James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
Michael Gove is giving a big speech tomorrow on free schools amid evidence that the policy is beginning to gather momentum. The papers report today that there have been 281 applications to set up free schools in the round that closed this month alone (sentence updated). One of the best known of these planned
Charles Moore’s column in the Telegraph today makes a very good case against enshrining the military covenant in law. As Charles argues, once the lawyers and the judges get their hands on it there could be a whole slew of unintended consequences. Judges could decide, for instance, that the court martial system does not offer
Pete rightly points to Michael Gove’s interview in The Times this morning as the story of the day. Some producer interests are objecting to Gove dismissing the exam system as ‘discredited’ and his plans to return A-Levels to being a proper preparation for undergraduate study. But there’ll be no backing down. A Gove spokesman tells
Ed Miliband could be excused for indulging in some comfort television. Ed Miliband could be excused for indulging in some comfort television. He has returned from honeymoon to find himself torn to shreds in the press, put on probation by anonymous ‘Blairite’ ministers and humiliated by David Cameron in parliament, and his relationship with his
Michael Gove’s plans for education don’t allow for a moment’s pause When I walk into his office on the seventh floor of the Department for Education, Michael Gove is sitting behind his desk with his jacket off. He is hunched over, writing a note on House of Commons letterhead. His left arm is pushed right
With events in Greece moving at pace, next week’s European Council meeting (which was scheduled to be a low-key affair) could be the place where attempts to resolve the crisis in the eurozone take place. I’m told that Number 10 has now woken up to this possibility and is doing some preparatory work on the
The good, the bad and the ugly of the coalition’s reform agenda are all on display this morning. The good is the quickening of the pace in education. As Michael Gove tells this week’s Spectator, the 200 worst primary schools will now be taken over by new management, 88 failing secondary schools are to be
George Osborne will use his Mansion House speech tonight to, in the words of one source, “fire the starting gun” on the sale of Northern Rock. Robert Peston, who had the story first, reports that “The chancellor hopes that the sale of Northern Rock will send a powerful signal that the banking industry is
The government is, rightly, receiving a monstering from the papers for its u-turns on weekly bin collections. But what is at stake here is more than just the issue of bins. The government’s failure to honour its promise on this matter casts doubt on whether ministers are strong enough and tough enough to impose their
After last week’s performance and this weekend’s headlines, Ed Miliband needed a win at PMQs — and he got one. Knowing that David Cameron would attack him over the fact Labour will vote against the welfare reform bill this week, Miliband had a string of questions for the Prime Minister on the detail of the
Paul Waugh is tweeting that Number 10 is stressing that, pace this morning’s front pages and Lord Freud’s comments yesterday, the benefit cap remains. This is not surprising: the benefit cap was always a statement of values more than anything else. As George Osborne said at Tory conference, it was designed to ensure that, “No
David Miliband’s statement today declares that he ‘wants no part’ of the ‘soap opera’ of leadership drama. But as long as David Miliband remains outside the shadow Cabinet and, therefore by definition, not doing everything he can to support his brother it will be easy for people to say that he is just waiting for
Andy Burnham has caught up with Coffee House’s revelation earlier this week that the Treasury, the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department of Education are going to have to review their position on academy funding because of a legal challenge. Burnham is twittering, in typically hyperbolic terms, about the matter. But the
No paper has been more critical of Ed Miliband than The Times. So it is in some ways not a surprise that the paper’s leader column today declares that he has until Labour conference to save his leadership. But this ultimatum stokes the sense of drama created by the combination of the Balls’ leaks and the
Europe has reached a crucial crossroads, from which there is no return. Europe has reached a crucial crossroads, from which there is no return. Soon, either the eurozone countries will become even more tightly bound together or they will begin to fall apart as the most ambitious elements of the European project are abandoned. The
Tonight’s Guardian scoop revealing that the speech that David Miliband would have given if he had been elected leader makes this one of the most difficult—and leaky—weeks for Labour since its election defeat. The line in the speech that will cause the most trouble for Ed Miliband is that David Miliband intended to create a
The outgoing US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has delivered a remarkably frank warning to the European members of Nato that if they do not spend more on defence, the United States will be unwilling to maintain the transatlantic alliance. Gates declared that, “The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in
I understand another story concerning improperly obtained documents may break shortly concerning Ed Balls, his spads, a civil servant and a journalist at the FT. Whitehall is in a febrile mood.
The most important political consequence of the leak of the Project Volvo documents is that it reminds everyone in the Labour party of what a divisive figure Ed Balls is. Ever since the leadership contest, where his reputation as a plotter crippled his candidacy, Balls has been trying to soften his image. He has sought
The Metropolitan police are confirming that a 46 year old MP has been arrested on suspicion of sexual assault. The member concerned is a Tory. UPDATE: The BBC is now naming Andrew Bridgen as the MP involved. There’s been no statement as yet from CCHQ on the matter. In the last parliament, Andrew Pelling was