James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
When a man falls to his death from a balcony, some cynics wonder: was he pushed? When that man happens to be the most infamous spy in the history of the modern Middle East, it’s the first question on everyone’s lips. On 27 June the body of Ashraf Marwan was found on the pavement below
Channel 4 is not everyone’s favourite TV station, but the way it is being treated by the West Midlands Police and the CPS is disgraceful and represents an existential threat to freedom of expression in this country. Just to recap, last week West Midlands Police and the CPS issued an extraordinary joint statement criticising the
Alice Miles argues in her Times column on the climate change protests at Heathrow that, “Pretty much anyone without shares in BAA would not wish another runway on that particular part of England (if, indeed, upon any of it).” I really don’t think this is true, even if some people won’t admit to wanting another
The BBC website is currently running a piece fretting that we all get too many emails. The story opens with the line: “Today’s e-mail glut is a constant worry for many office workers, with a third saying they get stressed by the volume of messages, according to a report.” But guess which story is currently
If you want to know what to make of the current panic in the financial markets and the role of sub-prime mortgages in creating it, do read Sebastian Mallaby in the Washington Post this morning. As Mallaby argues, the problem isn’t sub-prime mortgages per se—which have played a huge part in raising the US home-ownership
Charles Moore has a must-read in the Telegraph today about the Dispatches programme “Undercover Mosque” that the CPS and the West Midlands police have criticised. They claim that the programme apparently took the quotes of various Islamic preachers out of context. But, as Moore points out, no one is claiming that the quotes were made
I would have thought that the idea of granting asylum to those Iraqis who have served as interpreters for British troops would be fairly uncontroversial. But Neil Clark has issued a ferocious broadside against it today on Comment is Free, saying “let’s do all we can to keep self-centred mercenaries who betrayed their fellow countrymen
It is safe to go back in the water in Cornwall. It turns out that the the great white shark that was supposedly seen off Newquay was actually photographed in South Africa by a Cornish nightclub bouncer who sent the photos into the papers claiming he had snapped them off the Cornish coast as a
Over at Conservative Home, Peter Franklin has written a hard-hitting piece setting out some ‘home truths for the right.’ He accuses various bits of it of being self-indulgent, hypocritical and living in the past amongst other things. I wouldn’t agree with everything he says, but it is well worth a read.
‘Food miles’ is one of the new eco buzz phrases and makes people think that buying local food is inherently better for the environment. But an op-ed in the New York Times today flags up some new research that shows this is not the case when you consider all the energy used in producing the food
It is good news that the government has finally got round to making certain that forced marriages are illegal. (How on earth it took this long baffles me. It is hard to imagine a more clear cut case of denying someone their rights than forcing them to marry someone against their will). But as Sunny
Martin Bright has some great detail on the lead up to the Cameron, Miraj row. Here’s the key passage: “I understand that at a meeting this year Cameron himself urged Miraj to accept to fight another marginal as local Tories were becoming increasingly hostile to the imposition of non-white candidates. Sayeeda Warsi, now shadow minister for community
Nick Robinson has a funny little blog post up on the ongoing needle between him and President Bush. Back in December 2006, Robinson asked Bush if he was in denial on Iraq. Bush bristled at the question, he doesn’t much like Fleet Street’s finest who he reportedly views as a bunch of smart alecs and
This week’s Newsweek has a piece on what it calls “Britain’s post-Blair identity crisis.” Most of the article is about Gordon Brown’s current obsession with Britishness but this fact in it stood out: “every second child in London is now born to an immigrant mother.” This isn’t a problem if these children are being brought up
With Gordon Brown en route to Camp David, David Cameron has chosen to deliver his sharpest criticism of Iraq to date; telling the Sunday Times that we must “Learn the lessons of Iraq. Liberal democracy can’t be dropped from a distance of 45,000ft. Order and stability must come first. A bit of scepticism is needed
There is some very astute commentary in the papers this morning about the situation that the Tory party finds itself in. Do read Charles Moore in the Telegraph on how Cameron needs to be ready for when the story changes, Peter Oborne in the Mail on the consequences if Cameron fails and Matthew Parris on
To date, Cameron has got the better of Brown at PMQs but the clunking fist had some good lines today. I’d bet that this one–“The wheels are coming off the Tory bicycle; it’s just as well he’s got a car following him!”—will be on the news tonight. As Tony might say, clunk!
This morning, I linked to Open Europe’s translation of the EU Constitution. Now the former Europe Minister Denis MacShane is claiming that Open Europe has mistranslated it to “whip up Euroscpetic fears.” He’s even offering to check their translations in future in exchange for a reasonable fee. Now MacShane, who is rightly proud of his
The invaluable think-tank Open Europe has translated the text of the European treaty formerly known as the constitution into English; something the government has so far failed to do. Their work shows that 96 percent of the text is as it was in the constitution. In some ways this doesn’t come as a surprise, Bertie
Tonight the Democratic presidential candidates are doing a debate where the questions will come from YouTube users. The almost 3,000 videos submitted are of surprisingly high-quality. The campaigns must be a little nervous about tonight. As Ben Smith points out, there’ll probably be some questions that are more direct than anything a traditional moderator would ever dare