George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said he would hold an emergency Budget on 22 June. He announced the setting up of an Office for Budget Responsibility under Sir Alan Budd, one of the original members of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee in 1997. The office would publish its first economic and
Monday I finally got the call! I hadn’t been left behind, they’d just forgotten to tell me I was hired until they realised there weren’t any pot plants. I’m pleased as punch to have my old job of Ambience Management back. I don’t mind if Poppy is Chief-of-staff-to-the-chief-of-staff. I wouldn’t want the responsibility. You know,
The last election in which I voted was that of 1997. On Blair’s brave glad morning I flew to Edinburgh for something, and as we touched down the intercom said, ‘Welcome to Scotland, a Tory-free zone.’ I thought — not a good thing for the national airline to be taking sides. On the way back
When George Osborne attended his first meeting of European finance ministers on Tuesday, he may well have felt a pang of pity for his Continental colleagues. True, Britain has the worst deficit and the most rampant inflation in Western Europe. True, Mr Osborne may have been outmanoeuvred over the regulation of hedge funds. But the
How quickly Nick Clegg is adapting to government doublespeak. He hailed a radical constitutional reform programme this week and declared that he is ‘taking away the government’s right to throw out parliament’. The reverse, in fact, is true. The coalition government proposes changing the constitution so it takes 55 per cent of MPs — rather
