James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
Much jollity at the Parliamentarian of the Year Awards today, both Peter Mandelson and George Osborne dealt with their reunion with commendable grace. One suspects that these two prime political operators have more respect for one another than one might think. Also, the good humour with which Osborne dealt with the general ribbing he received
One more thing worth noting from the Darling interview,which Pete commented on earlier, is his rather barbed comment about who floated the idea of £15bn worth of tax cuts: Mr Darling insists we will have to wait for the details, but plays down speculation that the tax reductions could be worth £15bn. That was “not
Boston, Massachusetts One of the striking things about the week since the election is the sheer amount of media Sarah Palin has done. She has sat down with the local press in Alaska, Fox News, NBC and is doing CNN tomorrow. By contrast, McCain is making his first post-election appearance on Leno tonight. Palin has
Boston, Massachusetts Two of the Democrats’ biggest beasts take to the papers today to urge Obama to make their issue his top priority. In the New York Times Al Gore calls for immediate action on climate change while in the Washington Post Ted Kennedy declares that ‘Health Care Can’t Wait’. This is a taste of
Glenrothes was undoubtedly a triumph for Gordon Brown. It has restored his authority in the Labour party and ensured that the media narrative of the Brown comeback will continue. But the new ICM poll for The Sunday Telegraph shows just how much of a climb Brown still has: the Tories are on 43, up one,
What should, perhaps, worry the Republicans most about this year’s election result is that they lost in the fastest growing states in the country and among the fastest growing demographics. Many of the states the Republicans lost this year—I’m thinking in particular of Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado and Nevada—are, on current trends, going to become
Unsurprisingly Barack Obama’s election has kicked off a debate about whether a non-white person could become Prime Minister in Britain. I’m an optimist on the question; I think we have come a long way from Cheltenham in 1992. One thing worth noting is that the non-white population in Britain is only around 10 percent compared
Washington, D.C. In 1968, as Washington burned in the riots that followed Martin Luther King’s assassination, few would have predicted that in 40 years’ time America would elect a black president. But on Tuesday night, a diverse crowd gathered on the same street where the rioting had reached its height in 1968 to celebrate Obama’s
Barack Obama’s first press conference as president-elect was, as with his victory speech, an exercise in expectations management. By laying out so starkly the bad economic news, he clearly hopes that he can avoid people thinking that he’ll be able to turn things round instantly. He did, though, stress that if no stimulus bill is
Even in defeat Sarah Palin continues to make headlines. In New York the journalistic chatter is about who paid for her shopping sprees and just how little she actually knew about the world. (I find it a stretch, though, to believe she thought Africa was a single country). Palin has become a proxy for the
Labour officials are confidently claiming that the party will hold Glenrothes in the by-election there. This is a safe Labour seat, but the SNP do hold the equivalent seat in the Scottish Parliament. Expect the press to treat this as proof that Brown is back in the game.
It now appears that Rahm Emanuel has accepted the job of White House Chief of Staff in an Obama administration. The Chief of Staff is, in many ways, the second most powerful person in the White House after the president. Some will say that the appointment of the hyper-partisan Emanuel demonstrates that for all the
Washington is a city with a short memory. Today as I did the rounds before heading to New York and then Boston for a few days holiday, John McCain’s name was barely mentioned as anything other than a footnote. But if Tuesday night marked the beginning of the end of McCain’s career in public service,
A little sign of the way in which this election has touched people is the fact that you cannot buy a copy of the Washington Post today for love nor money. There is currently a huge queue outside the Post building downtown as people wait for the arrival of a special commemorative edition of the
Flicking between the news stations just now, I came across a channel showing the episode of the West Wing in which Matt Santos, a Latino candidate, is elected president. But when you think about Obama’s story it is more remarkable than any TV or film script. Indeed, in fiction it would seem implausible. Four and a bit
Over the weekend all the talk was about how McCain had to win pretty much every battleground state that was still in play and how that would be nigh-on-impossible. But Obama has pretty much done that tonight. He has won Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, New Hampshire and Indiana and is looking good in North
We’ll be live-blogging through the night here. A number worth noting from the exit polls is that 62 percent say the economy is their top issue, that’s very good news for the Obama campaign. Also consider the weights that McCain is running with–76 percent of voters think the country is on the wrong track and
This election has been a privilege to cover. A country where 90 percent of people think things are on the wrong track could have turned away from politics, lost faith in itself and its system of governance. But instead America has taken its democratic duty more seriously than ever this year. The latest predictions I’m
I’ve just been to a polling place here in DC to watch people cast their ballots. The lines are more manageable now than they were early in the morning when people were queuing for an hour-and-a-half to vote, despite the fact that Obama will win the District with 90 percent plus of the vote. There
Barack Obama’s last rally of election eve filled the Prince William county fairground and some. Obama claimed there were 100,000 people there and considering the traffic on the road in that number seems plausible. The key question is how many of those 100,000 were Virginians rather than political tourists from DC and Maryland, Democratic strongholds.