James Forsyth

Sir, I cannot agree with James Forsyth that “It’s time to give No 10 real levers of power” (Comment, Jul 9). The prime minister hires and fires ministers; he chairs the cabinet and such cabinet

If you’re ready to kick back, relax and dive into some must-read books this summer, librarians with the Forsyth County Public Library and staff at Bookmarks in Winston-Salem have some

In an extremely close race Labour candidate and sister to the late Jo Cox Kim Leadbeater has won her by-election with a majority of just 323. What will the opposition do with this narrow but note worthy win? And is it time to for the tories to admit they aren’t as invincible as they first thought? T…

A bizarre flourish of tactics are on display in the run up to the Batley and Spen by-election. And are we already feeling the new Health Secretary’s influence? To discuss, Fraser Nelson is joined by James Forsyth and Katy Balls. ...

The Sun broke the news this morning that Health Secretary Matt Hancock has seemingly been up to some extra-marital exploits with his aide Gina Coladangelo, possibly breaking many of the Covid restrictions that he himself put in place. What will be the consequences of his hypocrisy? ’This simply demo…

Covid restrictions are meant to end on 19 July. But parliament will not return to normal until September. The Commons goes into recess on 22 July and there’s no desire in government to end proxy voting for the dregs of the session. The chief whip has told colleagues that he might struggle to get MPs…

With the Conservatives still taking stock after their loss in the recent by-election, it seems the governments ambitions for planning reform are now firmly under the microscope. ‘When you speak to these MPs... they are absolutely convinced that planning reform is dead’ - Katy Balls And on what would…

‘In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,’ proclaimed Ronald Reagan in his inaugural speech as American president. Forty years on, the leaders of the G7 have reversed this mantra. In Cornwall last week they declared that the government, and mo…

In a political upset the Liberal Democrats have won the by-election in Chesham and Amersham in a massive poll swing from the Tories. ‘What they’ve done is overturned a majority of 16,000 and then they’ve had quite a few votes to boot!’ - Katy Balls And in other political the new DUP leader Edwin Po…

Even after the one metre rule and the limits on numbers are removed on July 19th, we will not be back to anything approaching normal life. From self-isolation to travel we will not be returning to the status quo ante. Another way in which life will be different, as I say in the Times today, is that …

Tory MPs in prosperous southern seats will be feeling rather nervous this morning. The Lib Dem victory in Chesham and Amersham, see Katy’s blog here, is another illustration of how the decline in tribal voting means there are far fewer safe seats than before. One immediate consequence of this r…

Only 20 days after winning the party leadership by one vote, Edwin Poots has resigned as DUP leader. The immediate trigger for his departure is him nominating a First Minister today in spite of the opposition of a majority of both DUP MLAs and MPs. (They were unhappy about the late night Irish Langu…

Another day, another Dom bomb. In Cummings’s latest release, a number of WhatsApp messages reveal communications between himself and the Prime Minister, with the latter describing the health secretary Matt Hancock’s performance as effing ‘hopeless’. Is this damaging to Hancock? Or is this the senti…

It is not the Battle of Marston Moor, but it strikes me that we are now in something of a constitutional crisis following the Speaker’s dramatic outburst this afternoon. In response to points of order about the fact Boris Johnson is announcing lockdown changes in a press conference rather than to pa…

It seems Freedom Day is no longer June 21st. The writing was clearly on the wall this morning, but now the Prime Minister has officially told the public, it is likely to be another four weeks of restrictions. ‘Conservative MPs are getting really agitated by this moving of the goal posts’ - Isabel Ha…

In an at times grouchy press conference, Boris Johnson tried to calm the row over the Northern Ireland protocol. The Prime Minister declined to comment on what Emmanuel Macron is supposed to have said about Northern Ireland’s position in the UK. He said that the whole issue of the protocol had taken…

The blame game between London and Brussels over the Northern Ireland protocol obscures the fact that there are solutions waiting to be found. There are, as I say in the Times today, ways to reform the protocol and better protect the Good Friday Agreement while not threatening the integrity of the si…

It’s risky planning a trip to the British seaside at any time of year. But if the weather forecast is to be believed, Boris Johnson will get away with this gamble at the weekend’s meeting of the G7 at Carbis Bay in Cornwall. Brexit’s critics were always going to seize on any evidence that Britain w…

If a vote is called on the government’s aid cut on Monday, it will be very tight for the government. Andrew Mitchell is a former chief whip as well as a former development secretary and it is hard to believe that he would have put this amendment down if he didn’t have the numbers to defeat the gover…

The theory that the pandemic began with a leak from a research laboratory in Wuhan is rapidly gaining currency. Since Matt Ridley’s cover piece for The Spectator last week, Joe Biden has ordered US intelligence agencies to ‘re-double their efforts’ and report to him within 90 days on the origins of …