All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
With the Chancellor’s Budget moving to a single event from later this year, yesterday’s final Spring Budget went out with a muffled pop rather than a bang. After announcing an improved forecast for economic growth throughout the rest of year and revealing that employment has reached a record high, the biggest personal finance changes set out will
The Chancellor has awoken to a slew of bad headlines today following his decision to row back on a 2015 Tory manifesto pledge and raise National Insurance for the self-employed. In an attempt at some damage limitation, Philip Hammond has been doing the usual post-Budget media rounds this morning. Alas his interview with Sky News didn’t
Given that Jeremy Corbyn barely seemed to notice Philip Hammond’s Budget blunder, it’s unlikely the Chancellor will be too worried about Labour’s response to the National Insurance rates row. He will be troubled, though, by the rumblings on the backbenches behind him. The prospect of a Tory revolt is now very much on the cards; 18
George Osborne was famous in Westminster when Chancellor for laying large ‘elephant traps’ for Labour using Treasury policy. He was also famous for telling everyone all about how the trap worked and where it was, before falling into it himself. When Philip Hammond came into the Treasury, it was largely accepted that the days of
Philip Hammond is feeling the heat this morning. This was supposed to be the ‘boring’ budget, with no headline-grabbing announcements or spending splurges. Instead, the Chancellor’s face is splashed across the front pages this morning for all the wrong reasons. And the reception for Hammond doesn’t get any warmer inside the newspapers. The Daily Mail starts
Luis Dominguez was born in the UK to the family of an Argentine diplomat and spent most of his childhood in the US, having relocated there during World War II. I first met him at Portsmouth Priory, a small boarding school in Rhode Island, not far from Newport. My memory is of him dressed in
The Chancellor has chosen to invest £500m in technical education, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves that the new ‘T-levels’ will help get the UK match fit for Brexit, or prepare the UK for the 4th industrial revolution. For a start, the funding may only kick in after we have left the EU, as it starts
The beginning of March marks the start of car buying season with drivers keen to snap up a motor with the new registration plates. Some dealerships reckon interest jumps by as much as 25 per cent in new registration months. If you’re thinking about spending your cash on a new runaround, there’s a good reason
It’s fair to say that Philip Hammond hasn’t charmed Fleet Street with his Spring Budget. There is little sympathy even from newspapers inclined to agree with a Conservative assessment of how to run the economy. Broken promises are potent in politics – just ask the Liberal Democrats. The Tories made their tax lock pledge in
As politicians and hacks alike turn their ire on Philip Hammond this afternoon over his decision to row back on a 2015 Tory manifesto pledge, you’d be forgiven for thinking not much else is going on. So, Mr S was curious to learn that today is the day George Osborne’s salary as an advisor to
Would it take much to turn Philip Hammond into Dracula? He’s got the gaunt bearing, the unsettling gaze, the greedy overbite and the louring stature of the blood-sucking count. Add an opera cape and a dab of mascara and the costume would be complete. So it’s strange to see this vampiric figure delivering a budget
This afternoon Philip Hammond has found himself the subject of much bad press over his decision to break a 2015 Tory manifesto pledge and raise national insurance for the self-employed. But is Hammond the person to blame? Mr S only asks as it turns out that those involved with the 2015 Conservative manifesto might not have
Oh dear. Although today’s Budget was expected to be rather boring, it’s shaping up to be a lot more interesting than Philip Hammond had intended. The Chancellor’s decision to break a 2015 Tory manifesto pledge and raise National Insurance Contributions (Class 4) by two per cent for self-employed workers has left many in uproar. But surely Hammond can
The government is in trouble over the National Insurance increase for the self-employed. Journalists are busy pointing out that the Tory manifesto explicitly said that there would be no increases in National Insurance. But Philip Hammond’s allies are—rather absurdly—claiming that the Budget keeps this manifesto promise as the post-election tax lock law only refers to
There is a very big winner from today’s budget. Not adults in social care, not schools, but Ukip. Philip Hammond has handed a huge political opportunity: to position itself as the party of the self-employed: the taxi driver, the brickie, the plumber, the small shop-owner. These used to be natural Tories. From today, with Hammond
Philip Hammond had, in his first few months of Chancellor, gained rather a reputation for being an ‘Eeyore’ about the consequences of Brexit. In the run-up to today’s Budget, it was briefed that he would be much more upbeat about things, while also storing up a ‘war chest’ to guard against any future shocks to
Some thoughts on today’s Budget: Hammond breaks Tory promise not to raise National Insurance. Breaks his word, hits 15pc of workforce, raises a pittance. The pledge was made no fewer than four times in the 2015 Conservative Manifesto: no rises in VAT, income tax or National Insurance. And after the election, a law was then passed
Jeremy Corbyn now has more experience of responding to Budgets than the Chancellor of the Exchequer who he stood opposite today. So did the Labour leader offer a good response to Philip Hammond’s statement today? The answer will depend on how you evaluate Budget responses. If you’re expecting the Leader of the Opposition to look
Mr Deputy Speaker, I report today on an economy that has continued to confound the commentators with robust growth. A labour market delivering record employment. And a deficit down by over two-thirds. As we start our negotiations to exit the European Union, this Budget takes forward our plan to prepare Britain for a brighter future.
We all know that Brexit means Brexit – but not if you’re Jeremy Corbyn, it seems. During his response to Philip Hammond’s Budget announcement, the leader of the opposition made a blunder which Mr S suspects he’s not going to be allowed to forget any time soon. ‘Our economy is not prepared for breakfast,’ Corbyn
Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions was a good example of how Jeremy Corbyn’s inability to be nimble on his feet lets him down. The Labour leader had a perfect peg for his questions about social care, which was last night’s leak of recordings in which Surrey Council leader David Hodge spoke of a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’. His
There’s a lot happening today. It’s International Women’s Day, Discover What Your Name Means Day, and we’re right in the middle of National Pie Week. Oh, and it’s the Spring Budget. Mindful of at least two of these events, Theresa May has revealed a new £5 million fund to help mothers return to work after
Given that Theresa May is known to take issue with anything she perceives to be ‘mansplaining’, men are well-advised to refrain from speaking in a condescending manner when in the Prime Minister’s presence. But Lord Heseltine appears to hold no such qualms. After receiving the sack from the government over his Lords rebellion on the Article
Philip Hammond has finished his Budget announcement. The stand out points? £2bn in funding for social care – although only half will come in the next year; money for new schools; help for businesses – including pubs – that will be hit hardest by the business rates hike. There’s only one policy which will grab
Philip Hammond doesn’t do box office. Unlike his predecessor George Osborne, he doesn’t do burgers either, with his austere pre-budget picture showing the Chancellor looking characteristically gloomy as, we’re told, he prepares Britain to be ‘match fit’ for the future. So what do we know about Hammond’s first – and last – spring Budget? For
Tonight the government suffered its second Article 50 bill defeat in the House of Lords. Peers backed an amendment calling for a ‘meaningful’ parliamentary vote on the final terms of withdrawal from the EU by 366 votes to 268. Heralding the result, Lord Heseltine said Parliament must be the ‘custodian of national sovereignty’. The bill will now
On the eve of the Budget, the row about whether ministers struck a ‘sweetheart deal’ with Surrey Council on social care funding to stop the local authority from having to hold a referendum on raising council tax has blown up again. BBC Surrey has recorded extracts of a meeting between council leader David Hodge and
Oh dear. Of late, Mr S has kept readers up to date with the antics of today’s Stepford students. From students at LSE submitted a motion to ban the university’s free-speech society to City University students banning newspapers at the institution famed for its journalism school. Now it’s the turn of young Conservatives. Over at Lincoln
If you want to judge the extent of the crisis that is paralysing the left, look at this morning’s Guardian. On the one hand you have an article from Abi Wilkinson, who tellingly doesn’t even mention the Labour leader’s name. Convincingly to my mind, Wilkinson argues that the May government ought to be in all kinds
It’s a curiosity of the 21st century that there is no one quite as bigoted as the person who screams ‘bigot!’ all the time. More often than not, those who casually brand as bigots anyone who has the temerity to hold a different point of view to theirs are the ones behaving with bigotry. Consider
Downing Street has rejected William Hague’s call for a snap general election. The former Conservative leader argues in his Telegraph column today that this would ‘strengthen the government’s hand at home and abroad’, but Number 10 says this isn’t something Theresa May ‘plans to do or wishes to do’. Theresa May is often compared to
After this week, the centrepiece of the financial year is being shunted to the Autumn. Good news, no doubt, for the city bigwigs, fund managers, chief executives and financial hacks and flacks who’d rather be betting on which horse will romp home at Cheltenham than which tax relief, pension allowance or benefit will be axed
Although the Corbynites are at pains to promote Rebecca Long-Bailey as Jeremy Corbyn’s socialist successor, not everyone seems so convinced. In fact, Mr S understands that Labour moderates yesterday took action to stop the shadow business secretary from joining an upcoming by-election selection panel. After Manchester Gorton MP Gerald Kaufman passed away this month, the hunt
Social care is in crisis. Everyone knows that – or at least likes to say so to sound well-informed. It is Westminster’s latest trendy crisis – rich with case studies of elderly people trapped in hospital for weeks, or trapped in their beds at home with one flying fifteen minute visit a day in which