All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
How much did Philip Hammond’s giveaway Budget help dying town centres? Not enough, say campaigners, but let’s give the Chancellor some credit. A one-third relief in business rates for retail properties with a rateable value of less than £51,000 means an annual saving of up to £8,000 for a huge number of small businesses; pubs
IN ASSOCIATION WITH Given the United Kingdom’s forthcoming departure from the European Union, few of us who follow the Chancellor’s Budget announcement closely were expecting 2018’s offering to be anything other than cautious, and so it came as little surprise that, once again, Philip Hammond has steered away from making any grand gestures. The unconventional
When Theresa May announced at this year’s Tory conference that she would put an end to austerity, it’s safe to say that her Chancellor hardly looked thrilled as he clapped from the front row of the hall. Philip Hammond is regarded as a fiscal hawk and rather averse to loosening the purse strings. At today’s
As Nick Clegg, George HW Bush and many other politicians have proved to their cost, manifesto promises matter. How damaging, then, will Philip Hammond’s brazen abandonment of the 2017 Conservative pledge be, whereby financial discipline was supposed to ‘guide us to a balanced budget by the middle of next decade’? Now, Hammond seems to be
Philip Hammond held the Budget today to avoid a bunch of Halloween jokes about a zombie economy and so on. To compensate, the Chancellor brought a bunch of random sentences in fancy dress as ‘jokes’. There were inexplicable quips about poaching rabbits, a medley of toilet puns accompanying funding for keeping public conveniences open, and
Poor old Philip Hammond. In a bid to raise some laughs during his Budget announcement, the Chancellor made a series of gags that fell somewhat flat in the Commons. But there was one big laugh in the chamber. Unfortunately for Hammond, though, it came after he made a reference to his budget next year. ‘You
Ever keen to show that there’s a man lurking behind the Spreadsheet, Chancellor Philip Hammond usually uses his Budget speech to crack a few jokes, and try to convince the country he possesses a sense of humour. This year was no exception, but whether he managed to achieve anything close to comedy, Mr S will
It is impossible to overstate Angela Merkel’s significance, to Germany, to the EU, and to Britain. Others are better qualified than me to talk about the first two of those, but as she announces her (slow, deliberate) departure from office, I offer a thought about Merkel and Britain, which is that the modern history of Britain’s
Brexit overshadows this Budget. The story this morning has all been about Number 10 saying that the Budget won’t change in the event of no deal, in apparent contradiction of what Philip Hammond said yesterday. In truth, no deal would—obviously—have consequences for the public finances but the government’s initial reaction would be to try and
If anyone is wondering who is No 10’s least favourite MP today, Mr Steerpike’s money is firmly on former education minister Justine Greening. The Remainer MP has been a thorn in Theresa May’s side as of late, but she ramped up the disloyalty this Budget day, when she told told ITV’s Good Morning that she
Philip Hammond has delivered his final Budget before Brexit. The Chancellor said that the era of austerity is coming to an end as he pledged extra cash for no deal preparations and slapped a digital services tax on tech giants such as Facebook and Google. He also revealed that the OBR has upped its growth
This week on the Spectator USA Life ’n’ Arts podcast, I’m casting the pod with Matthew Hennessey. He’s an editor at the Wall Street Journal, and also the author of Zero Hour for Gen X: How the Last Adult Generation Can Save America from the Millennials (Encounter Books). It’s a fascinating read: part-political obituary of
One of the joys of Budget analysis is looking for the unexploded bombs, the measures that could – to use the traditional verb – unravel and cause the Chancellor future torment. I’m not claiming to have spotted a confirmed UXB here, but there are several signs in the Budget papers that suggest that the changes to Universal
Mr Deputy Speaker, Today, I present to the House a Budget for Britain’s future; A budget that shows the perseverance of the British people finally paying off. A Budget for hard working families, who live their lives far from this place and care little for the twists and turns of Westminster politics. People who get up early in the morning to open
“May Day, May Day. We are sinking.” “This is the German Coast Guard. What are you thinking?” This advert for Berlitz, the language school, is a good metaphor for German politics and the decline of Angela Merkel. After this weekend’s election blow in Hesse, where support for her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party fell by
Should you be allowed to say that the founder of one of the world’s largest religions was a paedophile? According to the European Court of Human Rights the answer is ‘no’. In a decision issued this week the Court in Strasbourg ruled that this statement is defamatory towards the prophet of Islam, ‘goes beyond the
Budget day is upon us and it’s safe to say that expectations have been set rather low when it comes to Philip Hammond’s big moment. The Chancellor has said he plans to remain a fiscal hawk – and warned that there will be a brand new Budget in the new year should a ‘no deal’
With the Budget due on Monday, today’s highlights have come chiefly from the leading Treasury figures of the two major parties. Sophy Ridge was joined this morning by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Hammond, who is known to be wary about the UK’s impending departure from the EU’s economic framework, told Ridge that tomorrow’s Budget
There is much shock professed about the metaphors used to describe Mrs May’s political plight — talk of the ‘killing zone’, or her being stabbed, and worse. I feel this shock myself, but in fact such metaphors are routine in politics and almost always have been. Think, for example, of Harold Macmillan’s ‘Night of the
‘Once is an accident,’ wrote Ian Fleming in Goldfinger, ‘Twice is a coincidence. Three times is an enemy action.’ That Cesar Sayoc, the Chippendale with a bomb in his pocket, mailed his pipe bombs to leading Democrats is no accident. That Robert Bowers, his paranoia fanned by online incitement, decided to massacre Jews at Philadelphia’s Tree of Life synagogue is
He is bare-chested, muscular and not unattractive. A Palestinian flag blazes in one hand, a slingshot is strained taut in the other. All around him is smoke and press photographers. Aed Abu Amro, a 20-year-old Gazan, is rioting on the boundary between the Hamas-run statelet and Israel’s southern frontier. The terrorist organisation has been fomenting
This year’s Orwell Lecture will be delivered by the novelist Kamila Shamsie. She will be complaining, it is announced, about this government’s talk of citizenship being ‘a privilege and not a right’. (Actually, it is both.) No doubt she will have interesting points to make, but it is a pity that Orwell’s flame is always
Sir: What James Forsyth calls ‘the EU plan’ to keep Northern Ireland in the customs union after Brexit (‘The Irish problem’, 20 October) would no more ‘ease Northern Ireland away from the UK and push it more towards Dublin’s orbit’ than it has already done itself through numerous legislative differences. With regard to social issues such
Monday’s Budget comes at a delicate point in the Brexit negotiations. I say in The Sun this morning, that a bolder government and Chancellor would turn this timing to their advantage. They would use this Budget to give a preview of what the UK would do in the event of no deal. No deal planning
For the latest competition you were invited to supply a demotivational poem. This was your opportunity to come up with a bracing antidote to the worldview peddled by an eye-wateringly lucrative self-help industry that feeds on a mix of insecurity and the aspirational narcissism du jour. You came at the challenge from various angles, but
Campus censorship is a myth. That’s the new line being spun by student union officials and university leaders in response to the campaigners, commentators and politicians raising concerns about the increasingly censorious culture on British campuses. The extent of No Platforming, Safe Space censorship and newspaper bans, they say, is being exaggerated by right-wing hacks
If there’s one thing trans women really don’t need in our lives, it’s bollocks – but that’s exactly what the Labour Party is offering us. Last week, Jeremy Corbyn used a speech at the Pinknews Awards to announce that it is now official Labour policy to give literally any person the right to self-declare their
The Conservatives used to be known as the party of business. Theresa May still seems to be trying to keep up the pretence, saying in her conference speech that the Conservatives are ‘a party that believes in business’. But the proof is in the pudding, and this pudding is turning sour. Fast. The Budget rumour
Somehow it has already been two years into a Trump presidency, and America is facing midterm elections. Will Democrats win in a landslide? We also delve a little deeper at the political faultlines behind the Jamal Khashoggi story – is Turkey taking advantage of his death? And last, is the use of wild animals in
Do you remember that brief couple of weeks in British history when we all had to say ‘I agree with Nick’? It seems a long time ago, and now Sir Nick Clegg is off to Silicon Valley to be the head of Facebook’s global affairs and communications team. Some sneer, but the move makes perfect
For all the praise heaped on Peter Hain for revealing the details of a legal case subject to injunction, there’s been depressingly little acknowledgement of what this really means: namely that a senior politician has fundamentally undermined the rule of law. Hain – who, unlike many of his peers, has never been a lawyer– has
It’s over a year since the #MeToo scandal of sexual harassment broke. It has shaken up our culture and relationships in so many ways over the past 12 months. It isn’t going away, either, as the allegations about Sir Philip Green this week have shown. But it has now reached a point where it could
The British press has been unable to name the famous businessman who has taken out an injunction against the Daily Telegraph to prevent it reporting on the multiple allegations of sexual harassment, racist abuse and bullying against him. But such laws do not apply to parliament where, in the House of Lords, Peter Hain named this person
The consensus in the Conservative party is that Theresa May’s visit to the 1922 Committee last night hasn’t materially changed anything. Those who want her gone are still plotting her demise. A larger group of her MPs are very frustrated and unhappy. And there are still a good number of loyalists prepared to make supportive