Politics

George Osborne has a dilemma to answer in his autumn statement (which must be finalised by 28 November, when it will be submitted to the Office of Budget Responsibility). He has promised to offset politically welfare cuts worth £10bn with tax increases on the wealthy. There is an added complication in that Osborne cannot afford (literally) to choke recovery by imposing levies on sources of wealth creation. This leads him, logically, to pensions and property. The FT reports that the chancellor is considering reducing the maximum level of tax relief on annual pension contributions from £50,000 to either £40,000 or £30,000. It is estimated that these changes would net the

Via Tim Worstall, here’s Jeanette Winterson: A fiery Jeanette Winterson has called for the hundreds of millions of pounds of profit which Amazon, Starbucks and Google were last week accused of diverting from the UK to be used to save Britain’s beleaguered public libraries. In an impassioned speech at the British Library this evening, the award-winning author of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit said: “Libraries cost about a billion a year to run right now. Make it two billion and charge Google, Amazon and Starbucks all that back tax on their profits here. Or if they want to go on paying fancy lawyers to legally avoid their moral duties,

When David Cameron made his surprise announcement about forcing energy companies to offer customers their cheapest deal, he added, as an afterthought, that the leader of the opposition had missed the chance to be on the side of the consumer when he was energy secretary. I would be surprised if the average voter knows that Miliband was energy secretary; but, from Cameron’s perspective, the line of attack makes sense: energy prices and the cost of living are vital political issues for this government. The government, then, will be thrilled that Energy Secretary Ed Davey’s plans (which appear to be based largely on Ofgem’s recent ideas about simplifying tariffs: Davey will

Here is the full transcript of the speech David Cameron gave to the CBI earlier today. It is, on the face of it, a speech full of intent and energy; but, two and half years into government, David Cameron will be judged by what he does, not what he says. As John Cridland, DG of the CBI, put it in response to Cameron’s words: ‘Where’s the beef?’ I look around this room and see people I’ve been on trade missions with all around the world to Africa, China, India, Russia, Mexico, Brazil. It’s great to see Aggreko here – we were in Africa together and I’m glad you’ve sealed that deal

So much has been written about the lead up to, and the fall-out from, last week’s elections for Police and Crime Commissioners that it seems almost futile to try to add anything. As the paltry turn-out became obvious – formally and reportedly as it was obvious to anyone in touch with a polling station on the day – and the election of a myriad of quixotic independent candidates apparent, I tweeted that I thought we may regret introducing PCCs and that I regretted voting for the Bill which made them a reality. That was borne out of frustration that we really didn’t need to end up where we did last Friday.

David Cameron (and a host of other politicians, including Ed Miliband, Vince Cable and Boris Johnson) will address the CBI’s annual conference this morning. Cameron’s widely trailed speech is a call to arms; indeed, he wants to put the public sector on a war-footing. The speech will contain the usual spiel about Britain being in a ‘global race to succeed’ and the need for innovation and cutting red tape, faster decision making etc, etc, etc. You’ll know, of course, that these urgent words come from the man who feels that the decision on a third Heathrow runway cannot be made until after the next election. This fact mocks Cameron’s claim

On the Sunday Politics just now, Grant Shapps confirmed to Andrew Neil The Spectator’s story that 20 of the 40 Tory target seats at the next election are Liberal Democrat held. Shapps stressed that it was nothing personal about the Liberal Democrats but just a reflection of what needed to be done if the Tories were to win a majority. When asked why voters in Liberal Democrat Ministers constituencies should prefer a Tory majority to the current coalition, Shapps cited the need to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights as well as the global economic race. This suggests that these issues will

The Sunday Papers and the broadcast shows are packed with accounts of Britain’s fractious relationship with the European Union, and what that means for David Cameron. The Observer gives space to a poll, the headline of which says that 56 per cent of Britons would ‘probably or definitely’ vote to leave the EU against 30 per cent who would probably or definitely vote to remain in the union. The Independent on Sunday carries a ComRes poll on the more immediate question of next week’s EU budget discussions. The findings will give Mr Cameron a headache: 66 per cent of voters want the budget ‘cut rather than frozen’. The voters will

After months of will he/won’t he, Lynton Crosby has decided to join the Cameron clan. The Sunday Telegraph reports that the Australian strategist behind Boris’ two victories has signed up as a consultant to run David Cameron’s re-election campaign. The efforts to secure his return were described in the political column in this week’s Spectator: ‘Later this month, George Osborne and two of the Prime Minister’s most senior political aides — Stephen Gilbert and Andrew Cooper — will sit down with Lynton Crosby to see if a command structure for the election campaign can be worked out. Conservative high command is keen to bring Crosby, the man who oversaw Boris Johnson’s elections as