George osborne

The run-up to last year’s Budget was all about fuel duty. This year it’ll be all about direct taxes. The Lib Dems are determined to put their manifesto pledge of raising the income tax personal allowance to £10,000 front and centre. They already managed to turn this promise into government policy in the Coalition Agreement, and last year’s Budget announced that the threshold would rise to £8,105 in April this year. But Nick Clegg’s made clear that he wants to go ‘further and faster’ on this. The Conservative response at the Treasury – according to today’s Telegraph – is simple: ‘how are they going to pay for it?’ Initially, Nick

Moody’s doubts might not be making much difference to the actual economy, but they could make a good deal of difference to the political battle being waged over it. George Osborne, of course, is citing this as further proof of the need for fiscal consolidation. Ed Balls, meanwhile, is redoubling his call for a ‘change of course’ — and somewhat misleadingly too. But what does Mervyn King think? Thanks to his comments in a press conference this morning, we don’t have to guess. Here’s how Bloomberg reported them earlier: ‘“It’s a reminder that we are facing a very challenging path to reduce the scale of our deficit so that, at

The Budget negotiations within government are now underway. The quad of Cameron, Clegg, Osborne and Alexander held a meeting last week to discuss their priorities for the Budget on March 21st. They’ll continue this conversation over a working dinner tomorrow night. Already, we know that the Liberal Democrats main priority will be to get the personal allowance as close to £10,000 as possible. As The Sunday Times reports, they’re suggesting paying for this by taking away various reliefs for higher-rate taxpayers and closing some of the loopholes in the tax system. I also understand from Liberal Democrats close to Clegg that they’re also interested in some new green taxes. For

Labour has just marched into the trap that George Osborne set them and voted against the benefits cap — again. As one gleeful Tory says, ‘we’re going to make sure everyone in the country knows how they voted on this.’   I suspect that in every Labour-held marginal that the Tories need to win to get a majority in 2015 the benefit cap will feature prominently on Tory literature. Labour MPs will be faced with the unenviable task of explaining why an able-bodied household where no one works should receive more in benefits than the average wage.   The cap chimes with the public’s sense of fairness — as the

Remember those Lib Dem calls for a mansion tax at the weekend? I said at the time that, ‘the Lib Dems appear to be drawing more attention to which of their own policies they are fighting for within government, whether those policies make it to the statute books or not.’ Well, now they’re at it again. Nick Clegg is giving a speech this morning in which he’ll urge George Osborne to go ‘further and faster’ in raising the income tax threshold to £10,000 a year. It was the stand-out policy of the Lib Dem manifesto, so it’s hardly controversial that Clegg should want to see it enacted ASAP. But it’s

The political implications of today’s growth numbers are complex. On one level, a contraction in the economy should provide Miliband and Balls with an opportunity to make their economic case against the government. Indeed, Balls is already out with a statement calling the GDP figures a ‘damning indictment of David Cameron and George Osborne’s failed economic plan’. I suspect that Miliband is also looking forward to PMQs rather more than normal.   But on the other hand, as long as Cameron and Osborne enjoy a big lead on the economy — 18 points in the last ICM survey — bad economic news will reinforce voters’ tendency to stick close to

Britain’s national debt rose to over £1 trillion last month, and will never return below this threshold. George Osborne is increasing net debt by 61.5 per cent in real terms over this parliament, more than the 59.9 per cent which Labour proposed when it fought the last election. Here’s how the OBR’s current projections for debt contrast with what Darling proposed in his last Budget: At the time, Osborne said Labour’s debt plan was reckless and unsustainable. I think he owes Alistair Darling a generous apology. Then, Darling said he’d halve the deficit over four years. Too slow, said Osborne. Now, he’s taking five years to do it – as the

Ever since Ed Miliband’s ‘predatory capitalism’ speech at the Labour Party conference, the future of capitalism has been a subject that has much occupied our MPs. Clegg made his speech on Monday, and Cameron delivered his yesterday. I have had plenty to say about the coalition government’s inadequate economic policy, and its inability to stoke growth. But Cameron’s speech was impressive, and it’s worth going into in some detail. I look at it in my Telegraph column today. Much rot is spoken about capitalism. It is not an ideology, there is no rule book you can tweak: it is simply the name given to the system where people trade with