James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
Simon Hoggart is absolutely spot on in his Guardian column about the arrogance of Lord Saville: “Someone else who seems to want plenty of the public’s money is Lord Saville, whose inquiry into Bloody Sunday has been going for more than a decade, and won’t be complete until the end of next year. It has
“We estimated that each family was costing something like £250,000 a year from public sector interventions that were not changing behaviour. They need a personal worker who helps them to get up in the morning, get breakfast and get the children off to school.” This quote from Hazel Blears in her interview with Alice Thomson
Frank Field takes to the pages of the Telegraph to lend support to the paper’s justice for savers campaign. Field proposes gilts for pensioners and using the state-owned banks to lend to companies who need credit. But this being Frank Field, he also takes several shots at Gordon Brown: “Worse still, few people believe that
Peter Oborne in effusive in his praise of David Cameron this morning: “Cameron is, of course, right to warn that Gordon Brown’s financial plans are insanely reckless, may lead to bankruptcy and impose an intolerable penalty on future generations. But there are very few prizes for being right in politics, and during the next election,
Tony Blair used to drive those who disliked him almost insane. Judging from Jan Moir’s column in the Daily Mail today, David Cameron has the same effect on his opponents. Here’s how she starts: “David Cameron has the most annoying legs in British politics. In fact, the Tory leader has the most annoying legs in
England have had a fantastic day in the cricket today, reducing India to 155 for six at the close. But I still can’t get over the stupidity of the ECB who are refusing to guarantee Lords a Test match every summer. Despite having the biggest capacity of any cricket ground in England, Test matches at
In his interview with the Daily Telegraph, David Cameron drops a heavy-hint that a shadow cabinet reshuffle is in the offing: “I think I have a very good team, but there is always ways of involving the best and bright and I’d always look at that,” he said. “I don’t want to get into specifics
Greg Mankiw, the Harvard economist who was chairmen of the of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers between 2003 and 2005, has an important post on his blog about the relative benefits of spending increases and tax cuts as forms of economic stimulus: “Bob Hall and Susan Woodward look at spending increases from World War
Peter Mandelson is regarded as the ultimate Blairite. And certainly in terms of personal loyalty few match up to him. Despite Blair sacking him twice, Mandelson was still his most articulate defender in the various TV retrospectives on the Blair era. Mandelson even called Blair before accepting Gordon Brown’s offer of a seat in the
Jane Merrick has a post over at The Independent speculating that David Davis could be made shadow defence secretary in the 2009 reshuffle. Certainly, back when Cameron was putting his first shadow cabinet together it was thought that Davis would get either the Home or Defence briefs. But I don’t think Davis will get defence
Illinois politics is legendarily corrupt. But even by the state’s high standards, the charge sheet against the current governor, Rod Blagojevich, is impressive. Blagojevich was, so it is alleged, trying to sell the Senate seat that Obama’s election had left vacant. If that wasn’t enough, Blagojevich was apparently attempting to shake down the president-elect. The
Malcolm Gladwell has a fantastic piece in this week’s New Yorker which contains a totally compelling argument for merit pay for teachers: “Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford, estimates that the students of a very bad teacher will learn, on average, half a year’s worth of material in one school year. The students in the class
Since the Mumbai atrocities there has been a lot written about the need for a settlement in Kashmir. Undoubtedly, a resolution to this conflict is to be wished for on it own terms and because it would make cooperation between India and Pakistan easier. But as Patrick French argues in a trenchant op-ed in today’s
It is wonderful news that a full-strength England team will head to India today for the Test series. If England had pulled out or sent a weakened team, it would have been a triumph for the terrorists; proof that they had succeeded in one of their goals, making Westerners think twice about going to or investing
Sam Coates breaks the news that Lord Jacobs, the Lib Dem’s biggest donor, is quitting the party. But reading about his policy dispute with the party, one wonders why he was a Lib Dem in the first place. Sam reports that: “His beef is that he wants Clegg to go further on tax, taking the
The oddest, and potentially most significant, story in the Sunday papers is the Tories claim—reported in the Mail on Sunday—that two senior Labour people, including a current cabinet minister, passed on information to them about Brown, Balls and the Smith Institute. The two Labour sources apparently pushed the Tories to see whether the relationship was
Ian Kirby has the scoop about the Damian Green investigation: TORY MP Damian Green and his Home Office mole will NOT be charged in the leak scandal, the News of the World can reveal. Prosecutors say papers seized from Mr Green’s Commons office cannot be used as evidence in a trial. They add that cops
Gordon Brown has done something great for Britain: he was one of the people most responsible for keeping this country out of the European single currency. As Chancellor, he was a roadblock to Blair’s ambitions on this front. So when the idea of Britain joining the euro was floated last weekend, I thought it was
Robin Butler, the former Cabinet Secretary, gave a most interesting interview to Steve Richards on the Westminster Hour this morning. Butler was Cabinet Secretary between 1988 and 1998 and so was there for the slew of leaks that occurred during the tail-end of the Major government. He admitted that most internal leak inquiries achieved little
One of the overlooked elements of the PBR was the Chancellor’s assertion that Britain would be out of recession by the third quarter of 2009. This offered a metric against which the PBR and the other measures Labour have taken can be judged; if the country is still in recession then it will be reasonable