James Forsyth

James Forsyth

James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.

The West Bank model

At the beginning of Israel’s action in Gaza many claimed that it would bring down the more moderate Fatah-run Palestinian Authority on the West Bank. But it has not. Walter Isaacson of the US Palestinian partnership tells Jeffrey Goldberg that it is because the Palestinians on the West Bank can see what peace would bring

Denouncing the useful idiots

There are few more sickening sights than people wandering around with banners stating things like “We are all Hezbollah” or “We are all Hamas”. These people are using the freedoms entrusted to them by a liberal democracy to endorse terrorist groups with genocidal ambitions. Over at the Telegraph, Shiraz Maher has written a powerful denunciation of

How Obama is selling the stimulus

Obama gave a big-speech today promoting his stimulus plan. It was short on detail—there’s much Congressional horse-trading to come—but there were two passages that stood out. The first was Obama’s diagnosis of what has caused this economic collapse: “This crisis did not happen solely by some accident of history or normal turn of the business

James Forsyth

Field artillery

Frank Field was once famously lifted off his feet by his lapels by Gordon Brown, so enraged was Brown by Field’s criticism of him. Considering this, Field would we well advised to steer clear of the great clunking fist after writing this on his blog: “During no move since has the Government been able to

James Forsyth

The politics of printing money

I’ll leave the economics of printing more money to those more qualified than I, but the politics of it seems appalling. Mike Smithson is right when he writes at Political Betting that: “…the notion of “printing money” sounds quite horrific – something that simply won’t be understood, surely, by 99% of the electorate and something

James Forsyth

How do you have a debate with nobody talking?

Alistair Darling’s latest comments are among the most baffling he has made during this whole crisis. Here is his response when asked on BBC News about reports that the Bank of England is to start printing money: “We’re looking at a range of measures to support the economy, to support business, to help people, but

The idiocy of the ECB

So, it has all ended in tears. Kevin Pietersen’s resignation came even sooner than his worst enemies would have predicted when he took the job five months ago. A lot of people are already blaming Pietersen, saying that you can’t have the captain forcing the management’s hand as publicly as he tried to do when

James Forsyth

The debate about the debate

Kevin Maguire devotes the bulk of his column today to arguing that Gordon Brown should sign up to a televised debate before the next election. Maguire writes: “In Downing Street, the mood remains opposed to US-style Presidential TV debates. … Brown should declare now that he’ll talk podium-to-podium with Cameron and the Lib Dems’ Nick

James Forsyth

Empathising with Israel

One thing that strikes me about many of Israel’s critics is their unwillingness to even think about why Israel acts as it does. Those who think that Israel is wrong to be doing what it is doing in Gaza should read Daniel Finkelstein’s column in The Times this morning; I won’t quote from it because

James Forsyth

How to restore Britain’s military standing

Rachel Sylvester’s column today, highlighted by Pete this morning, raises the question of who should take the blame for the decline in Britain’s utility as a combat ally. This is principally a result of this country fighting wars on a peacetime budget. It was one of Tony Blair’s great failings that he did not tell

James Forsyth

The Gaza dilemma

Jeffrey Goldberg, formerly of the New Yorker and now at The Atlantic, is a fantastic writer and always worth reading on the Middle East. His post, flagged up by Clive, explaining why he isn’t commenting more on the situation in Gaza, is as depressing as it is moving: “I’ve served in the Israeli Army in

In 2009 the Tories need to kick their dependency on Dave

One habit the Tory party should aim to cure itself of in 2009 is its over-reliance on David Cameron to gets its message across. Some Tories defend the heavy use of Cameron by arguing that he is both the party’s most attractive face and the only way they can guarantee getting their message reported in

James Forsyth

Things worth reading | 5 January 2009

The economic crisis is so bad that it is often easy to forget that the foreign policy challenges that so dominated the news a year or so ago have not gone away. The mission in Afghanistan will present General Petraeus with an even tougher challenge than Iraq, Iran’s nuclear ambitions will have to be confronted

James Forsyth

Obama’s double-play on taxes

The first order of business for the incoming Obama administration is going to be a stimulus package. With Obama’s vacation over and the President-elect moving from Chicago to DC, the details of the plan are beginning to become clearer. The Wall Street Journal reports that the administration will urge Congress to make 40 per cent