James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
Peter Hyman, Tony Blair’s former chief speechwriter, described Nick Clegg as a ‘mini-Cameron’ on Newsnight yesterday and there’s little doubt that Cameron and Clegg exude a similar aroma. Some think that this will dilute Cameron’s appeal, see Simon Heffer in the Telegraph this morning, but this ignores the fact that Clegg is not yet as
To lose by this small a margin must be absolutely gutting for Chris Huhne. To come so close against the candidate of the party establishment and the media is a real achievement. But this defeat need not be the end of the road for him. What Huhne should do now is become the leading voice in
A chastened looking Nick Clegg has just delivered his first speech as Lib Dem leader. It was actually a pretty decent performance, trying to tie both Labour and the Tories to Britain’s ‘broken politics’. It was also refreshing to hear him put social mobility at the top of his agenda. There is, though, no getting
The Lib Dem leadership result will be announced this afternoon and the general feeling in Westminster is that Nick Clegg has won, although folk aren’t ruling out an upset. The first test for Clegg will be whether he beats Chris Huhne by a more comfortable margin than Ming Campbell did in 2006, when the score
Following on from the child benefit data loss fiasco, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency has—through an American contractor—lost the details of three million learner drivers. Now, admittedly the lost information doesn’t contain bank details or national insurance numbers. But The frequency with which the government is mislaying personal data is surely killing off the
When Ming Campbell was hurried into retirement by his Lib Dem colleagues, the general consensus was that it was bad news for the Tories. Before Ming’s departure, senior Tories joked that they were members of the preserve Ming society. There was a real worry among Tory supporters that Nick Clegg could emerge as an attractive alternative
Bob Kerrey, a maverick former Democratic senator, was out stumping for Hillary Clinton in Iowa yesterday and had this to say about Barack Obama: “I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim. There’s a billion people on
The news that Joe Lieberman, the Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee in 2000, is to endorse John McCain, a Republican, for the presidency today, raises the question: has anyone who was on one of the main party’s tickets endorsed a presidential candidate from the other party within just eight years, before? Lieberman’s decision to endorse McCain now
The remarkable military success of the US surge in Iraq has been the most important international story of the year. As Tim Hames writes this morning, the prospects for Iraq look brighter than they have for a long time. “First, the country will now have the time to establish itself. A year ago it seemed
Today’s YouGov poll showing the Tories reaching 45% will send the party into the holidays in high spirits. If they can sustain this rating into the New Year, they’ll vastly increase the chances that Labour will turn in on itself. Gordon Brown, whose approval rating is now -26 compared to +48 in August, will come
With Barack Obama becoming a more serious threat to Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions by the day, Bill Clinton has taken on the role of a silver-tongued attack dog. In a TV interview last night, he went after Obama hard on the experience front. Take this quote attacking Obama’s lack of national political experience which show
Gordon Brown’s decision to turn up in Lisbon yesterday to sign the new EU treaty but only as the other leaders were leaving left him looking more like Mr. Bean than ever. It was typical of how Brown doesn’t quite get triangulation. The excuse the Brownites trotted out was that he had already agreed to
Nick Robinson has an interesting post up about how the Home Office spun him about the number of illegal immigrants who had been allowed to become security guards. Robinson was given the steer that it was likely to be about 5,000 and in the worst case scenario around 8,000. The actual number? 11,000.
Tom Bower’s column in The Guardian today about how Gordon’s upbringing as a ‘son of the Manse’ might be responsible for his current political difficulties is well worth reading. What stuck out to me, was this: “Gordon Brown’s Scottish friends believe that his father demanded confessions of wrongdoing from his three sons, and that Gordon
In every Democratic presidential debate up to now, Barack Obama has seemed rather intimidated by Hillary Clinton. In her presence, he has backed off from real criticism of her. But this moment from yesterday’s debate, the last before the Iowa caucuses, shows just how much more confident Obama is now. With one of Clinton New
This morning, Gordon Brown told the Commons liaison committee: “You cannot make decisions and assume that people will simply follow them. Most decisions can only be successful if people are part of the process.” After that, he jetted off to sign the Treaty formerly known as the European constitution having denied people the role in
Today’s report from the Sutton Trust on social mobility in Britain makes for depressing reading. Their tracking of the Millennium cohort of children suggests that by the age of seven, even the least able children from rich households have drawn level with the very smartest children from the poorest fifth of households. Social mobility has,
Residents of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea received this message from their local council this morning, which begins: “Dear Resident(s), Recycling and Refuse Collections Days are changing in the Royal Borough I am writing to let you know that the days of refuse and recycling collections in the Royal Borough are changing. As
Mark Mardell has a fascinating post up about a forthcoming EU directive that would allow people to travel to another member state for medical treatment. Left-wing Labour MPs like Frank Dobson are, in typical levelling down fashion, worried about what this will do to the NHS as patients flee our MRSA-ridden hospitals. Already 33 MPs