Mr Deputy Speaker, I report today on an economy that has continued to confound the commentators with robust growth. A labour market delivering record employment. And a deficit down by over two-thirds. As we start our negotiations to exit the European Union, this Budget takes forward our plan to prepare Britain for a brighter future.
We all know that Brexit means Brexit – but not if you’re Jeremy Corbyn, it seems. During his response to Philip Hammond’s Budget announcement, the leader of the opposition made a blunder which Mr S suspects he’s not going to be allowed to forget any time soon. ‘Our economy is not prepared for breakfast,’ Corbyn
Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions was a good example of how Jeremy Corbyn’s inability to be nimble on his feet lets him down. The Labour leader had a perfect peg for his questions about social care, which was last night’s leak of recordings in which Surrey Council leader David Hodge spoke of a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’. His
There’s a lot happening today. It’s International Women’s Day, Discover What Your Name Means Day, and we’re right in the middle of National Pie Week. Oh, and it’s the Spring Budget. Mindful of at least two of these events, Theresa May has revealed a new £5 million fund to help mothers return to work after
Given that Theresa May is known to take issue with anything she perceives to be ‘mansplaining’, men are well-advised to refrain from speaking in a condescending manner when in the Prime Minister’s presence. But Lord Heseltine appears to hold no such qualms. After receiving the sack from the government over his Lords rebellion on the Article
Philip Hammond has finished his Budget announcement. The stand out points? £2bn in funding for social care – although only half will come in the next year; money for new schools; help for businesses – including pubs – that will be hit hardest by the business rates hike. There’s only one policy which will grab
Philip Hammond doesn’t do box office. Unlike his predecessor George Osborne, he doesn’t do burgers either, with his austere pre-budget picture showing the Chancellor looking characteristically gloomy as, we’re told, he prepares Britain to be ‘match fit’ for the future. So what do we know about Hammond’s first – and last – spring Budget? For
Tonight the government suffered its second Article 50 bill defeat in the House of Lords. Peers backed an amendment calling for a ‘meaningful’ parliamentary vote on the final terms of withdrawal from the EU by 366 votes to 268. Heralding the result, Lord Heseltine said Parliament must be the ‘custodian of national sovereignty’. The bill will now
On the eve of the Budget, the row about whether ministers struck a ‘sweetheart deal’ with Surrey Council on social care funding to stop the local authority from having to hold a referendum on raising council tax has blown up again. BBC Surrey has recorded extracts of a meeting between council leader David Hodge and
Oh dear. Of late, Mr S has kept readers up to date with the antics of today’s Stepford students. From students at LSE submitted a motion to ban the university’s free-speech society to City University students banning newspapers at the institution famed for its journalism school. Now it’s the turn of young Conservatives. Over at Lincoln
If you want to judge the extent of the crisis that is paralysing the left, look at this morning’s Guardian. On the one hand you have an article from Abi Wilkinson, who tellingly doesn’t even mention the Labour leader’s name. Convincingly to my mind, Wilkinson argues that the May government ought to be in all kinds
It’s a curiosity of the 21st century that there is no one quite as bigoted as the person who screams ‘bigot!’ all the time. More often than not, those who casually brand as bigots anyone who has the temerity to hold a different point of view to theirs are the ones behaving with bigotry. Consider
Downing Street has rejected William Hague’s call for a snap general election. The former Conservative leader argues in his Telegraph column today that this would ‘strengthen the government’s hand at home and abroad’, but Number 10 says this isn’t something Theresa May ‘plans to do or wishes to do’. Theresa May is often compared to
After this week, the centrepiece of the financial year is being shunted to the Autumn. Good news, no doubt, for the city bigwigs, fund managers, chief executives and financial hacks and flacks who’d rather be betting on which horse will romp home at Cheltenham than which tax relief, pension allowance or benefit will be axed
Although the Corbynites are at pains to promote Rebecca Long-Bailey as Jeremy Corbyn’s socialist successor, not everyone seems so convinced. In fact, Mr S understands that Labour moderates yesterday took action to stop the shadow business secretary from joining an upcoming by-election selection panel. After Manchester Gorton MP Gerald Kaufman passed away this month, the hunt
Social care is in crisis. Everyone knows that – or at least likes to say so to sound well-informed. It is Westminster’s latest trendy crisis – rich with case studies of elderly people trapped in hospital for weeks, or trapped in their beds at home with one flying fifteen minute visit a day in which
There has been precious little excitement surrounding Wednesday’s budget announcement, which will be Philip Hammond’s first as Chancellor. The man nicknamed ‘Spreadsheet Phil’ has played down expectations, indicating from the off that he will leave major announcements to the new Autumn Budget. But whilst casual observers may find Wednesday less scintillating than under George Osborne, anticipated
As a nation, we obsess. We obsess about the weather, taxes, the state of the roads, death and the cost of milk. I could go on. And there’s one other thing uppermost in our minds: house prices. I’ve lived in the same place for six years but I still can’t pass an estate agent without
In 2013, the Scottish National Party claimed an independent Scotland would be the sixth richest country on earth. Like many extravagant suggestions, this contained the essence of its own downfall. It would be lovely if it were true but didn’t it seem just a tiny bit too good to be true? At the same time,
Theresa May is warning Tory rebels that if Parliament gets a meaningful vote on Brexit, the European Union will be ‘incentivised’ to offer the UK a ‘bad deal’. She is right. But that doesn’t mean the Prime Minister should dismiss the prospect of the House of Lords inflicting a second defeat on the government, with peers
