Politics

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

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The risks for Osborne now he’s back on top

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_20_March_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the 2014 budget” startat=749]The old Budget traditions are dying off. No Chancellor has observed Budget purdah, the tradition of not speaking about the economy for two months beforehand, since Norman Lamont. These days, the Chancellor even appears on the BBC on the Sunday before the Budget to begin the drum roll of announcements. The convention by which he exercises his prerogative to have an alcoholic drink as he delivers the speech has also fallen into abeyance. Ken Clarke, with his glass of whisky, was the last chancellor to have a tipple as he spoke. But some customs remain. The Chancellor

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

HS2’s boss is right – it’s push on or be rubbed out

I’m sure HS2 chairman Sir David Higgins is right to argue that if we’re serious about building a new north-south rail network, we should get on with it. The greater the number of general elections between conception and completion of any infrastructure scheme, the less likely it is to happen. Lord Mandelson revealed last year that Labour only gave this one the go-ahead in 2009 as a political gimmick; Ed Balls’s comments on it last week signalled that an incoming Labour cabinet might drop the project as casually as it was green-lighted in the first place if it doesn’t suit the short-term  politics of 2015. So the best option for

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour doesn’t want to talk about today’s budget

Ed Balls has just delivered quite an odd post-Budget briefing. It was odd because he didn’t really want to criticise anything. Of course, when the Chancellor has just unexpectedly announced major reforms to the pensions system, it would be foolish for an opposition to start criticising a reform that it probably doesn’t quite understand. But the furthest the Shadow Chancellor would go was that it was ‘underwhelming’. He said: ‘Overall we thought that was pretty underwhelming: Ed Miliband had written pages of his speech which weren’t used in the end because they referred to things that might be in there but weren’t and, so, you know, he obviously had to

Ros Altmann

Ten reasons to welcome George Osborne’s pensions revolution

After so many years of waiting for good news on pensions and savings, suddenly so much comes at once.  Like the proverbial Number 13 buses, a whole raft of policies has all come at once – and they are good news. It’s also a brilliant Budget for Tory election prospects of course.  The devil of some of this will be in the detail but overall this is just good news all round.  And will even bring in more tax for the Chancellor short-term as pension lump sums will deliver higher tax revenue than taking small amounts of income or delaying annuity purchase. Here’s my take. 1. ISAs now more flexible

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

The ghost of Tony Benn stalked PMQs

Tony Benn, the most divisive left-wing figure since the war, united the house today. David Cameron paid tribute to him as an orator, diarist and campaigner. Ed Miliband praised his determination to ‘champion the powerless’ and hold the executive to account. Miliband moved to Crimea. He called Sunday’s plebiscite ‘illegal and illegitimate’. Cameron trumped him with a curious phrase that bolted a bit of punchy modern sloganising onto a fragment of olde Englishe slang. The referendum, he said, had been ‘spatch-cocked together in ten days at the point of a Russian Kalashnikov’. The leaders, both keen to denounce Russia in the most savage terms, swapped promises about travel bans, asset

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Budget 2014: Has Osborne come up with a silver bullet for dealing with Ukip?

The Budget today contained a host of measures that’ll benefit the silver savers; those in, or coming up to, retirement. From January next month, pensioners will be able to buy pension bonds that offer a 2.8 per cent interest rate for a one year bond and a 4 per cent annual rate for a three year bond. This is far better than the rate available on the high street and will cost the government £170 million in 2015-16. It should assuage the pain, and anger, that many pensioners have felt at the government’s deliberate policy of keeping interest rates as low as possible. Considering that defections from the Tories to

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Budget 2014: Top five announcements

The Chancellor has spoken, the opposition leader has blasted the speech, and now the nit-picking begins. But what were the five biggest announcements in today’s Budget? Here’s a guide: 1. The pensions revolution His plan to abolish the 55 per cent tax rate on those who withdraw more than they should from their pension all seems very generous. (Except it isn’t – the Budget small print reckons it’ll lead to a spending splurge that will send £2bn to the Exchequer). The policy is aimed to address a genuine disappointment that many people experience on retirement when they discover what they can and can’t do with their pension pot. Tax restrictions on

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Budget 2014: The Tories gave Ed Miliband licence to become a class warrior

No opposition leader looks forward to responding to the Budget. It’s one of the harder gigs as you get little notice of the detailed measures that may cause real rows and are scribbling feverishly throughout the statement to try to make your pre-written speech sound relevant. But it is still an achievement that Ed Miliband in his own response managed to avoid talking about anything in the Budget other than the new design of the pound coins. He started by reminding the House of Commons of how much further the Chancellor needs to go before hardworking families up and down the country feel as cheerful as the Tories. He said:

Steerpike Steerpike

Budget 2014: Osborne’s Budget banter

The Budget has, in recent years, been more tears than laughter, more pain than gain. Yet the upturn in Britain’s economic fortunes has put the Chancellor, whose ‘5 and 2’ diet has had a dramatic effect on his waistline, in a buoyant mood. Osborne’s wit – famously sharp in private – shone through in public this afternoon. He began slowly, by teasing Ed Balls. He reminded the chamber of Labour’s dire financial record, which elicited his first laugh: ‘Or, as the Shadow Chancellor put it: “some mistakes were made”.’ Boom-tish. The gag about the slow pace of construction at Ebbsfleet was a groaner (‘more ebb than fleet’); but things looked

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Budget 2014: George Osborne’s pensions revolution

This will take a while to sink in – we simply have never seen this before in a Budget. George Osborne has just revolutionised the way pensions work; millions of people will have just found their pensions pot turned into a bank account. The punitive 55 per cent tax rate they faced if taking out more than they should from a pension has been abolished. And how much does this cost Osborne? That’s the beauty. No wonder the Chancellor’s aides were briefing that he’d found a very radical, very ‘clever’ policy. This will make a massive pre-election difference to pensioners, the group most likely to vote at the next election.

The Spectator

Budget 2014: full text of George Osborne’s speech

listen to ‘George Osborne delivers the 2014 Budget’ on Audioboo Mr Deputy Speaker, I can report today that the economy is continuing to recover – and recovering faster than forecast. We set out our plan. And together with the British people, we held our nerve. We’re putting Britain right. But the job is far from done. Our country still borrows too much. We still don’t invest enough, export enough or save enough. So today we do more to put that right. This is a Budget for building a resilient economy. If you’re a maker, a doer or a saver: this Budget is for you. It is all part of a

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

What could George Osborne’s rabbit be?

Presuming that George Osborne isn’t sitting in the Treasury, perspiring slightly as he tries to work out what on earth he could offer as a big surprise in the Budget, here are some suggestions on what that surprise rabbit from the hat could be*. A lower AME welfare cap funds a higher personal allowanceThe Chancellor is due to set the level of the spending cap for welfare in today’s Budget. Could he set it much lower than expected, and use the extra money saved to raise the personal allowance much higher than expected? This would mean he can tie welfare spending to taxpayers’ money in an even more explicit way

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Budget 2014: Will Cameron’s disciples spread the message?

Lynton Crosby addressed the Conservative parliamentary party last night about the party’s messaging for the European elections. Amusingly, I hear he told those gathered to watch one of his powerpoint presentations that while Jesus only had 12 disciples, David Cameron has 305 to spread his message. Perhaps the next Downing Street wooing event will see the Prime Minister handing out loaves and fishes to his backbenchers. After a rather off-message week, the Conservatives need their MPs to get into line and start talking about that long-term economic plan today as George Osborne unveils his Budget. One of the key words to look out for is ‘resilience’, which the Chancellor has

Tuesday

Hamish Macdonell

Johann Lamont shows Labour’s true colours – red in tooth and claw

Just occasionally in politics, the mask slips and political parties reveal what they really are – rather than what they would like us to believe they are. Today in Edinburgh we experienced one of those moments. Johann Lamont, the Scottish Labour Leader, unveiled her plans for ‘devo plus’ for Scotland – if Scots vote No in September. We expected something technical focusing on the new powers the Scottish Parliament would be gifted by a Labour government at Westminster. Instead, we got something fundamentally red in tooth and claw. Indeed, Lamont could not have taken a harder socialist approach had she grabbed a red flag and waved it from the rooftop

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Number 10 plays down Warsi Eton Mess stunt

Downing Street is trying to play down Sayeeda Warsi’s  Eton Mess stunt on The Agenda last night. Asked what his response to her decision to hold up a front page saying ‘Number 10 takes Eton Mess off the menu’, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘Look, I think that was in the light-hearted section of the programme. I’m not sure whether he actually caught the programme, as it happens.’ He then added that the Prime Minister had ‘spoken about the importance’ of greater social mobility, and that the Chancellor had made similar comments to that effect yesterday. Both Warsi and Michael Gove were at Cabinet today, but the spokesman said there

Sebastian Payne

How much do voters care about Old Etonians and the political class?

Are voters really concerned about how many Old Etonians David Cameron surrounds himself with? Judging by the cutting remarks from Michael Gove and Sayeeda Warsi it matters a lot, but opinion polling tells a slightly different, more troubling tale about how people feel about the ‘political class’. On the Eton question, YouGov recently carried out a poll asking which characteristics they found most unsuitable for a ‘leading politician’. When asked to choose three or four negative qualities, 38 per cent stated that an MP who went to Eton and doesn’t ‘understand how normal people live’ is unsuitable: According to the polling, having been schooled at Eton is judged as a

Steerpike Steerpike

Eddie Izzard’s kiss of death to Scotland

Game over: Eddie Izzard has cursed the union. The comedian who once championed equal clothing rights has waded into the debate over Scottish independence, to the horror of supporters of the union. You might imagine that we unionists would welcome a celebrity endorsement – even from a c-lister like Izzard. But he has a dreadful track record when it comes to these things. He was a devout Europhile who campaigned for us to join the single currency. He supported Gordon Brown and Labour at the last election. He backed Ken Livingstone last time round in London. And who can forget Izzard’s deathless contribution to the Yes2AV campaign? A source at the

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The anatomy of a political lie: ‘tax-free childcare’

Today’s announcement of childcare subsidy, up to the value of £2,000 per kid under the age of 12, is welcome news. As The Spectator argued last week, this is perhaps the smartest single move the Chancellor can make – too many highly-skilled women want to work, but cant afford to as they’d face Europe’s highest childcare fees. And then the Treasury has to spoil it all by lying about the policy. The government website has this to say: The first thing parents need to know is that the scheme is not ‘tax-free childcare’ at all. So how on earth does the Treasury justify claiming otherwise? Its explanation is below:- ‘For every