Politics

On Thurday’s Question Time, there was one politician notably absent from the panel. For a second time, John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, had to cancel his appearance — this time putting it down to train delays. And whose fault is this? Well, the Conservatives obviously — as if Labour were in power the trains would be nationalised: 4 hour delay on train & flights full, so sorry to miss @bbcquestiontime. Jinxed! Won't have this problem when we renationalise the railways. — John McDonnell MP (@johnmcdonnellMP) March 9, 2017 However, there’s a problem. First, those flights sold out after Mr McDonnell had been booked on a flight – but he arrived

The BBC and the secular establishment don’t make life easy for Christian MPs. When Carol Monaghan, a Catholic Scottish Nationalist MP, turned up to a Parliamentary committee last week with an Ash Wednesday cross on her forehead, both her colleagues and the Beeb treated her as if she was wearing a Halloween costume. My colleague Stephen Daisley wrote about the incident for Coffee House, reflecting on the ‘secular inquisition’ that ostensibly Christian politicians must now face if they openly profess their faith. But do they even want to? Many Christian MPs are as reluctant as Tony Blair to ‘do God’ if the media are listening. In this week’s Holy Smoke

Theresa May’s announcement that the vote on raising National Insurance contributions for the self-employed will be delayed until after the publication of the Taylor Report in Modern Employment Practises in the autumn is presumably meant to reassure us that the government is taking seriously the many objections which have been levied against the policy in the 48 hours since it was announced by the Chancellor. On the other hand it might merely concentrate minds on a question which few have yet asked: just why does Theresa May have Tony Blair’s former chief policy wonk seeming to direct Conservative policy on employment? The Taylor review, set up by the Prime Minister

I’m very sceptical of the idea that the younger generation are more conservative than their elders, and that this makes conservatism somehow cool, which it isn’t. There have been times where the kids are more reactionary than their parents but generally only as a result of religious movements – and Britain is as atheistic as can be. Young Brits are very liberal and cosmopolitan, even compared to their peers in other European countries. In polls they express low levels of pride in their country and an unwillingness to fight in any theoretical war. The Brexit vote, and the big gap between old and young, showed just how liberal the young are.

Philip Hammond is under pressure over his National Insurance contributions hike. More than a dozen Tory MPs have so far criticised the plans and Downing Street has refused to rule out a rethink. But the Chancellor does still have some allies; the IFS has just thrown its weight behind the plans. Here’s what its director, Paul Johnson, had to say: ‘Spring Budgets seem to be going out with something of a whimper. Yesterday’s was one of the smallest I can remember in pretty much every dimension – number of policies, scale of policies and size of fiscal impact. I’m not complaining, mind. There will be another Budget in November and the whole

As Philip Hammond faces a slew of negative headlines and fields accusations that he is a liar over his decision to backtrack on a 2015 Tory manifesto pledge and raise National Insurance for the self-employed, the Chancellor has been thrown a lifeline by the Institute of Fiscal Studies. At today’s IFS Budget briefing, Paul Johnson offered his verdict on Hammond’s first Budget. While he raised concerns about the government’s sluggish plan to balance the books (warning that it could be delayed past 2025), he welcomed the controversial NIC raise as ‘baby steps in the right direction’: ‘A tax system which charges thousands of pounds more in tax for employees doing the same job