James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
This morning’s ICM poll in The Guardian shows that David Miliband is no silver bullet for Labour’s problems: Cameron leads Miliband by the same margin, 21 points, he does Brown on the question of who would be the best Prime Minister. However, Miliband supporters will argue, as The Guardian’s editorial does, that Miliband’s ratings might
The latest Russian move in the conflict is to bulk up its forces in South Ossetia. The New York Times reports that the US believes that Russia has moved SS-21 missile launchers into position north of Tskhinvali, from there the Georgian capital of Tbilisi is in range. The Russians appear to be attempting not only
American public diplomacy is nowhere near as good as it should be. So, it is good to see Tim Montgomerie of Conservative Home fame taking on some of the myths that do so much damage to America’s reputation. The United States is neither a perfect nation nor a perfect ally but the world is a
Philip Webster reports in The Times this morning that Gordon Brown will begin his ‘re-launch’ tomorrow. Apparently, the Prime Minister is not inclined to reshuffle until October thinking that a reshuffle before then would not give ministers enough time to read themselves into their new brief before conference. It also appears that the Brownites will
It is heartening to see Britain doing so well at the Olympics but it is worth remembering that for all the excitement of the games, China has not abided by the commitments it made to allow a modicum of freedom of expression during the games. Take this story highlighted by Bill Keller: The pre-Olympics promises
Last night, both John McCain and Barack Obama took questions from Rick Warren, the evangelical preacher, in a televised forum. The two candidates appeared separately with Obama going first. Obama’s performance was fine. He was, as Chuck Todd notes, a little rusty. At times his answers were rather ponderous and he was perhaps a touch
For obvious political reasons, David Cameron had to run a mile from Policy Exchange’s report on northern cities. But as John Rentoul argues in an excellent column in The Independent on Sunday, the report was actually right about certain things: the striking thing about the Policy Exchange report is that its analysis is broadly correct. It specifically
Barack Obama is widely expected to name his running mate in the next few days. He is now back from vacation and presumably will want to make the announcement before the Democratic convention which begins a week on Monday. The buzz is that Obama is going to go for someone with foreign policy credentials. Obama’s
David Remnick, The New York editor who was the Washington Post’s Moscow correspondent during the collapse of the Soviet Union, has written a smart piece about Putin for the latest New Yorker. He concludes: “Putin is not Hitler or Stalin; he is not even Leonid Brezhnev. He is what he is, and that is bad
I’m not normally particularly keen on athletics, but Usain Bolt’s performance in the 100 metres final was awesome. (If you missed it, you can watch it here.) You don’t expect to see anyone coasting across the line to win the gold in the 100 metres let alone to break the world record.
A friend of Coffee House flags up an interesting post on Labour Matters which reports that as part of its autumn re-launch Labour might drop its “new Labour for Britain” slogan and replace it with “Your Labour, Your Britain”. The thinking is that this would emphasise the ‘on your side’ fairness agenda that will underpin
Gordon Brown’s team decided that they would take the Prime Minister off the airwaves over the summer. The thinking was that when Brown did return in September to roll out his economic plan the public would pay renewed attention. So, apart from an appearance at the Edinburgh books festival, Brown has kept pretty quiet. What
Today is the 61st anniversary of Indian independence and it comes at a time when the prospects for the country have never looked better. The country has reformed its economy and has grown, in real terms, at a rate of more than seven percent a year for the last decade. Indeed, there is a strong
A truly significant government is one that makes changes that the other parties have to accept are part of a new settlement. That is why the Attlee and Thatcher governments are, rightly regarded as the most important governments since the war. At the moment—and it is still early days in policy terms, the only area
David Cameron has stolen a further march on the government by heading out to Georgia before either the Foreign Secretary, who is going next week, or the Prime Minister. With Russian troops only 15 miles from Tbilisi, the Georgian government is keen for any signs of international solidarity and so Cameron can be assured of
If Coffee Housers haven’t already read Bob Kagan’s The Return of History and the End of Dreams, I would thoroughly recommend that you do so. In only a hundred pages or so, Kagan explains why ideological competition is now a factor once again in great power politics and examines the probable consequences of Russia’s desire
One of the trickiest decisions that Gordon Brown has to make is when to call the Glenrothes byelection. As Martin Kettle points out in The Guardian this morning, Labour can have the poll on any Thursday between September 11 and December 4—so either before conference or once the Autumn re-launch is under way. A byelection
The Policy Exchange report on northern cities has thrust the world of think-tanks into the spotlight—I’ll stand a round for any reader who can tell me when the last time the Daily Mirror devoted its lead editorial to a think-tank report was—and there has been a lot of talk about Policy Exchange’s relationship with the
The New York Times reports that Russian troops are still in the key Georgian cities of Gori and Poti; reports about them handing over control of Gori to the Georgian police appear to have been premature. With US humanitarian aid also flowing into Georgia in US military transports, the likelihood of Georgia turning into a
First it was Margaret Beckett tipped for a return to the front line, now it is John Prescott. Here’s Martin Bright in the New Statesman. “There is also talk of the need for a Chris Patten figure to act as cheerleader for the party, as the Tory chairman did in the run-up to the 1992