James Forsyth

James Forsyth

James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.

James Forsyth

Why the expenses story is so damaging for Brown

I suspect that the story about Brown paying his brother £6,000 for cleaning services could be as damaging to the Prime Minister outside the Westminster Village as the McBride story was to him inside. One of the few remaining things Brown had going for him was the idea that whatever you thought of him he

James Forsyth

Keeping up with the Jones

Anyone who has watched the West Wing knows there’s a cult of long hours in Washington. Obviously, there are times when people do need to work around the clock. But there are other times when a 12 hour working day is sufficient. Anyone who demonstrates this, though, riles establishment Washington. President Bush’s habit of being

James Forsyth

Why, in the end, we will defeat Islamist extremism

This report from the Washington Post detailing the tales of refugees from the Swat valley shows why, eventually, we will triumph against the Taliban and their ilk: “As the refugees begin streaming out of Swat and the neighboring Buner district in northwest Pakistan, they carry with them memories of the indignities and horrors inflicted by

James Forsyth

Johnson’s dividing lines

Very interesting write-up in the Mirror today of a speech Alan Johnson is delivering in London today. The enthusiasm of the report suggests that the Mirror is very much open to Johnson replacing Brown. The line of attack, though, is still very Brown. The Mirror reports that Johnson will say: “It is telling that the

Pakistan: The greatest danger is nuclear insider trading

The New York Times has an excellent symposium up on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. This point from Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA officer who headed up the office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence at the Department of Energy under President Bush, is particularly concerning:   “Twice since the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. taken action to break up networks inside

James Forsyth

How Brown can stop Mandelson going postal

As Pete said earlier, the question of how Brown gets out of this Post Office mess is fascinating. On the one hand he has the 150 plus Labour MPs who have signed an early day motion against the plan—and you can add to that number a fair few MPs who are trying to fly below

James Forsyth

Why we need public service reform

Hamish McRae, whose coverage of the crash has been prescient and authoritative, sets out the key question that comes out of the state of the public finances in his column today: “We have had over the past decade the largest increase in public spending that has ever taken place in peacetime. It is also the

The Republican dilemma

Parties of the right fall into a simplified, intellectual comfort zone when they have been in power too long. It happened to the Tories and it has happened to the Republicans. David Brooks sets out the problem in his New York Times column: “Republicans are so much the party of individualism and freedom these days

James Forsyth

Ouch

Ephraim Hardcastle’s column in the Mail today contains this story about the Prime Minister’s tense relationship with the Number 10 staff: ‘A switchboard operator rang him back the other day and said they wouldn’t put up with being spoken to like that. Brown had to apologise.’ Its appearance is further evidence that it is now

James Forsyth

The Gurkha blame game gets resolved

Pete has already flagged up Rachel Sylvester’s column, but there’s one line in it about the Gurkhas that particularly caught my attention: “I am told that ministers agreed in a Cabinet sub-committee that the issue should be resolved, but they were overruled by No10.” On Friday, there was a huge blame game going on about

The nuclear worry

I’m becoming increasingly convinced that in a year to 18 months time, we’ll come to view the global situation as even more alarming than the economic one. Arguably, the greatest cause for concern is Pakistan. (I still, though, tend to view Iran’s nuclear ambitions as the greatest potential threat.) In Pakistan, almost every concern of

James Forsyth

Can Brown move on from the culture of the Wednesday meeting?

Today’s Times reports that Peter Mandelson and Ed Balls will head up a weekly strategy meeting in Downing Street. This along with the fall of McBride presumably means the end of the infamous Wednesday meetings. These Wednesday meetings summed up what so many people inside the Labour party disliked about Brown and his way of

A Republican Ridge to the future

Arlen Specter, the senior Senator from Pennsylvania, switched parties for no higher reason than to save his seat: that is what should worry Republicans. That Specter thought he had no chance of winning as a Republican in a state that until the 2006 mid-terms had two Republican Senators is a sign of how far and

James Forsyth

Three blows to Balls

Ed Balls faces his own trio of troubles this Sunday. First, there’s Charles Clarke’s not so coded call for him to resign. Then, there is the overwhelming decision by the National Association of Head Teachers to boycott Sats for 11 year-olds despite a personal appeal from Balls not to just before the vote at their

James Forsyth

Three things keeping Brown pinned down

Three themes dominate the political coverage in The Sunday papers and demonstrate just how big a hole Brown is in. There are another slew of expenses stories, according to Labour’s internal polling this is the most important issue in driving its former supporters away. To go with the expenses stories, there is an excess story:

Cameron to Thatcher, I hope to be your heir

The meaning of the heir to Blair quote has been grossly distorted, but this letter that Cameron has sent to Thatcher on the eve of the thirtieth anniversary of her becoming Prime Minister does strike me as important: “I still find it awe-inspiring to think of the state of the nation you inherited and the