James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara: This fictionalised account of the Battle of Gettysburg is one of the best historical novels you’ll ever read. The characterisation is masterful and the plotting so good that you almost forget that you know the battle ended the South’s chances of victory in the Civil War. The individual chapters
The more that emerges about the Israeli air strike on Syria the more mysterious the whole thing becomes. The Washington Post reports today that the US corroborated an Israeli intelligence assessment that North Korean personnel were present in Syria before the strike; suggesting that the US effectively signed off on the strike despite the risk
Lloyd Evans, The Spectator’s theatre critic, has penned an absolutely fantastic sketch of Ming Campbell’s speech today for us which you can read here. I particularly enjoyed his final thoughts on Ming’s persona, “It isn’t relevant or sexy. But it’s thoroughly Liberal Democrat. Plenty of gravitas. No weight.”
Michael White has the scoop on a classic exchange between Gordon Brown and Paddy Ashdown when Brown was trying to persuade Ashdown to come into his big tent: When Paddy Ashdown turned down a cabinet post – Northern Ireland – he explained: “I can’t support your attitudes towards civil liberties.” GB is supposed to have
One of the more intriguing events of recent weeks has been the Israeli air raid on Syria earlier this month. Why the Israelis felt obliged to act remains clouded in secrecy but one of the theories doing the rounds is that the Israelis were trying to knock out a nascent Syrian nuclear programme. Bret Stephens, a
The predicament of the Lib Dems is summed up by the media coverage, or lack thereof, of their conference. Looking at the papers today, the Lib Dem conference seems to be about, at best, the fourth item on the news agenda. The worrying thing for the Lib Dems is that this isn’t likely to change
The ComRes poll in today’s Independent will not improve the mood of grumpy Lib Dem delegates in Brighton. The poll finds that the party is down at 15 percent, a 7 point drop since the last election. If there was a uniform swing at the next election it would be the Lib Dems who would
There was a single, unmistakable message emerging from the testimony of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker in Washington this week: the Iraq war may have started on President George W. Bush’s watch, but it will not end on it. Petraeus was as impressive as you would expect a four-star general with a Princeton PhD to
Interesting news from Russia where Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and his cabinet have all resigned, giving Putin the chance to appoint a new PM and government before presidential elections next year. If the hawkish deputy PM Sergei Ivanov is picked, it will confirm that he is Putin’s chosen successor. Indeed, given the amount of attention Ivanov receives
Martin Amis’s essay on Islamism in T2 today is as eloquent as it is perceptive. The latest video produced by the terrorists of al Qaeda only reinforces how right Amis is.
To many, 20 January 2009, George W. Bush’s last day in office, can’t come soon enough. The President’s pugnacious speech to the American Legion summed up why: not content with vigorously defending two wars, he seemed to start banging the drum for another with his statement that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons threatened to put
If you’re struggling to come to terms with the slew of polling data that is currently circulating take a look at Tim Hames’s column in The Times that does a good job of putting these numbers into perspective. This point is particularly worth paying attention to: “what has been missed,, though, is the extent to
Today has been quite a day. Gordon Brown has burst back onto the political scene with an agenda-setting appearance on the Today Programme, a march into Conservative territory in The Daily Telegraph and a speech announcing the new politics which contained some very old fashioned points scoring. In Iraq, British forces have pulled back to
The chances of Gordon Brown opting for an early election are rapidly receding. The latest polls show the Tories level and behind by three respectively; hardly the kind of margin that is going to encourage Gordon Brown to go now when he has so much road to play with. Even before these polls were published,
Anthony Wells has the details of the Tories private polling, done by Populus, which puts them on 36% to Labour’s 37%. The results are very different from YouGov’s in the Telegraph this morning that put Labour eight points ahead. If this Populus poll is right it surely makes an autumn election too risky for Gordon
The biggest risk to David Cameron’s leadership to date has been his appointment of Sayeeda Warsi as the shadow minister for community cohesion. Warsi’s rise makes Cameron’s ascent from freshman MP to leader in four years look almost sedate. In just two years she has gone from failed parliamentary candidate to being responsible for, perhaps,
Today’s Daily Telegraph reports that as many as 120 Labour MPs want a referendum on the new EU treaty. Ian Davidson, the MP who is at the forefront of efforts to get Labour to honour its manifesto promise, has written to Gordon Brown demanding 12 fundamental changes to the treaty if there is not to
Today’s poll in The Guardian will be met with relief at CCHQ. Labour is still ahead, but a 5 percent advantage is far less intimidating than a double digit lead and makes a snap poll far less likely. Crucially, considering the increased political salience of the issue, the Tories have a 10 point advantage on
There is an important op-ed in today’s Times by Dean Godson on the latest developments in the Undercover Mosque saga, the sorry tale of the decision by West Midlands Police to refer Channel 4 to Ofcom for revealing the extremist ideology being propagated in a Birmingham Mosque. Godson reveals that Paul Goodman, the shadow Communities
This YouGov poll in the Daily Mirror makes for depressing reading. 42% of people don’t believe that it is safe to go out at night, while 11% don’t ever feel secure in their neighbourhood. 50% say they are less safe than when Labour came to power. The poll also shows that 89% of the public