James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
Cast your mind back to the Seventh of September 2006, the attempt to force Tony Blair to name a date certain for his departure was at its height. Blair was touring a school in North London and afterwards delivered a brief statement to the press, (you can watch it here.) The opening line of Blair’s
The atmosphere in Westminster right now is incredibly febrile, no idea or speculation seems too outlandish to contemplate. But it does seem to me that a couple of things are being overlooked. 1). The Brownites won’t go quietly: All this talk about delegations, letters and rolling resignations often forgets that if the Brownites decide to
Rory Sutherland, The Spectator’s Wiki Man, sends along a historical example of nudging, the Cameroons’ new favourite idea: Frederick the Great of Prussia saw the potato’s potential to help feed his nation and lower the price of bread, but faced the challenge of overcoming the people’s prejudice against the plant. When he issued a 1774 order
Forget anonymous quotes, we now have a David Miliband op-ed to analyse. In a 900-odd word Guardian article explaining why he believes that “the times demand a radical new phase” in the New Labour project Miliband does not mention Gordon Brown once. (Interestingly, Jack Straw is the only Labour politician Miliband name-checks ). Indeed, the
If you haven’t already, do read Melissa Kite’s column in the Telegraph today. It contains this very telling anecdote about Gordon Brown’s attempt to shoot the breeze with the press: “As is the tradition when travelling with the press, the Prime Minister came back during his flight from Baghdad to talk to the lobby hacks.
Harriet Harman has denied The Times story about her preparing a leadership bid but I’m sure this part of her denial will not go down well in Southwold: “I do not accept ‘it is over’.” With a few more protestations of loyalty like this, it might soon be over.
I’m sure most readers are sick of anonymous quotes and accusations but with so few people prepared to go on the record they do give a far better sense of what is being talked about in Westminster than the public protestations of loyalty that are coming from ministers and MPs. The Times has just published
Steve Richards’s column in The Independent is absolutely essential reading. Steve dismisses the argument that Jack Straw would be prepared to wield the knife just for the sake of the caretaker’s broom. If Straw does strike, he’s in it for the long haul—one reason why David Miliband would almost certainly challenge Straw if there was
The latest Populus poll for The Times shows just what kind of defeat Labour are currently heading for at the next election. The Tories lead by 16 points from Labour who are on 27 percent. Peter Riddell report that on a uniform swing, this would lead to a Tory majority of close to 150 seats
John McCain has not had much luck recently. Last week while Obama was receiving acres of news coverage and using iconic sights as the backdrop to his photo-ops, McCain was struggling to stay in the news and had to cancel his planned photo-op on an oil rig because of the conditions. The press were beginning
There are increasing hints that there is a new consensus emerging about the ‘broken society.’ Take Diane Abbot’s response to the question about what causes knife crime: “Knife crime, gun crime and the gang culture all have the same roots: educational underachievement; family breakdown and the collapse of manufacturing, which used to employ so many
Few journalists have been closer to or more respected by Brown’s inner circle than Jackie Ashley, so it is significant to see her calling on Labour to topple Brown. Ashley praises Brown as a “decent, uncorrupt, highly intelligent and serious man with good values, inspired by public service” but she warns that he is leading
From tomorrow’s Daily Telegraph: The Daily Telegraph has learnt that a group of moderate MPs are planning a letter addressed to the entire Cabinet setting out the reasons why they are despairing about the problems facing the Labour Party – including Mr Brown’s leadership. In order to resolve the issue the MPs will say that
Obama’s overseas trip appears to have led to at least one major shift in emphasis in his foreign policy thinking. In a Newsweek interview, he was asked how big a force he would leave behind in Iraq to conduct counter-terrorism operations and to train up Iraqi forces. Here’s how he replied: “I do think that’s
There are plenty of things to put a spring in the step of Tory MPs right now. Every day seems to bring a new poll that shows them on the way to victory, one today finds them running the table in their top thirty target seats, but what should cheer them most is that the
One of, if not, the key theme of David Cameron’s leadership has been generational change. Back in his 2005 conference speech Cameron told the hall “We can be that new generation”, in his first PMQs he told Tony Blair that he “was the future once” and responding to the Budget in 2006 he derided Gordon
About the only thing Gordon Brown has got right in recent months is scheduling by-elections so that when the results come in, MPs have left Westminster. This makes it more difficult for those Labour MPs who want to remove Brown to mobilise support. As Fraser noted in his papers round up last night, there is
Melissa Kite has a quite brilliant post up on Three Line Whip about the nonsense government ministers have been spouting as they attempt to defend the Prime Minister. Mr Darling goes on: “He has a very clear sense of direction where he believes we as a country ought to go.” Again, he misses the point
In politics you need an effective positive message about yourself and a negative message about your opponent hat resonates. At the moment, Labour has neither. Its attempt at a positive message is to say ‘we’re on your side’ but this claim now just gets laughed out of court. To borrow a word from the Chancellor,
Whether Gordon Brown survives or not is going to turn on the question of how many Cabinet ministers—if any—are prepared to tell Brown that he must go or they will. Brown’s personal standing with his colleagues is now key to his future. So, it was fascinating to see that it was Des Browne who was