Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Thursday

Robert Gorelangton

North Cornwall

In a documentary filmed at the end of his life, Sir John Betjeman, who lived in the village of Trebetherick on the Camel estuary in north Cornwall, famously regretted not having had more sex. That problem doesn’t seem apply to today’s party crowd in the area. Nearby Rock and Polzeath are thronging with bingeing public-school teenagers, traffic jams of gleaming 4x4s, and new-build houses with plasma screens, wet rooms and all that hedge-funders require. David Cameron has body-boarded at Polzeath on recent holidays, his security detail bobbing like seals around him. For children of the 1960s, memories of frugal holidays in north Cornwall include pasties, fathers in baggy shorts, and

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Good and bad politics: the Budget against a backdrop of Greek chaos

George Osborne’s Budget was good politics: not so much in terms of tactical point-scoring, though there was plenty, but in terms of striving for big objectives of fiscal rectitude and wider prosperity by incentivising sensible economic behaviour and discouraging casual reliance on the state: ‘a country that backs those that work hard and do the right thing’, in David Cameron’s phrase. Some of it will provoke rage, some of it will swiftly unravel, but it was a real attempt to steer the UK in a positive direction. How sad that it had to be presented against the backdrop of the Greek crisis, which is the most howling concatenation of bad

Ramita Navai

Ali Baba and the 300 hostages

In the heat of the midday sun, the fields and woodlands between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia look idyllic: birds sing, the grass is smudged with wild poppies, all seems quiet. But this picture of pastoral peace is, I’m afraid, an illusion. This is Greece’s Wild West, a lawless and desperate place known as ‘The Jungle’, where people are beaten up every day. ‘It’s dangerous out there,’ says the fat Greek policeman standing with me, just north of the village of Idomeni. Then he waddles back to his car. The predators in this jungle are Afghan people-smugglers, their prey the poor migrants who have struggled here from all over

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

What does George Osborne have against the fecund?

Budget leaks were once the cause of scandals, inquiries and resignations. But the contents of George Osborne’s red box were spilled across the papers last Sunday. By yesterday the entire package was old news. Yet Osborne remains addicted to the last-minute surprise. What would it be? Gym membership for Angus Robertson? Free counselling for ousted LibDems? Britain to join the drachma? The living wage – Osborne’s grand revelation – is his attempt to redraw British politics. It aligns the Tories with the working-class against Labour. The opposition wanted a minimum wage of £8 by 2020. Osborne ups that to £9. There are sweeteners for the squeezed middle too. The threshold

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour’s Budget response: ‘It’s difficult’

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/spectatorpolitics/summerbudget2015/media.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the Summer Budget”] Listen [/audioplayer]Chris Leslie has just briefed journalists on Labour’s response to the Budget. In summary, it’s all quite difficult. Leslie repeatedly used that word when asked about individual measures such as the benefit cap and public sector pay, while also saying that Labour didn’t want to be a knee-jerk opposition which opposed everything. The key themes of the Labour response are that the changes to tax credits represent what the Shadow Chancellor deems a ‘work penalty’. His calculations are that a lone parent with two children working 16 hours a week on the minimum wage would gain £400

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Six policies that George Osborne has just stolen from Ed Miliband  

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/spectatorpolitics/summerbudget2015/media.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the Summer Budget”] Listen [/audioplayer]The morning after the election, Ed Miliband said that his party had lost the election but won the argument. He was mocked for this observation but surveying Osborne’s summer budget, he may have a point. It was cleverly spun: the tax-cut for Middle England trumpeted this morning has turned out to be a run-of-the-mill 1.2pc revision to the 40p threshold, not even in line with earnings. Clever old George. In fact, the first all-Conservative Budget for a generation has seen the Chancellor accept many of Labour’s arguments, moving to the left with a tax-and-spend budget and putting his tanks on the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Summer Budget: George Osborne pulls the rug out from Harriet Harman’s feet

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/spectatorpolitics/summerbudget2015/media.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the Summer Budget”] Listen [/audioplayer]When George Osborne lays a political elephant trap for Labour, he normally does so by cutting welfare and daring the Opposition to support him. Well, he’s done some of that today, cutting tax credits, housing benefit and the amount of money that employment support allowance claimants preparing to return to work can receive. But Labour has grown used to those traps now. What it isn’t used to navigating is responding to a measure that it would have introduced itself and which has a rather leftish feel. The announcement of the National Living Wage, which Fraser and

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why Osborne is copying – and bettering – Miliband’s minimum wage pledge

During the last Labour campaign, there will be been a few moments where George Osborne will have looked at Ed Miliband proposals and thought: damn! Wish we’d come up with of that. Take a pledge to raise the minimum wage to £8 by 2020. That was Miliband’s pledge; Osborne says £9. Doesn’t cost the government a penny. In fact, it’s better off because of lower welfare payments. So the politician gets to come across all generous, while saving about £200 million in lower welfare! Result! A higher minimum wage could be a massive (and revenue-raising) spoonful of sugar to make the medicine of tax credit reform go down. So it’s now £9/hr by

Steerpike Steerpike

George Osborne fails to make the right impression

After George Osborne delivered today’s budget, Harriet Harman responded by telling the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he should focus less on his own Prime Ministerial ambitions and more on the good of the country. However, if Osborne had hoped today’s performance would boost his chance of being the next leader of the Conservative party, it appears that he still has some way to go. As online users discussed the budget on Twitter, it was the wrong name that trended, with many tweeters taking his surname to be Osbourne, rather than Osborne: Perhaps it’s time the Chancellor reconsidered his education budget.

Steerpike Steerpike

Nicky Morgan takes photographer to task for calling her a ‘girl’

With the press pack out in full force today to cover George Osborne’s budget, one photographer’s day has got off to a bad start. As Cabinet ministers Nicky Morgan and Amber Rudd left a pre-Budget Cabinet meeting this morning, they were greeted by a photographer who shouted ‘morning girls’. While the snapper managed to win the 42-year-old Education Secretary’s attention he may wish he hadn’t. Morgan replied incredulously: ‘Girls?! Girls?!,’ before wagging her finger at him. Next time Mr S suggests it’s best to address the ladies by their names.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Budget tricks: is Middle Britain really getting a tax cut?

We learn this morning that George Osborne is planning a tax cut for the middle class, by raising the earnings threshold for the 40p tax. Of course, this was raised automatically in the Labour years (in line with RPI inflation) and even tricksy Gordon Brown never billed it as a tax cut. It’s only a tax cut if the threshold rises faster than average wages (i.e., the green lie above). If the threshold is frozen, or falls at lower rate the average earnings, then it’s a tax rise. This point is often lost on broadcasters, and HM Treasury is in no rush to explain things. So keep your eyes on this:

The Spectator

Summer Budget 2015: Full text of George Osborne’s speech

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/spectatorpolitics/summerbudget2015/media.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the Summer Budget”] Listen [/audioplayer] Mr Deputy Speaker, This is a Budget that puts security first. It’s a Budget that recognises the hard work and sacrifice of the British people over the past 5 years and says: we will not put that at risk, we have a job to do and we’re here to get on with it. This will be a Budget for working people. A Budget that sets out a plan for Britain for the next 5 years to keep moving us from a low wage, high tax, high welfare economy; to the higher wage, lower tax, lower welfare country we intend

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

With no coalition partner, George Osborne negotiates himself out of £12bn welfare cut

Let’s face it: George Osborne’s pledge to save £12 billion from welfare over two years was never really credible. He never told us where the savings would come from, and it seemed as if he didn’t really know. So tonight’s news, that the Chancellor has cut this to £8bn and given himself an extra year (or two) to make the full £12bn, is welcome. listen to ‘Nick Robinson: Osborne will soften his £12bn welfare cuts.’ on audioBoom

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Eurozone meeting breaks up with no agreement, full EU summit Sunday

The meeting of Eurozone leaders in Brussels has just broken up. There is still no agreement on a new deal for Greece. In these circumstances, the European Central Bank will not lend more to the Greek banks, so they will remain closed. What has been announced is a full summit of all 28 EU members for Sunday. Now, the significance of this is that Greece stops being an issue just for the Eurozone and becomes one for the whole of the EU when it leaves the Euro. The presence of all the EU leaders on Sunday will mean that the issue of a Greek exit from the single currency can

Melissa Kite

Revealed: David Cameron’s plan to bring back hunting

When Bill Clinton was asked if he had ever smoked marijuana he uttered the infamous cop-out that he had smoked it but had not inhaled. David Cameron’s position on hunting has been similar. He cannot deny that he once rode to hounds with his friends in the beautiful English countryside where he spends weekends. But he has never said much about the experience other than it was terribly challenging to stay on the horse. Rather than saying ‘I enjoyed it’, he has always been careful to give the impression that hunting was going on around him, so he did it, and he survived to tell the tale. But he didn’t

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tories ‘to slow welfare cuts’ in Budget, reports suggest

Tomorrow’s Budget is expected to be brutal, with the Conservatives recognising that now is the time to inflict the maximum pain as the party is the furthest it will ever be from the next election. But Sky News reports tonight that one of the most-reported aspects of that brutal Budget, the £12bn of welfare cuts, will be introduced a little more gently than expected. Faisal Islam writes that this is ‘partly because buoyant tax revenues and new Office of Budget Responsibility projections mean the Chancellor can meet his fiscal mandate without making the welfare cuts within two years’. It does also mean that a withdrawal of tax credits, for instance,

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

You’ll never understand Greece from a God’s eye view

We were breakfasting outside on the morning of the Greek referendum. The result could only be guessed at and all the polls were saying it was neck-and-neck. I thought ‘yes’ would win because surely Greek people believe in membership of the EU. Our friend Marie, however, who is French, announced that it would be a decisive ‘no’. Marie is neither a left-winger nor a Europhobe. ‘Why?’ her husband asked, ‘how do you know?’ ‘Avantage acquis,’ she said. Few of us were fluent French speakers, but I made a guess: ‘You mean people’s sense of continuing entitlement to something they have already got?’ Yes, she said, such things are very hard

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tories nervous of EVEL rebellion

MPs are getting very worked up in this afternoon’s emergency debate on English Votes for English Laws. Depending on which party they’re in, of course, they’re getting worked up about slightly different things. Labour have stick to arguing about the procedure, which is what the debate is supposed to be on, saying that the measure is far to big to be put through using standing orders. The SNP’s objection is primarily that this makes Scottish MPs second class, and secondly that the Tories are trying to create an English parliament in two weeks when they should, as Pete Wishart put it ‘do the work’ in the same way as the

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Calm down: English Votes for English Laws is a very minor modest proposal

Ed Miliband – remember him? – has just told the House of Commons that the government’s proposals for so-called English votes for English laws (EVEL) are a betrayal of everything for which the Conservative party is supposed to stand. Well, that’s certainly one way of putting it. According to Miliband, EVEL is “not true to the great traditions of the Conservative and Unionist party” but since the foremost of those traditions is a keen and ruthless appreciation of the best interests of the Conservative party I suspect Miliband, not for the first time, misunderstands the Tory party. “You’re the Conservative and Unionist party”, Miliband said. “This is neither for Conservatism nor