Politics

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

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

MPs to Media: You’re On Notice

This week’s (latest) head-in-hands, what-the-hell-is-going-on? moment comes courtesy of the Intelligence and Security Committee at Westminster. The Independent reports that: Britain’s security agencies and police would be given unprecedented and legally binding powers to ban the media from reporting matters of national security, under proposals being discussed in Whitehall. The Intelligence and Security Committee, the parliamentary watchdog of the intelligence and security agencies which has a cross-party membership from both Houses, wants to press ministers to introduce legislation that would prevent news outlets from reporting stories deemed by the Government to be against the interests of national security. The committee also wants to censor reporting of police operations that are

Peter Hoskin

Should Osborne remain Shadow Chancellor?

There’s a great deal of rumbling on the Westminster grapevine about George Osborne’s position in the Tory party.  The FT set the ball a-rolling yesterday, with an article on the “dinner table” ire aimed at the Shadow Chancellor.  It contained a juicy quote from a Tory MP, claiming that Osborne “was a good chancellor for the good times – now he’s lost credibility”, as well as an outline of a “reshuffle scenario” whereby William Hague is moved to the Shadow Chancellorship, with Osborne heading to an “enhanced party chairman role”.  That’s been followed up by posts across the political blogosphere, as well as an article by Iain Martin in today’s Telegraph

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Quote of the Day

David Davis, in an interview with the New Statesman: “I mean you know what it’s like, you’ve worked here, making a speech in the House of Commons is a very good way to keep a secret.” There’s some interesting stuff too, on Afghanistan, civil liberties and David Cameron.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Balls plays politics

“Cameron anger at Baby P” read the Evening Standard billboards in Westminster, setting the tone of the news coverage until about now. Now, all of a sudden, a full independent review has been announced by Ed Balls – rather rapid response, seeing as Mr Brown wasn’t able to announce or even hint at this at PMQs earlier. “That wouldn’t have been the right thing to do” Balls said – I mean, heaven forbid such announcements are made to Parliament. Balls continued: “We received the summary document [on the Baby P case] at 10am this morning. We studied this, and over the course of today we concluded this afternoon that over

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Westminster at its worst

Anyone who thinks the House of Commons behaves badly at the best of times would have been sickened today. David Cameron went on the appalling case of Baby P, and twice the Speaker had to remind baying MPs that they are discussing the gruesome death of a 17-month-old toddler. His first intervention should have been enough to silence them (“It will not do, shouting across the chamber when this terrible news has come to us”) and after it, David Cameron switched. Whether deliberately or not he lost his cool, sweeping his notes to the floor. His question did deserve an answer: why should this baby’s death be investigated by the same

James Doran

What the US Treasury needs: magician and economic genius

James Doran assesses the qualities needed to be Obama’s Treasury secretary at a time of unprecedented crisis, and wonders whether the front-runners measure up As situations vacant go, the position of Secretary of the United States Treasury is unique. The job requires a politician of presidential fortitude, a world-class economist and a magician capable of making a $1 trillion national deficit disappear. Short of genetically engineering the unholy product of Nobel laureate Paul Krugman and conjuror David Copperfield, such a singularly qualified individual is almost impossible to find: no small wonder that Barack Obama was in no rush to make this crucial Cabinet appointment. If every election hinges on ‘the

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Want to cut taxes? First cut spending. Here’s how

There is something plainly suspect about Gordon Brown challenging David Cameron to a duel over tax cuts. The Prime Minister has never believed in the inherent worth of tax cuts, and has spent much of the last decade gradually persuading the Conservatives not to believe in them either: it has been an article of Cameroon faith that ‘upfront tax-cut proposals’ were a low priority. Yet now the old battle manual has been torn up, and the PM is fighting an unprincipled guerrilla war of stunning opportunism. As if reading out from a document he has found in the street, he is reciting some of the key arguments for tax cuts

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Clegg sets out the Lib Dem approach

Nick Clegg’s giving a speech tonight in which he outlines the Lib Dem’s approach for dealing with the downturn.  You can read the full thing here, but it’s centred around these passages on taxation and borrowing: “How should Britain deliver economic stimulus? We hear talk of tax cuts emerging from Downing Street, but they are likely to be small, and short term. Funded through borrowing, the money will have to be paid back later. So it’s meagre tax cuts today, giant tax rises tomorrow from Brown. Meanwhile the Conservatives want a piffling incentive for businesses to take on new workers that won’t put a penny in the pocket of a

Matthew Dancona

Imprudent, and proud of it

The most interesting line in the PM’s press conference was Brown’s argument that, precisely because it is “funded”, the Tories’ latest tax proposal does not represent a fiscal stimulus. Gordon is now positively flaunting his jilting of Prudence, scorning the Tories because they are trying to cling to the fiscal principles – “stability”, “responsibility” etc – which were the hallmarks of his decade in Number Eleven . The basis of the initial Cameroon strategy was to edge the Conservative Party towards the economic orthodoxy of the Blair-Brown years with the caveat that the Tories would “share the proceeds of growth” between tax cuts and public spending. This ideological consensus has

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Dreaming of job creation

Much as I applaud the sentiment behind David Cameron’s plan to help employment by cutting taxes, did he have to claim he’d “create 350,000 jobs” that way? He may answer: yes, the media want such a figure, and just you see they’ll put it high up the story tomorrow. Plus we’re not in power, so we’ll never have to prove it. But to my nerdy eye, this figure spoils it. I mean, there are 940,000 on Jobseekers’ Allowance – is Cameron really proposing to reduce that that by a third? In a downturn? But my more serious objection is that cutting payroll tax at the margin has a heavy deadweight

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Always honest?

“I’m always honest with the British public” said Gordon Brown at his monthly press conference. Then, this: “There can be no argument about where we’ve been over the last few years on debt. Debt was reduced from 44% of national income to 37% at the latest count. And that is a fact.” No, Prime Minister, that is a lie. The latest count was in September, when the ONS said net national debt is 43.4% of GDP. “Whatever else we want to argue about, let us be clear that we start from a low base in public debt. The question is what you do as a result of that… I just

Monday

Matthew Dancona

What are the political risks and rewards of tax cuts?

As Tory Diary notes over at ConservativeHome, Fraser is making the running on the tax cut issue. His Spectator columns and Coffee House posts have pointed UK political strategists in the direction of Obama’s tax-cutting proposals and their centrality to the President-elect’s campaign. The FT’s story on Saturday made it unambiguously clear that Brown was cooking up a pre-emptive strike – and so it has proved, with details to follow tomorrow. Over at Comment Central, my old friend and associate Danny Finkelstein has been leading the counter-charge, beating up poor Nick Clegg as a proxy for the growing number of Tories arguing for a shift of position. I think the

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The Gordfather’s hatred sets him up for a fall

“Never hate your enemies – it affects your judgement”. This advice from Michael Corleone is very relevant to Gordon Brown, who makes his worst  mistakes when he thinks he’d destabilising Tories. He loved how scared they were about talk of an October election last year, but didn’t realise how stupid he’d look when he didn’t call one. The speculation rebounded on him. Same, I suspect, with his tax cut. Still no news today, but people are expecting £15 billion. This figure is actually a guesstimate from Robert Chote of the IFS,  who told the FT last week that he wouldn’t be surprised if Brown were to cut taxes by the

Peter Hoskin

A matter of timing

The tax wars have entered a rather unedifying stage.  Cameron was set to announce the Tory proposal in a press conference at 1000 tomorrow morning.  But then Downing Street announced earlier that Brown’s monthly press conference would be at 0930 tomorrow, instead of the usual 1200.  Surely that wouldn’t have anything to do with sucking reporters, cameras and TV coverage away from the Tories, would it?  Whatever Brown’s intentions, Team Cameron have trumped him by moving their man’s press conference to 0830.  Westminster choreography at its finest. One thing’s for sure: you can expect much “we got there first” jostling over the next few days.  But, in the end, I

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Responsibility, responsibility, responsibility

You have to give David Cameron marks for trying. He’s still trying to breathe life into the word “responsibility” in hope that it can become some kind of a political battle cry. Steve Hilton literally built a business making “corporate social responsibility” into something that companies buy into – but it’s harder to do the same with politics. Every politician claims what they do is responsible, it’s not a distinguishing feature. The more Cameron uses the r-word, the more it reminds me if Brown starting every sentence “it is right that we…” Yet no new Tory idea is complete without the r-word, whether it’s the Debt Responsibility Mechanism or the

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 10 November 2008

Some of the posts made over the weekend on Spectator.co.uk: Matthew d’Ancona watches two films which deal with recent history. Fraser Nelson suggests that David Cameron shouldn’t repeat John McCain’s tax error. James Forsyth reports on the latest Tory poll lead, and claims we can have a British Obama. Peter Hoskin marks Remembrance Sunday, and wonders who will win the tax war. And Clive Davis highlights two special voices.

Peter Hoskin

Osborne warns against “sowing the seeds” of the next crisis

An effective article from George Osborne in today’s FT. Here’s the key paragraph on the public finances: “Today, we must let the automatic stabilisers function. But as Lord Burns, former permanent secretary at the Treasury, warned last week, borrowing beyond that without being clear how the bills would be paid would be ‘very dangerous at this point’. ‘We begin from a position of a structural deficit. Adding to that structural deficit can only increase the problems subsequently,’ he said. I agree. Spending our way out of recession will not work. Targeted tax cuts would help but they must be properly funded. Any tax cuts must not permanently increase the structural

Sunday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Will the Tories avoid making McCain’s tax error?

I say in my political column this week that Cameron must “offer tax cuts before Brown does” – and seems I may not have to wait long before David Cameron repays my faith in him. Patrick Hennessy says in the Sunday Telegraph today that the Tories are planning an employment-orientated tax cut financed by spending cuts. As the FT said on Saturday that Darling could be mulling some £15bn of tax cuts, there was a danger that the Tories could be the only party in Britain not proposing to let people keep more of their money. Cameron was in danger of falling into the trap which ensnared John McCain. McCain

Saturday

Irwin Stelzer

The Tory quest for a fiscal Holy Grail is doomed

Brown’s golden rules have been exposed as a sham, says Irwin Stelzer, but the Tory response has been feeble. Their target should be the PM’s feathering of Old Labour nests The good news is that Gordon Brown’s golden rules are no more. These rules did not stop the then chancellor from launching a spending binge. They did not stop him from spilling red ink all over the nation’s books at a time when the flow of cash into the Treasury was at record levels. They did not stop him from raising taxes, 60 times by some counts. They did not stop him from redistributing income from wealth-creators to wealth-consumers. What