George osborne

Thursday

Steerpike

Chumocracy and Cameron: the most curious dissolution honours

The 2015 Dissolution Peerages have been announced today, following much rumour about who might receive one. While Mr S’s colleague Sebastian Payne has the full list over on Coffee House, it’s safe to say the appointments haven’t done much to improve public opinion of the honours system; former spads and out-of-work politicians make up a large chunk of the list. But then again, what did people expect from the man who awarded his barber Claudio Carbosiero an MBE last year for ‘services to hairdressing’? Mr S has compiled a list of the most intriguing appointments from the Cameron camp: 1. As expected — and to the dismay of cybernats everywhere — Michelle Mone — the founder of Ultimo

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cameron’s new army of Tory loyalists

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thereturnofassisteddying/media.mp3″ title=”Isabel Hardman and James Cleverly MP discuss the 2015 Tory intake” startat=1121] Listen [/audioplayer]Time was when the Conservatives believed that a small majority — which puts a government at the mercy of backbench rebels — would be worse than no majority at all. They dreaded the prospect. But now, well into their third month celebrating a majority of just 12 seats, it’s clear they’ve forgotten their fears about how precarious things could be. They talk as if they can now do anything — including implementing their manifesto in its entirety. It won’t take long for David Cameron to discover the truth. In any controversial vote, people will rebel

Friday

Steerpike

Aristocrats, champagne and a Rolex: George Osborne's 21st birthday bash

Although Tatler received a boost to its readership following the BBC’s ‘Posh People: Inside Tatler’, a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the magazine, for some ‘posh people’ the society bible has long been essential reading. One such man who fits this description is none other than the current Chancellor of the Exchequer. Thanks to Tatler‘s Bystander archive, Mr S has been granted a glimpse into the 21st birthday celebrations of a young Gideon Osborne. https://twitter.com/sophiamcoutts/status/634681872321265664 His party was covered by the magazine back in 1992, and shows that Osborne enjoyed a bash at the trendy Groucho club where guests toasted him ‘endlessly’ with champagne. While Osborne nowadays tends to play down his wealthy background in the face of

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 13 August 2015

Islington isn’t indifferent Sir: I was shocked to read Mary Wakefield’s article accusing Islington’s middle classes of ‘extreme indifference’ to the death of our young people (1 August). As the local MP and a resident of N1, I can assure you that all these losses are deeply felt. It is provocative to suggest that there is a ‘strange apartheid’ in my constituency — and profoundly offensive to try to link this to the deaths of black and white youngsters. I can assure you that both I and my constituents are deeply saddened by the deaths of any Islington lads, such as Alan Cartwright, Stefan Appleton, Joseph Burke-Monerville and Henry Hicks.

Peter Jones

Boris’s waiting game

While the Labour party rakes over its past in an effort to find a policy for its future, the commentators continue to speculate about Boris’s role, if any, in a Tory party increasingly dominated by chancellor George Osborne. Romans would have sympathised. Life in the imperial court in Rome was not necessarily one long orgy. One’s fortunes rested precariously on the good will of the emperor, who could inspire both love, hate and fear, as the philosopher Epictetus pointed out, because he had the ‘power to confer the greatest advantages’ such as ‘wealth and office — tribunates, praetorships, consulships’. In a striking image Epictetus envisaged men in the court scrabbling for

Monday

Isabel Hardman

What’s so bad about professional politicians anyway?

If you’re at all ambitious in Westminster these days, the most important thing is to show that you’re not a professional politician. Generally, the accepted definition of ‘professional politician’ is someone who has done something normal as far away from Westminster as possible before entering Parliament. But some alter the standard definition at their convenience to also mean ‘has a northern accent’ or ‘isn’t from a posh family or school’. That second may make someone stand out in Parliament: given how expensive it is to stand in an election, it helps if you’ve got wealth of some kind, and private schools are disproportionately represented in Parliament. Today Andy Burnham has released

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Could tax credit cuts undermine the Tory claim to be the 'Workers' Party'?

The Tories are on a mission to brand themselves the Workers’ Party while Labour messes about with its leadership contest. The party has got the energetic Robert Halfon as its Deputy Chairman, and he is fizzing with ideas on how to improve the Conservative appeal to working class voters to the extent that they start seeing the Tories as their natural home, not Labour. Labour types might scoff, but if the past few months have taught us anything, it’s that you cannot take ‘your’ voters for granted as staying ‘yours’, with Scotland being the prime example. As I explain in the Sun today, the party has plans to get on

Thursday

Martin Vander Weyer

The Libor trader’s long stretch is a big message to the banking world

Fourteen years is a long stretch. The punishment imposed on former UBS and Citigroup trader Tom Hayes for his role as ‘the hub of the conspiracy’ to rig yen Libor rates is the same as the maximum sentence for burglary with intent to commit GBH. Even though no public attempt has been made to quantify his fraudulent profits or identify victims, Hayes’s punishment is twice that imposed on rogue trader Kweko Adeboli, who lost UBS $2.3 billion — both having pleaded ‘not guilty’. With remission, Hayes will serve about half the term: Adeboli, jailed in late 2012, came out this June. But even so, the socially awkward Hayes has forfeited

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

The Osborne Powerhouse is paying off: Chancellor soars ahead of other leadership rivals

George Osborne is having a good summer. He got in first with wooing the new intake of Tory MPs, to the extent that many of them seem slightly besotted with the warm and friendly Chancellor who welcomes them cheerily to drinks events. He humiliated Boris Johnson with jokes about his ‘dilapidated’ campaign bunker – and was at the very least rather pleased that Theresa May ended up humiliating the Mayor by refusing to approve the use of water cannon in London. Now he’s top of the ConHome Tory leader survey for the first time. The Chancellor has risen nine points and got the support of 30.9 per cent of the

Monday

Steerpike

Breaking: Tory leadership contest underway

Water cannons at the ready: the Tory leadership contest is officially underway. How does Mr S know this? Well, in a clear sign that George Osborne means business, he has changed his Twitter profile picture. Osborne is now in Conservative blue, offering a confident grin as he embarks on his campaign to move into Number 10. The new photo also displays a slimline Osborne in contrast to the old photo, which depicted a more laid back Chancellor. While Mr S will of course keep readers updated as Boris Johnson and Theresa May develop their online presences, Steerpike can’t help wonder why Osborne didn’t opt for this week’s cover image of Octo-Osborne…

Thursday

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: the Osborne supremacy and why Labour's grassroots don't matter

George Osborne reigns supreme over Westminster — how did he end up with all this power? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Isabel Hardman discusses our cover piece on the Chancellor’s dominance with George Parker from the Financial Times. As the de facto deputy Prime Minister, is the Chancellor a shoe in to succeed David Cameron? How has Osborne won over once-sceptical Tory MPs? And how significant was his image makeover? Former Labour adviser John McTernan also discuss whether the modernisers in the Labour are stuck in the past and why the party is falling in love with Jeremy Corbyn. If Corbyn wins the leadership contest, what will the Blairites do next? How long would he last running the party? And

Sebastian Payne

George Osborne hires Economist journalist to chair Council of Economic Advisers

George Osborne has recruited Richard Davies, The Economist’s economics editor, to replace Rupert Harrison as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Coffee House understands. This position is essentially the Chancellor’s top economic adviser, although Thea Rogers has taken on Harrison’s chief of staff role. Harrison was one of the most influential figures in the last government and was responsible for creating and implementing much of the government’s economic policy — so much so that the Chancellor joked at his leaving party ‘it has been an honour to play a role in the Harrison chancellorship’. He left the Treasury after the general election and has since gone to work in the City. His replacement has plenty of experience

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Osborne rules

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/theosbornesupremacy/media.mp3″ title=”Isabel Hardman and George Parker discus how George Osborne rules Westminster” startat=38] Listen [/audioplayer]Against the heavy artillery fire of the Labour leadership battle, the struggle of the Conservative leadership contest goes almost undetected outside Westminster. It is no less intense, even though the Conservatives will not elect a new leader for at least three years. After a week of the parliamentary recess, there is no question about who is winning. This week, for the first time, George Osborne overtook Boris Johnson as William Hill’s favourite. Not so long ago, Osborne was a mere limpet on David Cameron’s wetsuit, clinging on thanks to the patronage of his boss. Booed

Wednesday

Sebastian Payne

George Osborne: Britain must work with France to build a trade relationship with the EU

George Osborne has revealed the aim of Britain’s EU renegotiation: to move our relationship back towards a trading partnership. The Chancellor has told the Daily Telegraph he would like to see a paired down relationship focusing on economic matters: ‘I prefer to talk about it as a single market of free trade. It’s free trade with the rules that enable the free trade to be a real success. That’s the way I think we should think about it. ‘Britain has other interests at a European level. For example, the climate change talks that are happening in Paris at the end of this year. The security work that we do with the French. ‘But

Friday

Fraser Nelson

George Osborne's 'Living Wage' will soon set wages for 11pc of UK workers

George Osborne’s Budget plan to raise the minimum wage to £9.35 for over-25s was a surprise – which means it has not yet been much scrutinised. Ed Miliband’s £8 by 2020 pledge was pretty much a non-pledge as inflation would probably have taken the £6.50 minimum wage to £8 by the end of the decade anyway. So it would not be controlling a greater share of the workforce; Miliband’s apparent generosity was a trick of inflation. But Osborne goes far further; and this has implications. The chief question, to me, is: what share of the workforce will have their wages set by the government under the proposed National Living Wage

Thursday

Ross Clark

Stop moaning, start building

Housing associations are a bit like Network Rail. They are what Tony Blair christened his ‘Third Way’ between capitalism and socialism, in the hope they would combine the best elements of both. Instead, they combine some of the worst: public sector lethargy and private sector greed. According to a forthcoming investigation by Channel 4 News, 40 housing association executives are paid more than the Prime Minister for managing a pile of ex-council houses given to them on a plate and which were once managed by a clerk of works and a team of rent-collectors on no more than £30,000 a year. David Cameron’s government is making life a little harder

Monday

Fraser Nelson

Alistair Darling: why I changed my mind on tax credits

Last autumn, I presented a Ch4 documentary on inequality. I could have made three hours’ worth of that show – or written a book – but it was distilled down to 27 minutes so a lot was chopped. Including my interview with Alistair Darling about the malfunction of tax credits. (Our conversation to QE is above). I later quoted from the unused clip in the Daily Telegraph a while back: he said that tax credits had come to subsidise low wages “in a way that was never intended.” This must have caught the eye of a No10 speechwriter because this quote has ended up quoted by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor (who

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The benefit cut that isn't quite as it seems

MPs are voting on the Welfare Reform and Work Bill this afternoon, with the big story being about Labour turmoil over the second reading. Harriet Harman’s amendment looks rather forlorn on the order paper this morning, with just five frontbenchers signed up to support it. Helen Goodman, who was explaining why she was pressing ahead with her own rebel amendment on this morning’s Today programme, has 57 MPs — not all of them Labour — supporting her motion. The difference between the two amendments is mainly that Goodman’s declines to give a second reading to the Bill and offers only the ‘potentially useful provisions on apprenticeships’ in its favour, while

Steerpike Steerpike

Is the Guardian about to endorse Jeremy Corbyn?

Despite frequent claims from both sides of the political spectrum that Labour leadership hopeful Jeremy Corbyn is ‘unelectable’, he has so far managed to win the endorsement of Unite as well as the highest number of nominations from constituency Labour parties. Could he now be on his way to an endorsement from the Guardian? Steerpike only asks after the Labour leadership hopeful was the guest of honour at today’s news conference at the paper. While it was Andy Burnham’s turn last week to grace the newsroom, Mr S is assured that Corbyn was the more popular of the two guests. In fact, such fan-mania hasn’t been witnessed since Hollywood star Benedict Cumberbatch paid the paper a visit:

Friday

Steerpike

George Osborne crashes Number 10 for Treasury party

When George Osborne stepped in for David Cameron at PMQs, it was seen as the Chancellor’s chance to show that he had what it takes to be Prime Minister. With that bit of housekeeping done, the Chancellor seemed to let his ambition to move into Number 10 go to his head last night. Osborne broke with tradition by hosting his summer party in the Number 10 garden, rather than the Treasury courtyard. However, as guests wandered through the Number 10 door to raise a glass to the Conservative leadership hopeful, there was one snag. Rather than the usual supply of delicate canapés, hungry hacks were invited to feast on an austerity-friendly spread of Doritos and pretzels.