Coalition

Cabinet ministers were relatively relaxed about yesterday’s march against the cuts—and rightly so. It did not make a sea-change in British politics and merely served to underline the lack of a credible alternative to what the coalition is doing. But what does worry ministers is where the growth is going to come from in the economy. The corporation tax cuts and the planning law changes are designed to help big business. But what the Prime Minister is more interested in is small businesses; hence tomorrow’s launch of Start-Up Britain by the Prime Minister. The scheme is designed to offer help—both technical and financial—to those looking to start a business. The

Lord Lawson has given George Osborne’s Budget an A-minus. Writing in today’s Times (£), the former chancellor said that his successor ‘got the big questions right’ by sticking to deficit reduction and assisting hard-pressed taxpayers where he could. The only blemish was the carbon price floor for the energy sector, which Lawson describes as ‘nothing less than an anti-growth strategy’.  Also, Lawson warns Osborne against uniting income tax and national insurance. Unsurprisingly, Mrs Thatcher’s great reforming chancellor looked into this measure and is convinced that it is a non-starter. ‘This superficially attractive reform, which is by no means a new idea, was known in the Treasury in my time as

Who would have thought it? Miliband’s short speech in Nottingham today went largely unheralded, and doesn’t seem to be getting a whole lot of attention now — and yet it tells us more about his approach to Opposition than almost anything he has said previously. Fact is, the Labour leader is taking two risks that may be either bold or foolhardy, depending on your point of view. These risks could come to define his Labour party. The first is splashed right across the entire speech. Miliband dwells on three “challenges” that the country will face over the coming decade: the “cost of living crisis”; declining prospects for the next generation;

Ed Balls has just delivered Labour’s Budget briefing. His main point was that the Office of Budget Responsibility now forecasts higher levels of unemployment than it did last autumn. He claimed that this would lead to a £12.6bn increase in spending on unemployment benefit. He also argued that the decision to increase tax thresholds by CPI rather than RPI was an effective tax increase and that it will hit the middle hardest. In a classic piece of Ballsian mischief, he reveled in pointing out that the Office of Budget Responsibility says that it received news of the extra cut in corporation tax and the 1p cut in fuel duty too

In stark contrast to 2003, when Gordon Brown delivered his Budget on the same day that Baghdad fell, the Treasury is phlegmatic about the Budget being overshadowed by Britain’s involvement in a conflict overseas. But the signs are that this will be, within the obvious fiscal constraints, an ambitious Budget. Tonight, we have had confirmation of a raise in the income tax allowance to £8,000, something that will please the Lib Dems . Tomorrow, we’ll almost certainly get at least one unexpected rabbit out of the hat. What we do know is that the Budget and the growth review will be built around four things: deregulation, planning reform, tax simplification