All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
George Osborne has just set the scene for tonight’s Chancellors’ debate by announcing something neither Darling or Cable will be able to match: a tax cut. It’s a real one, it will benefit some 20m workers and (best of all) it will be paid for by spending cuts. While the amount is not huge –
There’s little doubting it: the Tory plan to (at least partially) reverse Labour’s national insurance hike has handed George Osborne a high-calibre weapon for tonight’s TV debate. It is, I suspect, an attractive and attention-grapping policy in itself. But it also helps the shadow Chancellor paint the Tories as the party of aspiration. Or, as
Elections really are pretty grim. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been overseas for some of them (well, 1997 and 2005) that this one seems especially awful. First there’s the rash of “celebrity endorsements”* which are themselves enough to make one abandon any remaining hope. I mean, if the Tories are “backed” by Ulrika Jonsson, John McCririck,
We’ll have more details tomorrow but, for now, Tim Montgomerie has the lowdown. As I said a few days ago, this is a smart move from the Tories, and gives them a good message to deploy on the doorsteps. Indeed, Tim has already drafted it for them: “Seven out of ten working people will be
Public sector net borrowing, public sector net debt, total managed expenditure, departmental expenditure limits … zzzzz. One of the main reasons why Labour has been able to fashion an economic narrative, against all odds, is because they can rely on some pretty esoteric language. Thus debt becomes interchangeable with deficit, and cuts can be hidden
Tomorrow’s Chancellor’s debate is going to be one of the key set pieces of the campaign. Labour are convinced that George Osborne is the weak link in the Tory campaign and their attempt to target him will be turned up another notch if he turns in a disappointing performance. Vince Cable will see this as
The debate in Tory circles about strategy earlier in the year was overly polarised. Some argued that the party should run a purely positive campaign, that going negative at all would just make voters see the Tories as the ‘nasty party’ again. Others thought that all the Tories needed to do to win, was to
It makes you proud to be British. Where resourcefulness and self-worth are concerned, our political class is unmatched. Former Sports minister and ambassador for the 2018 World Cup bid, Richard Caborn, has been stung by the Sunday Times soliciting influence for £2,500 a day ‘plus expenses, obviously’. Obviously Richard, we would expect nothing less from
The News of the World’s endorsement of the Conservatives today is worth reading. It has taken some time and much soul-searching for the paper to make this decision. Papers, even under the same proprietor, have different readerships with different outlooks on life. The Sun came out for the Tories on the last day of the
We’re operating in or around the margin of error here, so we can’t be certain whether this is truly the result of the Budget – but it’s still striking that three polls in tomorrow’s papers have growing Tory leads. The ICM poll for the News of the World has the Tories up one to 39
When your face has been slammed into a concrete pavement, as you take cover from the mortar fire, you struggle to think the best of your fellow man. I certainly did. I cursed the Iraqis who were firing at me, and swore at the Iranians who were arming them. Most of all, I thought “what
After reading Brown’s claims in the Guardian today, this Kill A Minister mechanism in his speech today rather jumped out at me: “I will set out a clear and public annual contract for each new Cabinet Minister, detailing what I expect them and their department to deliver to the British people, and that their continued
The prospect of Ed Balls as Chancellor is politically toxic. James Purnell resigned last summer because he was sounded out about taking the schools’ job that Balls held, which Purnell took as a sign that Brown was planning to make Balls Chancellor. Mandelson saved Brown’s skin that night only by reassuring the rest of the
So the Labour pledge card is back – and, this time, it’s a good deal more nebulous than in 1997 or 2001, but quite similar to 2005.* Here are the themes that Brown & Co. will be campaigning on: i) Secure our recovery ii) Raise family living standards iii) Build a high tech economy iv)
Never before has there been an election campaign in Britain with quite so many polls. The differences in the polls, which are quite considerable at the moment, also make it difficult to get a clear picture of what is going on. To further complicate things, the view from the ground seems slightly different from the
Here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the past week. Fraser Nelson presents a defence of Alistair Darling, and is unimpressed by George Osborne’s response to the Budget. James Forsyth says that Darling’s nothing Budget puts the ball in the Tories’ court, and laments another shaming day for Westminster. Peter Hoskin argues
Radley Balko thinks it’s the note of (mild) exasperation that makes this cover splendid. I agree. Jesus: Disappointing You for 2000 Years. As the man put it: Estragon: He should be here. Vladimir: He didn’t say for sure he’d come.
European leaders have now agreed to bail out Greece in a coordinated affair, involving the IMF and bilateral assistance. The Times has written this up as a grab for more centralisation of policy-making by European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, but even the Tories know that’s not true, as judge by William Hague’s calm remarks.
I’m at a loss. How can a government that will raise the national debt to £1.4 trillion be trusted to run the economy? The Daily Politics/Com Res poll shows that Labour is more trusted on the economy than the Tories; it indicts George Osborne’s political performance. As Fraser noted, Osborne blew an unprecedented opportunity on
The new issue of The Spectator leads on the next big story in British politics: the not-so-cold war for the Labour leadership. The first sign of a brutal civil war is mass evacuation, and we’ve seen that with Milburn, John Reid, Purnell etc. James’s cover piece takes you through the other dynamics. The war the
The weekend cannot come quick enough for Andrew Adonis. What an awful week. The BA strike wrecked travel; the absurd Stephen Byers dragged him into the lobbying scandal; the RMT voted in favour of Bob Crow’s surreal steam-era fantasy; and today comes the coup de grace: the High Court decides that the third Heathrow runway
Hey, look – this is what your kids learn in school these days. Those of you who are big fans of the Juche regime of Kim Jong il in North Korea will enjoy this from the MP Diane Abbott’s website. Poor little mites, having this sort of grotesque propaganda rammed down their throats. I dunno,
There’s been some hubbub on the good ol’ blogosphere about Darling’s claim that Labour spending cuts would be “deeper and tougher” than Thatcher’s. Did Thatcher actually cut spending? What would that indicatate about Labour’s plans? And so on. Part of the confusion is caused by the different metrics that are referred to as “spending”. So
Passing Health Care Reform has done some strange things to some pundits. Here, for instance, is Mark McKinnon, maverick strategist, former advisor to Dubya and McCain and also, of course, a lapsed Democrat: If you think politics have been partisan up until now, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The passage of this bill will only
Darling has now exposed as false the Brown/Balls dividing line of “investment vs cuts”. If Labour were to win, he said, the cuts would be worse than anything seen under Thatcher in the 1980s. This is Darling’s problem: he’s a dreadful liar. The IFS today laid out the scale of the cuts that would happen
After delivering an insipid, insufficient Budget yesterday, Alistair Darling has now smuggled a little bit of honesty into the fiscal debate. In interview with Nick Robinson, he has claimed that if Labour is re-elected its spending cuts “will be deeper and tougher” than Thatcher’s. Needless to say, that’s a message which will not sit well
At lunchtime, the press headed off to hear the referee’s verdict on the Budget. The Institute for Fiscal Studies is now so respected that its view of the Budget largely determines the news agenda. Its briefings are now so popular that they can no longer be held in their basement. So, journalists, economists and accountants
The producer and director behind the Dispatches lobbying sting, Philip Clothier, has a snappy article over at Prospect, in which he basically asks the question: how could MPs have been so stupid? But it’s his suggestion that some former ministers may have got off lightly which really caught my eye: “Meanwhile, one former Labour cabinet
Yesterday, Alistair Darling pledged £4 billion for the MoD, earmarked for Afghanistan. He did not specify what the cash would buy, presumably because the Defence Spending Review will take place after the election. But a day is a long time in politics and the forthcoming spending review no longer seems to be so decisive: BAE
One of the most eye-catching stories this morning comes courtesy of ConservativeHome: “As part of the pre-election package, ConservativeHome expects Mr Osborne to announce that a Tory government will cancel Labour’s National Insurance tax rise. The Tories will announce an alternative way of plugging the hole. Earlier this week Policy Exchange argued that the NI
Apologies for having been absent, but I’ve not been well; immobilized for a few days to the degree that even a slight movement caused severe pain and a pitiful whining noise to be emitted, in the direction of my wife, who has a rather put-upon expression right now. Serves you right, you might be thinking,
I was all set up to Fisk the post-Budget analysis which Darling normally gives to the Today programme after the Budget – but he wasn’t there. The Treasury refused to have him debate with Osborne which is what Today (unusually) seems to have assumed. Well, we’d best get used to hearing Osborne post-Budget day. At
Strange days, indeed. While most of the frontpages today are unflattering for Labour – particularly, and unsurprisingly, those of the Telegraph and the Sun – I imagine that Brown & Co. will be quite pleased with the general tone of the Budget coverage. Much of it mirrors the Independent’s view that Darling “played a weak
A YouGov poll tonight has the Tory lead down to two points. The Tories are on 36, Labour 34 and the Lib Dems 17. Before we all get too excited about this narrowing of the Tory lead, we should note that the poll’s fieldwork was nearly all done before people were fully aware of what