George osborne

Sunday

James Forsyth

Transparency, not state funding

Cutting the 50p rate was economically the right thing to do, but the politics of it are hugely complicated. The biggest danger is that it bolsters the sense that the Conservatives are the political wing of the privileged classes. For this reason, it is particularly unfortunate for the Conservatives that it is this Sunday that The Sunday Times has done an expose (£) on how potential donors were being lured with the offer of supper with Cameron and Osborne and the chance to influence policymaking. Labour are already trying to link the two, asking the Prime Minister to ‘provide details of all donors who have made representations, both written and

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The borrowing behind Osborne’s Budget

Will George Osborne’s refusal to look again at high levels of state spending become the greatest risk to Britain’s economic stability? There have been plenty of rude comments about the Chancellor’s supposed tactical ineptitude in the weekend press, but he has still managed to keep on borrowing and have almost no one notice. Osborne’s iron commitment is to spending, and a programme of cuts which total just under 1 per cent a year. His commitment to deficit reduction is flexible, as his three Budgets have demonstrated: Osborne spent the election campaign berating Labour for its lack of ambition in halving the deficit in four years. He’s now doing it in

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why access Cameron? The Lib Dems would be an easier target…

Why would anyone pay £250,000 to change Tory policy when the Liberal Democrats would do it for £2.50 and a hug? The brilliant Sunday Times investigation today makes you wonder whether businessmen don’t actually realise that out that, in this coalition, it doesn’t matter what you persuade David Cameron of. Policy is decided by horsetrading with the Lib Dems, who wield disproportionate power (for good or for ill). For example, Osborne was personally inclined to bring the top rate of tax down to 40p, but the Lib Dems told him they’d only allow this in exchange for their mansion tax. Cameron refused to do the deal, so 45p it was.

Peter Hoskin

The ‘next big scandal’ detonates under Cameron

‘It will be awesome for your business.’ So said Peter Cruddas, co-treasurer of the Tory party, as he tried to peddle access to David Cameron for £250,000 a shot. Only he wasn’t talking to businessmen this time; he was talking to a couple of investigative reporters from the Sunday Times (£), who were armed with dictaphones and video cameras. And, as the resulting footage shows, he blustered himself over the edge. A ‘premier league’ of donors was spoken of, whose ideas are ‘fed in’ to Downing Street’s policy process. There was a claim that the biggest donors can be invited for dinner at Cameron’s private flat in No.10, where they

Friday

Jonathan Jones

What did the public make of the Budget?

After weeks of hearing what people think about the policies that Osborne might’ve adopted, we now have the first evidence of what they make of the Budget itself. Today’s YouGov poll lists eight of its main policies, and it seems they fit into three broad groups. First, the very popular ones: raising the personal allowance and increasing stamp duty for £2 million houses. Second, those backed by the majority but not so overwhelmingly: the corporation tax cut, the child benefit changes, Sunday trading during the Olympics and the tobacco duty rise. And finally, the unpopular measures: cutting the 50p tax rate and phasing out the extra personal allowance for over-65s.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Osborne needs to speed up

Will the Budget make a difference? Nowadays, we have a quick and easy guide: Box 3.1 from the Office for Budget Responsibility — otherwise known as the ‘blind bit of difference’ test. Sure, Budgets can make your hot takeaway lunch 20 per cent more expensive and your cigarettes cost £7.50 a packet, but the question, in a recession, is whether any stardust can be found between its pages. Whether it will be do anything for jobs, the deficit or economic growth. The Budget nowadays is handed to the OBR in advance of publication and assessed for its impact on the economy. The verdict: speeding up the corporation tax cut (another welcome move, and brave

Thursday

Jonathan Jones

The IFS gives its Budget verdict

The Institute for Fiscal Studies’ briefing is always a good place to pick up a few interesting nuggets of detail about the Budget — and this year’s is no exception. Here are five of the most striking points from their presentation this morning: 1. Beyond the next election. In November, Osborne caused a stir by announcing that — in order to meet his fiscal target — further spending cuts would be needed after 2015. Annex A of the Budget gives some more detail on this, and the IFS has crunched the numbers even further. They calculate that the fiscal consolidation from 2009-10 to 2016-17 will total £123 billion and that

The Spectator

Transcript: Osborne defends his Budget

Here’s the full transcript of this morning’s Today programme interview with George Osborne: Evan Davis: If you believe in using the tax system to cut the incomes of those at the top and in using the welfare system to hand money to the poor, then yesterday’s budget was probably not for you. The Chancellor  hinted at big further cuts to welfare and he clearly thinks the tax system has gone too far in trying to harvest cash from those at the top. Yes, he’s ironing out some loopholes but for him 50p rates don’t work. Believe him, and the game’s over for those who want government to iron out the

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Why Osborne saved Wallace and Gromit

‘It is the determined policy of this government to keep Wallace and Gromit exactly where they are.’ So proclaimed George Osborne in his Budget speech yesterday, as he announced new tax credits for the video games, animation and televesion industries. But what prompted this? Had he been reading The Spectator? In an interview for the magazine a couple of months ago, Miles Bullough — head of broadcast at Aardman Animations, the studio that produces Wallace and Gromit — told Lloyd Evans of the competition that the British animation industry faces from other countries where the governments do offer subsidies, and the need for something similar here. Here’s the full interview:

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Osborne hopes business will see past the bad headlines

Today’s front pages concentrate on the so-called ‘granny tax’, the surprise of the Budget. But the real test of this Budget is going to be whether it delivers growth. If it does, then it will make a Tory majority in 2015 more likely. If it doesn’t, then the decision to cut the 50p rate will become even more politically problematic.   Given that the Budget is fiscally neutral, this growth is going to have come from either the couple of supply side measures in the Budget or by finding a way to unleash those elusive animal spirits. Indeed, I think this desire to boost confidence is one of the main

The Spectator

The Spectator’s Budget briefing

What was really in George Osborne’s Budget? Last night we held an event, in association with Aberdeen Asset Management, to discuss just that. Click here for a free pdf copy of the briefing paper produced for the event.

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Tory MPs welcome the Budget

George Osborne and David Cameron have just addressed the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers. They received the traditional desk banging reception and Tory MPs seemed in good spirits as they left the meeting. Interestingly, they were nearly all relaxed about the increase in the personal allowance, believing that they would get the credit just as much — if not more than — the Liberal Democrats. One told me that ‘the public view this as a Conservative government when things are going well and a coalition one when things are going badly’. Perhaps the biggest piece of news out of the meeting is that Osborne offered Tory MPs considerable encouragement that

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Balls goes on the attack against 45p

Ed Balls committed Labour to voting against the reduction in the 50p rate at his post-Budget briefing. But he wouldn’t say whether or not Labour would pledge to restore it in their manifesto; sticking to the classic opposition line that all decisions on tax will be made in the manifesto and not before. Balls, though, was on typically pugilistic form; few politicians relish a scrap as much as he does. The Labour leadership clearly view the abolition of the 50p rate as a major political opening for them. Balls went out of his way to attack the HMRC report that Osborne used to justify the move. He mockingly declared that

James Forsyth James Forsyth

All that matters now is growth

With every Budget, the early Cameron emphasis on greenery and General Well Being not Gross Domestic Product seems a more distant memory. Today’s Budget showed that, to Osborne at least, growth now trumps these more abstract concerns.   So, we saw an announcement that the planning rules would come into force pretty much as planned from next Tuesday. This means that Osborne has simply overridden all the bureaucratic and legal objections from DCLG. Although, I understand that councils who already have a sufficiently pro-development local plan will have a year to adjust to the new rules.   Sunday trading rules, a classic bit of General Well Being paternalism, are also

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Lib Dems are happy with what they got

This Budget told us something interesting about the coalition: that there’s more juice left in it than some of us thought. Judging by recent coalition tensions, one might have expected the two parties to devote their time to blocking each other’s proposals. But, instead, they’ve struck a deal that suits both of their political priorities: the Liberal Democrats have got a sizeable increase in the personal allowance, the Tories a 2p cut in corporation tax and a reduction in the economically destructive 50p rate. Interestingly, close allies of the Deputy Prime Minister are now briefing that ‘differentiation’, pointing out where the Lib Dems disagree with the Tories, will be dialled

Peter Hoskin

Behind Osborne’s 50p tax change

How significant was this Budget? On an economic level, not very. There’s no discernible impact on growth: all of the main forecasts have more or less stayed the same since the Autumn Statement. Borrowing is the tiniest bit lower, mainly thanks to a £23 billion accountancy trick with Royal Mail pensions. And even many of the policies announced today will barely rouse the Exchequer’s attention. That cut in the top rate of income tax to 45p? It will mean only £100 million a year less in direct revenues. That stamp duty increase for properties worth over £2 million? It will net only £300 million a year. The overall effect is

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Twelve points about the Budget

There’s much to applaud in this budget, but as ever we in Coffee House are focusing on things jumping out from the small print. Here are a few things I’ve noticed so far. 1. Don’t mention QE. In his Pre-Budget Report, Osborne was candid about his economic policy: ‘fiscal conservatism, but monetary activism’. That is to say, fiddling about on the margins with taxes, while the Bank of England — 100 per cent owned by the Treasury — is midway through the largest QE experiment ever attempted in the developed world. It is impossible to understand Osborne’s economic policy, his Budget and those it affects without also considering the effects

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A Budget by and for the coalition

The coalition has found the second year of co-habitation more difficult than the first and it will find the coming year even more difficult given that House of Lords reform is on the agenda. But today’s Budget is a reminder of the political benefits of coalition. When George Osborne stands up today and announces, for instance, the reduction in the 50p rate he will do so with the support of two parties. Equally, a minority Tory government wouldn’t have been able to get more spending cuts to help finance a tax cut through parliament. It also seems that there should be measures in the Budget to please both Tory and

Peter Hoskin

A fistful of questions on Budget morning

Thanks to Budget purdah, we’re all in the dark about what will be in George Osborne’s Red Book today. Oh, sorry, that’s wrong, don’t know what I was thinking. Truth is that, unless the Chancellor has some monumental surprises lined up, we’ve actually heard about much of the Budget in advance. We know, for instance, not just that he’ll cut the top rate of tax from 50p to 45p, but also — courtesy of Andrew Grice in the Independent today — the internal political slog by which he reached that decision. Thanks to the proclivities of coalition government, this has to be one of the most pre-briefed Budgets ever. There