

James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.

Cameron needs to take this opportunity

Libya has elbowed the riots off the front page. But, in the medium-term, how Cameron responds to them remains one of the big tests of his premiership. In the Evening Standard today, Tim Montgomerie vents the frustrations of those Tories who fear that Cameron is missing his chance. Tim’s complaint is that Cameron has actually

James Forsyth

Mentoring deserves an audience

It is easy to mock the idea of ministers and Downing Street advisers ‘mentoring’ problem families. But the idea is onto something important. First of all, a lot of what these families need is help from someone who understands how to get on in the world. Someone there pushing and prodding them to start applying

Winning the peace

The sight of rebel troops kicking a statue of Gaddafi round the colonel’s compound is another sign that the rebels are taking control of the capital. But the whereabouts of Gaddafi remain unknown. I understand that the British government is doing what it can to help the rebels locate him. But, until Gaddafi and his

An encouraging start for the new Libya

The press conference by Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of the National Transitional Council, was encouraging. Jalil stressed that he wished Libya to be a country governed by the rule of law and urged his supporters not to indulge in revenge attacks. He also stressed that Gaddafi will be given a ‘fair’ trial. In an

James Forsyth

Cameron: No transition is ever smooth

David Cameron’s statement on Libya just now was cautious in tone and content. The Prime Minister stressed that “no transition is ever smooth or easy.” Cameron said that he wanted to see Libya become a “free, democratic and inclusive” country. He emphasised that the NATO mission there would continue for as long as necessary. In

Arresting the West’s crisis of confidence

What’s the most important geo-political event of this century? Most people would say 9/11. The Foreign Secretary believes that it is the Arab Spring. But in The Times today (£), Emma Duncan makes a persuasive case for it being the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Duncan argues that Lehman Brothers’ fall has three claims to be

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Pickles rebuffs calls for new taxes

Anyone looking for a good blast of common sense on a Saturday morning should read Eric Pickles’ interview in the Telegraph. In it, he responds to much of the kite-flying by the Liberal Democrat left in recent weeks. In an exchange that will have many of his Cabinet colleagues nodding along in agreement, Pickles criticises judicial activism

James Forsyth

Fight or flight

David Cameron now has the chance to be the Prime Minister he always wanted to be. Up to now, his premiership has, to his frustration, been dominated by the economic crisis that the country is facing. His cherished social reform agenda has not been the government’s animating mission but a rhetorical extra. But after last

The Mrs Bercow show

What, I suspect, would infuriate Sally Bercow most is if there was a complete media blackout over her appearance on ‘Celebrity’ Big Brother. As she made clear on entering the house, her whole aim is to annoy what she calls the ‘establishment.’ But at the risk of playing Bercow’s game, it’s worth debunking one argument

Dark days

There’s a pessimistic mood in Westminster at the moment, a sense of gloom about the economic prospects of the West. The government expects there to be another round of the European sovereign debt crisis this autumn and believes that the problems of the eurozone will take at least a decade to resolve. No one I’ve

James Forsyth

Miss Lightwood suggests…

The press’s tendency to feature female students receiving their A-Level results rather than their male counterparts is coming in for a fair bit of ribbing today. The Guardian diary yesterday revealed quite how far some schools are prepared to go to get their pupils on the front page: “And yet eyebrows were raised at Diary

The Huhne story returns

The news that the Crown Prosecution Service has asked Essex Police to make further inquiries into the whole allegation that Chris Huhne asked his then wife to take speeding points for him in 2003 is a political embarrassment for the Energy and Climate Change Secretary. Huhne has always denied these allegations and nothing has been

James Forsyth

Recalcitrant police forces

Applications to be the next commissioner of the Metropolitan Police closed at noon today. But thanks to the Home Office and the police, the best candidate for the job — Bill Bratton — hasn’t been allowed to even apply. The energy which was put into barring him shows just how determined the police and the

Cameron’s missed opportunity

As David noted earlier, the big headline in Nick Clegg’s speech this morning is that the government will hold some kind of inquiry into the riots after all. This climb down in the face of demands from Ed Miliband makes it all the more baffling that Cameron didn’t announce his own inquiry earlier. If he

Battle of the century

The American historian Walter Russell-Mead has a cynical — but very possibly accurate — take on what the French are trying to persuade the Germans to accept with their plan for Eurobonds: ‘France’s clear short term goal is to commit Germany to underwrite debts from weak EU states.  That not only staves off a crisis

James Forsyth

Cameron and Miliband’s differences

David Cameron and Ed Miliband both gave speeches on the riots this morning and the political dividing lines between the two are becoming more and more apparent. Cameron argues that these riots were about culture not poverty, Miliband thinks you can’t ignore inequality. Cameron believes that society needs two parent families, Miliband that it is

Cameron mustn’t let the police top brass bully him into silence

The police have been busy defending themselves this weekend against any criticism of their performance. They aim to stop elected politicians from making any comment on their performance. But David Cameron should not—and must not—back down from both his criticism of police tactics and his conviction that the force urgently needs reforming. The truth is

Blunt’s flawed rehabilitation programme

The decisions of Crispin Blunt, the prisons’ minister, are hard to fathom. One wonders why-as the Daily Mail reports today — he allowed a man convicted of killing five people to give an unapologetic interview to a magazine. Blunt’s defence is that it wouldn’t have been right for him to stop it. That may be