Politics

I said that Gordon Brown’s VAT cut was too small to notice – yet I have just saved £15 on furniture imports from Bali. Of course, £15 is a serious, noticeable amount of money. Problem is, it only helps people who have £600 to fork out on furniture. And here this is another defect of Brown’s useless VAT cut: it helps people like me – who are saving like mad to atone for their borrowing sins – instead of helping the lower-income groups who are most likely to spend extra money. The VAT and duty cuts announced in the last pre-Budget report are, in fact, perfectly regressive – helping the

It’s not just the Germans. The IMF today has poured scorn on Gordon Brown’s useless VAT cut for reasons that any corner shop owner could have explained to the Prime Minister. Here is what Olivier Blanchard, the IMF chief economist, said today. “Temporarily cutting VAT, a measure that was adopted in Great Britain, does not seem to me to be a good idea – 2 percent less is not perceived by consumers as a real incentive to spend.” Blanchard joins a small but growing chorus of international officials criticising Brown. Last week, I gave a list of other countries that are trashing Gordon Brown’s attempt to borrow his way out

Every Christmas time, a turkey emerges to be hunted in the festive news vacuum. From Tim Yeo to Charlie Whelan, many have found themselves with the misfortune to have done something wrong when nothing else is happening – so will be pilloried from here to Hogmanay. This season it’s Bob Quick who is being stuffed, and rightly so. David Davis and David Cameron are both basting him, prior to the festive roasting. He’s issued an “unreserved apology”  – but, as he’ll know, it goes far beyond that.  It’s a bit rich to complain about the politicisation of the police service and then describe then entire Conservative party as “corrupt”. Quick’s

The ghost of Christmas Future has arrived at Kirkcaldy – and persuaded Gordon Brown not to hold an election next year. So says Ben Brogan, and it rings true. I’ve previously set out the case for a January election, and Trevor Kavanagh that for a February one.  But the PM hasn’t taken our advice, and tomorrow he’ll rule out a winter election.  His loss.  Every week he waits, his fingerprints will be ever more visible in the economic mess and the Tory majority will be bigger. Ben says that Brown’s unofficially ruling out April, May and June too. Given that we’ll have a Euro election in June (in which Labour’s

‘Tis the season for Christmas receptions at Westminster, where the hacks like myself compare notes with people who know a lot more about life than we do. There’s a distinct lack of bubbly this year – funny how ministers take special care over that, while the government overspend is (literally) enough to fill every bath in England with Moet – but the chat’s been first class, especially at the Centre for Policy Studies bash last night. I thought I’d share some of it with CoffeeHousers. Much of the below may be obvious to y’all, but I found it interesting and thought-provoking. Here are my top ten points from the right-leaning people I cornered: 1) EXPORTS

David Cameron plans to lead Labour rebels into inserting an amendment into the government’s welfare reform plans, basically removing all threat of sanction from lone mothers of children of pre-school age. This, I think, is the upshot of his press conference today. “The state prodding, pushing, cajoling mothers of children so young is simply wrong,” he said. “We need to help families, and that especially is true for single parents. It won’t do any good for our economy, or our society.” He said he suspected James Purnell was engaged in “some macho positioning exercise” which he said was “pretty sick”. CoffeeHousers will be unsurprised to hear that I disagree with

Gordon Brown is actually uniting the world, so far as his approach to the downturn is concerned, but not in the way he’d like us to think. From Tokyo to Toronto, finance ministers are saying that countries with a budget problem (like Britain) shouldn’t seek to borrow their way out of this. Slowly, a consensus is forming. Extra borrowing is fine for well-run countries that managed to pay off debt and run a budget surplus in good times. But countries like Britain – that blew her budget even in a debt-fuelled boom – will destroy their credibility (and currency) if they try to borrow even more now. It’s not just