James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
David Cameron braved The Today Programme this morning to talk immigration. The interview exposed the openings that the Tories have given with their pledge to reduce the overall level of net immigration. John Humphrys kept pressing Cameron on what his ideal number of immigrant would be and Cameron wouldn’t—or couldn’t—answer the question. Humphrys then moved
The Guardian’s Backbencher column has a particularly delicious titbit this week: “Spotted at New College, Oxford, last weekend: Richard Dawkins, saying grace at dinner.” What’s next, Ian Paisley taking communion at the Vatican?
The Los Angeles Times has an absolute must-read today on the escalating tensions between US and Iranian forces in Iraq and how in the near term this is more likely to spark a war between the two countries than the Iranian nuclear programme. Do read the whole thing.
Alan West, the retired Admiral (pictured left) drafted in by Gordon Brown to be security minister, has an interview in The Sun today. The two things that will make headlines are his statements that dealing with the current threat will take thirty years or so and that the security services have foiled 12 major plots since
Nick Clegg’s announcement that if ID cards are introduced he will simply refuse to register is smart politics. First, it prevents Chris Huhne from gaining a monopoly on eye-catching, activist-pleasing ideas in the Lib Dem leadership contest. Second, it shows that Clegg is prepared to exploit the greater license that the leader of the third
Maybe the Lib Dems shouldn’t elect a new leader at all. In their current leaderless state, they have jumped 4 percent in the latest ICM poll to put them at a respectable 18 percent. The Tories are down three, but still at the psychologically important 40 percent mark. Labour are on 35 percent, a one
First we had the Saudi King declaring that Britain had not done enough to tackle the threat of terrorism which may be true but considering Saudi Arabia’s continuing role in exporting extremism, the King might want to consider the log in his own kingdom before going looking for specs in other countries. Now we have
There is much upset over the news that the government underestimated by 300,000 the number of immigrants working in this country. Yet, this is hardly surprising considering the appalling quality of official statistics when it comes to migration. The International Passenger Survey, one of the key metrics that the governments uses, was based in 2004
If you want to see how real the danger of the West losing Turkey is, examine these poll numbers. The United States’s favourability rating is down to 9%- from 52% in 2000. The European Union’s favourability rating has fallen from 54% in 2004 to 27% today. Turks are now more hostile towards Westerners than either
Bruce Anderson rides to David Cameron’s support over foreign policy in today’s Independent. In the piece, he writes that two key members of the shadow cabinet, Liam Fox and Michael Gove, are among the half-dozen or so neo-cons who still exist in British political and journalistic life. But this seems to ignore the shadow cabinet’s
Nicolas Sarkozy walking out of his interview with 60 Minutes when asked about relations with his then wife Cécilia is creating waves. It is tempting to see the incident as a classic example of the culture clash between the prying Anglo-Saxon media and the Gallic belief in a public figure’s right to privacy. But what it
The latest revelations from the Anthony Seldon book reveal just how much Tony Blair was weakened by his diminished majority following the 2005 election. The Times reports that not only was Blair forced to abandon his plans to reform the Treasury and possibly move Gordon Brown, but also saw John Prescott and others thwarting his
Barack Obama is finally going to take the gloves off against Hillary Clinton. Under pressure from donors who are disappointed by the fact that Hillary is maintaining her dominant lead in national polls, the Obama campaign has decided that they have to make their criticisms of the frontrunner clear if they are going to stand
If anyone wants to know how rattled Downing Street is by the hammering that Gordon Brown now regularly receives at Prime Ministers Questions they should read this story in The Sunday Times. It reveals that civil servants are being instructed to spend more time thinking about what topics might come up at PMQs and to find ‘good
To follow up on Matt’s post, Caroline Glick has a fascinating piece out today on the latest developments in the Iran nuclear saga. She speculates that the purpose of the recent shuttle diplomacy of Olmert and Barak–taking in visits to Moscow, Paris, London and Washington–was to allow them to share new intelligence on Iran’s nuclear
Tomorrow morning you’ll want to tune into The Week at Westminster on Radio 4, Matt will be presenting and he’s got some great guest lined up including Dennis Skinner, Gisela Stuart—whose comments on the European constitution have so discomforted Gordon Brown—and Malcolm Rikfkind who set the cat amongst the pigeons with his attack on Tory
David Cameron’s speech in Berlin today on foreign policy advocated a cautious, liberal conservative approach to foreign policy. It is very different, at least in tone, from the foreign policy vision that he set out when running for leader. The sound bite from today’s speech is ‘national security first.’ Leaving aside the unpleasant historical associations that the
The Lib Dem leadership will be a closer affair than many people expect. Chris Huhne having run before and got a respectable 40 odd percent of vote is going to give Nick Clegg a decent run for his money. Indeed, Mike Smithson points out that today’s YouGov poll shows that Huhne has a slight edge
Sam Coates over at Conservative Home has done some great number crunching on how BBC employees identify themselves politically on Facebook. Of the 10,580 BBC workers on the site, 1, 340 say they are liberal while only 120 label themselves as conservative: so there are ten times more out self-identified liberals than conservatives at the
The latest YouGov poll for the Telegraph has the Tories on 41, Labour 38 and the Liberal Democrats languishing on a 11 percent. I suspect that both main parties will be fairly happy with these numbers. Labour will be relieved to still be within striking distance after such an awful few weeks. While the Tories