Politics

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

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Nick Clegg avoids Autumn Statement because ‘he just sits there’

One notable absence on the government frontbench during the Autumn Statement today was Nick Clegg, who is in Cornwall today. The Deputy Prime Minister is in Cornwall today, visiting a number of different places, all of which seem to be in Lib Dem constituencies. A source close to Clegg points out that he already knew what was in the Statement, that Danny Alexander was there, adding: ‘He just sits there so he would rather get out in the country and talk to people about what the Autumn Statement means for them.’ It’s quite impressive that it has taken Clegg so many years of sitting on the government frontbench and trying

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

George Osborne’s Autumn Statement in 12 graphs

George Osborne had dismal figures today, and still managed to present them as a triumph. He even presented his failure on the deficit (below) as a success, and got away with it because Labour really doesn’t have an alternative plan. The Chancellor did have some genuine boasts: the job-creation miracle continues and corporation tax revenue is up in spite of (or, rather, because of) corporation tax cuts. And he has his very own Mansion Tax! So he reduced his political exposure from the left, his main weakness now is on the fiscal right. And who will attack him from the fiscal right? Anyway, that’s the politics – the below is the economics.

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

George Osborne’s fact-finders come up trumps in the Autumn Statement

Osborne got his chance to audition for Number 10 today. He hasn’t the fluency and the synthetic chumminess of Cameron. And his emotional range is far narrower than the PM’s. He’s like Nigel Lawson, cool, uneasy, watchful. His brain-power is more than his head can bear and there’s a detached, arrhythmic otherness about him. He’s uncongenial, in the way a good Dr Who should be, but he can’t ad lib at the despatch box. If he’s interrupted he glances upwards, (with worried eyes and Nixon conk), and stares out, bewildered and a little frightened. With a script, and plenty of rehearsal, he has authority even though his basic mode is,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Ed Balls survives tricky Autumn Statement response under intense heckling

Labour has had a poor run of Autumn Statement and Budget responses for a couple of years now, and with only today’s statement and the 2015 Budget to go before the General Election, the stakes were pretty high for Ed Balls. The Tories had clearly turned up expecting him to do a terrible job, and their heckling club (which you can read more about here) was out in force. The Shadow Chancellor stood up to a wall of noise. Tory backbenchers had arranged a number of words to shout at him before entering the Chamber. I understand that one of them was ‘apologise’, which they’ve used before on Balls. It was

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

George Osborne’s new stamp duty regime explained

If you’re buying a house, or thinking about it, there’s only one fact you need to know about today’s Budget: stamp duty is changing. Gone is the old system of thresholds, and instead it will be a percentage chunk of the value. And no, this ist a disguised tax graph – the Chancellor expects to lose more money out of this reform than any other. So no tax will be paid on the first £125,000 of a property. Then it’s 2% on the portion of the value of the flat up to £250,000, then 5% of the portion up to £925,000, 10% for up to £1.5 million and 12 % on everything beyond

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Another very political mini-Budget from George Osborne

A preview of James Forsyth’s political column in this week’s Spectator, out tomorrow: Autumn Statements lack the drama and traditions of the Budget. Gladstone never delivered one, there is no Autumn Statement box and no possibility of a dram of whisky as the chancellor delivers it. But this year’s Autumn Statement was more important, and more substantial, than next year’s Budget will be: the Liberal Democrats are adamant that March is too close to the general election for the Budget to do anything other than update the fiscal forecasts and set out the duty rates. The test this week isn’t economic but political. As with last year, the Tories have

The Spectator

Full text: George Osborne’s 2014 Autumn Statement

Mr Speaker, Four years ago, in the first Autumn Statement of this Parliament, I presented the accounts of an economy in crisis. Today, in the last Autumn Statement of this Parliament, I present a forecast that shows the UK is the fastest growing of any major advanced economy in the world. listen to ‘Osborne’s Autumn Statement in full’ on audioBoom Back then, Britain was on the brink. Today, against a difficult global backdrop, I can report: higher growth, lower unemployment, falling inflation, and a deficit that is falling too. Today a deficit that is half what we inherited. Mr Speaker, our long term economic plan is working. Now Britain faces a

Steerpike Steerpike

Autumn Statement Tricks: Osborne confounds the betting market

Ignore the numbers, the spin and the bleak borrowing – there is only one question that needs answering. What colour is the Chancellor’s tie? Ladbrokes were offering bets on the subject, and Mr S understands a significant amount of cash has changed hands on the subject: 1/2 Blue 3/1 Purple 4/1 Green 10/1 Red 12/1 Pink 12/1 Grey 16/1 Yellow 16/1 Orange 16/1 Black 25/1 White 66/1 Hi-vis Ever the trickster, Osborne seems to have confounded the punters. Is his tie sludge green, grey or black? It seems like the matter should be referred to some sort of independent Office of Budget Betting Responsibility. Ladbrokes are yet to call it…

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Miliband chooses the wrong day to have a good PMQs

Ed Miliband has just managed to have a really good PMQs on a day when there is such a big story following the session that it will barely get reported. The Labour leader focused on broken promises, and cleverly managed to force the Prime Minister to talk about immigration by asking about the failure of the net migration target. David Cameron had planned not to talk about immigration at all, but he then found himself doing just that in the Chamber. Then the Labour leader moved on to the promised ‘no top-down reorganisation’ of the NHS. Then it got personal, with both men scrapping using party mess-ups as their weapons.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

No 10: Autumn Statement is to ‘stay on course for prosperity’

George Osborne’s pitch at today’s Autumn Statement will be for voters to give the Tories another five years leading the government to finish the job of balancing the books. Today the Prime Minister’s official spokesman summed up the address from the Chancellor that we’ll hear in just over half an hour as ‘an Autumn Statement to stay on course for prosperity’. Presumably we’ll get something a bit snappier than that from Osborne himself. We’re still waiting to see what the political trap is that he appears to be laying for Labour, with no more clarity on that mysterious three-line whip vote on Thursday. There’s a business statement due after the Autumn

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Firefighters react to the Autumn Statement – before Osborne’s even opened his mouth

Post-war Labour Chancellor Hugh Dalton had to resign for letting slip the contents of his Budget speech before he delivered it. Nowadays, everyone leaks in advance, including PR people. The following press release was received from the Fire Brigades Union at 11 am, giving its ‘reaction’ to a speech which did not start until 12.30: ‘This government is promising more of the same – austerity for workers, so they can cut taxes for the rich. Firefighters want investment in the fire and rescue service, not more cuts. ‘Last winter we saw widespread flooding throughout the country, but still the Westminster government refuses to give the fire and rescue service a

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How will Ukip use its first Autumn Statement in Parliament?

A lot of focus today will be on how Labour would cut the deficit (and perhaps how George Osborne actually plans to get it done rather than just talking about it, given the Item Club warning that deficit reduction will plateau). Ed Balls has been arguing this morning that Labour would ‘balance the books in a fairer way’ but he’s got to show this afternoon when he responds to the Autumn Statement that Labour really can persuade voters to trust the party again on the economy, especially now that he and Ed Miliband rank behind Farage on this matter. But speaking of Farage, today is the first economic statement in

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Sweden’s new government collapses

The Swedish government has just collapsed, not even three months after being formed, and new elections are being called for March. The problem is one that Britain may well soon experience: none of the main parties did well in the election. The only winners were minority protest parties –  the feminists and the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats (a more vulgar version of Ukip). Like Ukip, the Sweden Democrats had enough clout to disrupt parliament but not much else. So Sweden ended up with what Britain may soon get: government by a coalition of the losers. Stefan Löfven, leader of Sweden’s social democrats, ended up as Prime Minister after his party was humiliated with the second-worst election result in

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

What’s Osborne plotting now? Tories plan mysterious vote after Autumn Statement

The Conservative party is all abuzz this afternoon, but it’s not about the Autumn Statement. They’ve been told that there is a three-line whip vote on ‘something’ on Thursday. Not even the whips know what the vote is on, other than that they must tell MPs to turn up. Labour is also on a three-line whip. Apparently all will be revealed tomorrow at the Autumn Statement, which suggests that this is going to be some kind of elephant trap laid by George Osborne for Labour. It will most likely be the the ‘budget surplus rule’, which commits the government to eliminating the structural deficit by 2017/18 and is an attempt by the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

No 10: EU leaders are on PM’s side after Polish minister criticises immigration plans

The European response to David Cameron’s immigration speech last week was pretty positive, but at some point between now and the formal renegotiation, someone was going to chuck a fly in the ointment. Last night Poland’s deputy foreign minister Rafal Trzaskowski told Newsnight that his country would have a ‘red line’ against Britain treating immigrants from the EU differently when it comes to benefits. He said: ‘If one wants to get away with all the benefits that are enshrined in the regulation of EU and treat immigrants from EU differently, and for example only pay benefits after four years of their stay in Britain or extradite people who can’t find

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Who cares that Liz Lochhead has joined the SNP?

Is it acceptable for writers to sport their political allegiances publicly? In more sensible times you’d hardly need to consider the question since its answer would ordinarily be so bleedin’ obvious. These, of course, are neither sensible nor ordinary times. So it is with the fauxtroversy over whether or not it is acceptable – or, worse, appropriate – for Liz Lochhead to have joined the SNP.  This is a real thing, it seems and yet another example of how politics corrupts most things it touches. Lochhead, you see, is not just a poet she is Scotland’s Makar (or poet laureate) and therefore, god help us, it’s all very different. For some reason. People are

Sebastian Payne

One of Gordon Brown’s undeniable achievements: breaking the Oxford mould

Say what you will about Gordon Brown — and plenty have over the last 24 hours — but there is one achievement even his harshest detractors can not critique: he broke the Oxford mould among modern Prime Ministers. Since the Second World War, Oxford University has produced the majority of Prime Ministers, outstripping the rest of the country’s institutions and even their arch rivals Cambridge. Aside from those who didn’t go to university (John Major, Jim Callaghan and Winston Churchill), Brown has so far been the only non-Oxford PM since 1945 — instead he went to Edinburgh: [datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/CSz9t/index.html”] Despite Oxford’s long history of churning out Prime Ministers, it was not always

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

George Osborne’s Autumn Statement choreography makes life doubly difficult for Labour

George Osborne is choreographing his autumn statement week to make things as difficult as possible for Labour. At present senior ministers are travelling the country handing out nice things to voters as they unveil details of the 2014 National Infrastructure Plan. Yesterday’s roads bonanza has been replaced by a garden city, better flood defences and a tidal project in Swansea today. You can almost hear the Chancellor singing ‘roll out the barrel’ as he and colleagues indulge in American-style pork-barrel politics by handing out many of these goodies to seats they want to hold or win (read Seb’s piece yesterday). But though Labour can accuse Osborne of a cynical focus

Monday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

In graphs: How George Osborne learned to stop worrying and love the debt

I have just been on Adam Boulton’s Sky News show, talking about the forthcoming Autumn Statement with Ann Pettifor, a left-wing economist. “I bet you didn’t expect me to defend George Osborne,” she told me, after our discussion finished. The UK economy is doing well, she argued, because Osborne has been borrowing like a drunken Keynesian (a good thing, in her book). And she does have a point. The left made a great error when they attacked Osborne for cruel, fast, deep cuts – he is shaving just 4pc from total government spending and giving himself eight years to do it. To give himself so much time. has had to borrow shedloads of money. As much as Alistair Darling planned to.