Politics

One of the most eyecatching political reports of the weekend was squirrelled away on page 16 (£) of the Sunday Times. It’s worth clipping out for the scrapbook, even now. In it, Marie Woolf reveals some of the fiscal sweeteners that Osborne might sprinkle into the Budget. There are two particularly noteworthy passages: i) Raising the personal allowance. “The income tax threshold is already set to increase by £1,000 to £7,457 from April 1. However, Osborne is expected to raise it by about a further £500. Details of the additional concession are still being worked on, but it marks a victory for the Liberal Democrats, who have been arguing within

So Ed Balls has made his decision. In articles and a TV interview today, he has decided that, instead of apologising for his part in bringing Britain to the state it’s in today, he will deny what he did. It was the consensus that Britain had the biggest deficit in the G7 going into the crisis, because that’s what the facts show. Contrary to Balls’ assertions, Britain ran a structural deficit for the seven years running up to the crisis – the figures are right there in Labour’s own Budget red books. And it’s the consensus that Labour left the biggest deficit since the war, since it’s a fact. Given

Few government jobs are as demanding as that of Permanent Under-Secretary, or PUS, in the Ministry of Defence. With Liam Fox as your boss, General David Richards as your colleague, and an exhausted, overspent department to run, it is no surprise that when Bill Jeffrey retired many of the government’s most senior officials – including, it is said, No 10’s Jeremy Heywood – balked at the challenge. Forward stepped Ursula Brennan, who until then had held the ministry’s No 2 job before a career in the Ministry of Justice, and what is now the Department for Work and Pensions. Here, Mrs Brennan has kindly agreed to answer a few questions

The coalition’s plans to privatise Britain’s woodlands have received what is euphemistically termed ‘a mixed reception’. Caroline Spelman’s consultation document and accompanying article in today’s Times (£) may change that fact. Both are historically conscious and upholstered with reassuring pastoral interludes – an elegant departure from most ministerial rambles.   But, this government’s politics breaks well clear from the literary immersion. There is a dose of Thatcherism. Spelman is adamant that the state should not be managing forests, and she wants private companies to exploit commercially valuable forests. She writes: ‘It’s time for the Government to step back and allow those who are most involved with England’s woodlands to play

There’s a febrile atmosphere in Westminster tonight. The coalition is poised for a frontal assault on the privileges of the House of Lords and there is an expectation that today’s dramatic developments in the phone hacking saga are the beginning of something not the end. The coalition’s actions on the Lords have been prompted by Labour’s filibustering of the AV bill. But there’s no guarantee that it will succeed. First, it has no majority in the upper house. Second, a lot of Tories peers are worried about just how many Clegg inspired changes to the constitution the coalition is pushing through. On the phone hacking front, there’s a sense that a dam broke today: the rogue