James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
PMQs today was dominated by the debate about debates. After a few statesmanlike questions about the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks, Miliband started to needle Cameron about his reluctance to take part in TV debates while Labour MPs made chicken noises. Cameron claimed that he was happy to take part in TV debates as
David Cameron and George Osborne addressed Tory MPs this evening. The meeting was to update the Tory parliamentary party on the economy and its place in the party’s election strategy. Cameron told them that whatever the question was, the answer was that you can only have it with a strong economy and urged them to
Before Christmas, David Cameron tightened up the rules about ministers going overseas. He wanted them in this country campaigning as much as possible. But, unsurprisingly, his visit to President Obama in Washington this week hasn’t fallen foul of his edict. This trip to Washington is the source of much satisfaction at the heart of government.
What’s the most important political development this year? The falling oil price. As of 2.30pm, Brent Crude was trading at $50.80 dollars a barrel—massively down on the $115 dollars a barrel it was trading at back in the middle of June. If the plunging price of crude is passed on to consumers, it’ll be the
Defeat in May would be dire for either Cameron or Miliband. It would end their political career in ignominious failure. But winning would not be much better: they would be the weakest PM in living memory. Here’s why it won’t be easy for either of them: Miliband would be a prisoner of his own MPs:
On 19 June 1815, after the battle of Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington declared that ‘nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won’. Two hundred years later, David Cameron or Ed Miliband might feel the same way as they sit in Downing Street. Any elation over victory will be
Before today’s awful events in Paris, the meeting between David Cameron and Angela Merkel was going to be the big news of the day. The German Chancellor does not always observe the usual rules of neutrality when it comes to foreign elections. In 2012, she endorsed Nicolas Sarkozy in a joint TV interview, declaring that
Today’s PMQs was, predictably, about the NHS. But the Punch and Judy nature of the session seemed particularly small in the light of events in Paris. After expressions of solidarity with the French, normal business was resumed. Ed Miliband was enjoying himself, confident that he was on his party’s chosen turf. He piled into Cameron
The Tories’ front of house team turned up today to try and stoke up a row about Labour’s spending plans. The Tory aim was twofold. First, to try and cement in voters’ minds the idea that Labour would spend too much, pushing up taxes and second to claim that Labour is in chaos when it
In 2010, David Cameron stumbled in his first New Year broadcast interview over the Tory plans for a married couple’s tax allowance. This slip-up knocked him and his party off course and was a harbinger of the disastrous Tory campaign to come. Today, there were no such mistakes from Cameron as he appeared on Andrew
There’s an irony about Ukip’s rise. Nigel Farage party’s popularity is driven by a widespread sense that the main parties are all the same. Yet in the past four years, the differences between the Labour party and the Conservatives have grown substantially, on issues from the size of the state to an EU referendum. In
There’s little sign of a Christmas truce in the Conservative party this morning. Instead, the row between Theresa May’s camp followers and the rest of the Conservative hierarchy is still being played out in the newspapers. This might be a particularly public episode of it but this row has been going on in private for
The proverbial visitor from Mars would assume that the Scottish Nationalists had won—not lost—September’s referendum. Alex Salmond has given another crowing interview today, you can read mine with him from The Spectator’s Christmas issue here, in which he offers advice to England on how to rediscover itself. While the crisis in Scottish Labour continues. In
Today’s Times investigation into how the Islamic State is encouraging young British women to marry into this terrorist organisation is chilling. It is also a reminder that social media is the jihadis’ recruitment tool of choice. What’s striking is that Facebook closed down the account of Aisha, one of the girls in the investigation, because of the
The increasingly bloody feud between Theresa May’s political operation and David Cameron’s has claimed another victim. Nick Timothy, May’s long-serving special adviser, has been spectacularly kicked off the candidates’ list. The precise reason for Timothy’s ejection from the list is in dispute – Paul Goodman has Timothy’s version of events on Conservative Home. But Timothy
Today’s PMQs was the last one before the holidays. But there was not much Christmas cheer on display. Cameron and Miliband clashed on the economy, with the Labour leader keen to drive home his line that the Tories are intent on taking Britain back to the 1930s. Cameron had prior notice of Miliband’s first question
Today’s Guardian long-read on the Scottish referendum is a great piece of journalism. Both Alistair Darling and Danny Alexander argue in it that when David Cameron stepped out of Downing Street and announced his support for English votes for English laws he allowed the SNP to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, to argue
Tomorrow, in a sign of how keen the Tories are to keep the political debate focused on it, both David Cameron and George Osborne will give speeches on the economy. Cameron will announce that he is bringing forward a scheme to offer first-time buyers under 40 a 20% discount on 100,000 new home. This scheme
Jim Murphy has been elected leader of the Scottish Labour party. He defeated his more left wing rival Neil Findlay with 55.59 per cent of the vote to Findlay’s 34.99 per cent. Kezia Dugdale was elected deputy leader. Murphy is a far more formidable politician than his predecessor, Johann Lamont. But he faces a mighty task.
A recent email from Samantha Cameron started an intriguing debate in the Prime Minister’s social circle. It was an invitation to a Christmas party at Chequers and word quickly spread on the Notting Hill grapevine that the PM was convening an unusually large gathering of friends at his country retreat. So, the guests wondered: were
