James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
Today’s papers report that following the Deripaska affair, George Osborne will no longer take a direct fundraising role. A source close to Osborne tells The Times, “Lessons have been learnt. From now on, George has decided that he will not be involved in discussions about individual donations from individual donors”. This is a sensible move.
This downturn is going to feel awfully long if everyone is to be banned from having a laugh during it. The Sunday Times reports today that Robert Peston was pulled from Have I Got News For you because, according to a source close to the programme, “The producers were told it wouldn’t be right for
A few weeks ago, folks were busy claiming that this financial crisis and the ensuing recession would mark the end of American hegemony. But, as the Washington Post points out in its editorial today, it is America’s enemies who look like they are going to be hardest hit by it. Those petro-states that have been
If the Deripaksa affair persuades the Tories that they need to vet everyone from whom a shadow cabinet member accepts hospitality and that the shadow cabinet should be kept as far away as possible from the soliciting of donations then some good will have come of it. The Observer reports today that the vetting process designed
Gordon Brown’s political strategy for the recession involves claiming that it came from America, that Britain is uniquely well placed to deal with it thanks to his policy decisions and that only he has the experience to see the country through this crisis. But as the Observer points out in its editorial today—entitled “It’s your
The post-mortems are already beginning on John McCain’s campaign. There is plenty for folk to get stuck into—the lack of a domestic policy message, the Palin pick, the failure to distance from Bush until so late in the campaign—but McCain is trailing principally because he is a national security candidate in what has turned into
When you look at these figures from Time magazine you realise how hard hit this country, and London especially, is going to be by this recession: “In 2007 financial services accounted for 10.1% of the U.K.’s gross domestic product, up from 5.5% in 2001. Add in professional services linked to finance, such as accounting, law
Ian Jack has a dispatch from Glenrothes in today’s Guardian. Here is his main point: “The conventional wisdom about Glenrothes goes like this. After its victory in Glasgow East, the Scottish National party thought it could wipe out Labour’s 10,000-majority. Then the global crisis erupted. Small-country nationalism no longer looked so clever – Salmond will
There is an argument that British politics since 1994 is a historical freak, a product of a period of ever-increasing prosperity which allowed politicians to avoid the hard choices that typically define politics. As Charles Moore puts it in today’s Telegraph, “our two main parties have both been caught facing the wrong way. Their policy
On October 7th, Alistair Darling called the Icelandic Finance Minister in an attempt to find out what iceland was doing to protect British savers who had money deposited in Icelandic banks. Here’s how the conversation starts: Mathiesen: Hello. Darling: Hello. Mathiesen: This is Árni Mathiesen, Minister of Finance. Darling: Hello, we met a few months
Peter Mandelson’s interview in Progress is well worth reading. In it, he sets out the three areas where he thinks Labour needs to up its policy game: “First, social mobility where Labour needs to provide ‘new ladders for working-class youngsters to climb, taking advantage of the growing aspiration of … parents for their children to
The Deripaksa story rumbles on in the papers today but Osborne will be relieved to see that he appears to be out of the woods now. The Guardian reveals that Mandelson and Deripaksa met in October 2004, a meeting which his Brussels staff appear to have been unaware of. Meanwhile, The Independent reports that David
The state polling numbers are grim for McCain right now. One poll today even had Obama up by 10 in Indiana, a state Bush won by 20 points. McCain clearly needs to do something to shake things up. Mike Murphy, who worked on McCain’s 2000 campaign but in recent months has been a critic of
Keith Dovkants has a great feature in the Standard on the relationship between Rothschild and Deripaska. But this anecdote stood out to me: “Witness his excursion into Kalmykia, a remote Russian republic run by Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, a charismatic leader who fought an election campaign on promises of providing a free mobile phone for every shepherd
One of the oddest aspects of this whole Deripaska affair is why Nate Rothschild went nuclear on George Osborne. It was understandable that Rothschild was irritated about Osborne breaching the privacy of his fellow guests but writing a letter that could have destroyed Osborne’s career seems like a disproportionate response. Especially when you consider that
There will be relief in Tory circles this morning that today’s papers contain no further damaging revelations about George Osborne and Andrew Feldman’s holiday activities. The Tories can begin to hope that this story is on the wane or that the focus of attention will soon shift back to Mandelson; do see Melissa Kite’s revelations
The Times has gone understandably big on its scoop about George Osborne’s activities in Corfu. Many have been taken aback by quite how hostile the tone of its coverage has been—Osborne and The Times editor James Harding were thought to be friends—and if what Guido and several others are hearing is true, it seems that
Gordon Brown’s call for an inquiry into the allegations surrounding George Osborne was pure political mischief. But it has worked. Both the BBC and Sky reported the call prominently on their one o’clock news broadcasts. As Nick Robinson noted on the Daily Politics, it was a clever way of giving the press a second day
Even before the revelations about George Osborne, today’s PMQs was of particular importance for the Conservatives. The encounter was perceived to be the Tory’s best chance to burst Brown’s bubble. But now it has taken on even more importance. If Cameron gets clunked, Tory backbench morale—which is surprisingly low given that the Tories still have
The evidence all seems to strongly suggest that George Osborne did nothing illegal in Corfu. But that does not mean he should escape without criticism. What he did was clearly foolhardy in the extreme. If Osborne has just googled Deripaska he would have seen enough material to make him hesitate about even being in his
