Uk politics

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson

Budget 2013: Osborne’s empty budget

This was, as I suspected, an empty budget. There was the usual whale spray of policies: a penny off beer duty here, petrol tax reduced there. Nowadays, we don’t have to wonder if the Budget will make a blind bit of difference: the Office for Budget Responsibility sees the figures in advance and does the sums. It concludes that the Budget will have ‘no impact on level of GDP at the end of the forecast horizon’. To Osborne’s credit, he didn’t try to spin this. The recovery has stalled and he has run out of ideas about how to start it again. It’s difficult to put a gloss on this

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Budget 2013: It’s all about the ‘aspiration nation’

So did he do it? This was a budget with a strong narrative about the ‘aspiration nation’, and the Chancellor certainly did everything he could to nod to two of those three groups that James identified last week. He had two distinct sections on making Britain competitive in the global race and tackling the cost of living, while dismissing ‘those who would want to cut much more than we are planning to – and chase the debt target’. The cost of living section was a careful attempt to please Sun readers who had been so irritated by last year’s Budget. And Osborne also took care to spell out the tangible

The Spectator

Budget 2013: George Osborne’s statement in full

Mr Deputy Speaker, this is a Budget for people who aspire to work hard and get on. It’s a Budget for people who realise there are no easy answers to problems built up over many years. Just the painstaking work of putting right what went so badly wrong. And together with the British people we are, slowly but surely, fixing our country’s economic problems. We’ve now cut the deficit not by a quarter, but by a third. We’ve helped business create not a million new jobs, but one and a quarter million new jobs. We’ve kept interest rates at record lows. But Mr Deputy Speaker, despite the progress we’ve made,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Budget 2013: Five boxes George Osborne needs to tick

We’ve got just over half an hour until the Chancellor stands up to give his Budget statement in the House of Commons. It’s the last Budget, many Tory MPs believe, that he has to make a real difference to the party before 2015. And those who enjoy plotting against the leadership are touting it as one of the last chances David Cameron and George Osborne have to convince their own MPs that they’re worth backing for the long run. So what does the Chancellor need to do to emerge unscathed from this bleak Budget? Here are five boxes he needs to tick. 1. Cost of living. A big issue for

Alex Massie Alex Massie

An Antediluvian Tory Press Causes Problems for David Cameron

Today’s papers make dreadful reading for anyone with an interest in modern, reformed conservatism. They are a reminder – if it were needed – that the Tory press is estranged from the Prime Minister. Mr Cameron has played his part in the breakdown of relations (his behaviour over press-regulation has hardly helped) but he is hardly the only guilty party. Today is one of those days you look at the headlines and just wonder what decade it is. An Insult To Stay At Home Mothers screams the Mail. The Telegraph is only modestly more restrained: PM’s ‘slur’ on stay-at-home mothers. Good lord, you may think and wonder, what on earth Mr Cameron has done

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why the confusion between debt and deficit?

Polls show that, depending on how you ask the question, just between 8pc and 12pc of us realize that debt is rising. It’s not hard to work out why: first, politicians – even the Prime Minister – says that debt is falling. They say they get it confused with ‘deficit’. But this morning, I tweeted that blame lies with the BBC and its failure to mention this basic point when reporting on the public finance. Its narrative tends to be one of fast, deep cuts. It tends to use language that no one understands, and not just conflating ‘debt/gdp ratio’ with ‘debt’. Most normal people don’t know what ‘deficit’ means,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Budget 2013: what the papers say

The Treasury has largely managed to maintain discipline in the run-up to the Budget, with only controlled briefings in the past few days, rather than last year’s public row over tax cuts. Yesterday we were told about the additional departmental spending cuts to fund infrastructure: the pain has already been briefed so that today the £2.5billion raised from cuts can be painted more as gain. There are also some carefully-placed stories on the front pages this morning, too. Last year’s Budget didn’t have much in it for Sun readers: the pasty and caravan taxes did for any suggestion that the government was on their side while it cut the top

Tuesday

Dan Byles

The quiet global energy revolution

In all the noise of tomorrow’s Budget, many may not spot a small tweak to the fiscal regime for UK oil and gas. Those of us with a close interest in unconventional oil and gas, however, will be watching closely. Last year the Chancellor announced a consultation on a specific tax regime for onshore shale gas development, the results of which are expected on Wednesday. Press coverage of shale gas is often characterised by myth and hyperbole. For some, it’s the last gasp for fossil fuels; for others, a new source of energy security and the key to bringing down bills for industry and consumers. We are not used to

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Letter to PM: ‘Nicholson must go with all speed’

Earlier, I blogged that Tory MP Charlotte Leslie planned to raise concerns with the Prime Minister about Sir David Nicholson’s incorrect select committee evidence. She’s now written a letter, which I’ve seen, telling David Cameron that the NHS chief executive ‘must go with all speed’, and reminding the Tory leader that she has the backing of 60 colleagues. The letter is pretty strong stuff. It says: ‘I am deeply concerned that the man who currently leads the largest employer in the country has not only overseen a culture that has damaged our NHS, but has now given a false account to a Select Committee in this way. I know you

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour’s frontbench gets a taste of the welfare battles to come

The Commons this evening approved emergency regulations for the government’s work experience programme so the DWP can avoid repaying benefits to those who were sanctioned for refusing to take part. This wouldn’t be a particularly interesting vote, but for an uprising on the Labour benches. This is the controversial ‘workfare’ programme, where those on Jobseeker’s Allowance are required to undertake work experience as part of their benefit claim. A court judgement last month (which was widely misinterpreted) meant the government had to rush these new regulations through. But though Labour made hay with that judgement at the time, its official position this afternoon was to abstain on the vote. Shadow

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

David Cameron under fresh pressure to sack David Nicholson after select committee blunder

David Cameron is coming under fresh pressure to force out NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson this afternoon. The health boss has had to apologise to the Public Accounts Committee, after his evidence yesterday was directly contradicted by whistleblower Gary Walker’s testimony to the Health Select Committee today. Nicholson told the PAC that Walker ‘didn’t identify himself as a whistleblower at that moment in time, nor did he raise with me any issues of patient safety’. But today Walker produced a letter which said ‘I assume the Department of Health has a policy on whistleblowing and would therefore like this letter to be considered in that context’. Nicholson’s letter of

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How the Treasury could sell its tax cuts to voters

One of the big challenges for the government in tomorrow’s Budget is how well the Number 10 machine is able to sell some of the positive measures that George Osborne will announce. Some are easy for voters to notice: cancelling the fuel duty rise, for instance. But others, like the personal tax allowance, need a bit more noise. One Tory backbencher is currently trying to push an idea to the Treasury about how to do this: tell voters every time they get paid. Justin Tomlinson, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Personal Finance, will raise his idea in the post-Budget debate in the House of Commons on Thursday. Every

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cabinet ministers told to find an extra £2.5 billion in cuts

Cabinet this morning can’t have been a cheery occasion. The Prime Minister did congratulate all those who had been involved in the Leveson talks, with a little bit more congratulation from the Deputy Prime Minister and Maria Miller. But that was where the backslapping stopped. the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury announced that OBR forecasts tomorrow will show that departments are underspending more of their budgets than the historical average. As a result, departments will now be required to reduce their spending by a further 1 per cent in 2013/14 and 2014/15, which amounts to a further £2.5 billion to fund capital investment projects in tomorrow’s Budget.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Liz Truss: the minister fighting the ‘Where have all the women gone?’ debates

The government’s childcare announcement, fronted by the formidable Liz Truss, is another attempt to appeal to working mothers and to spread privilege by removing some of the barriers for women who want to return to work after having children. Never mind that Labour and a left-leaning think tank complain this isn’t as generous for low-earners as it is for those on higher salaries: the intention is to cut back on the staggering cost of childcare with parents claiming back £1,200 per child (the previous scheme was per household). Labour is anxious about this too: the party knows it left government with an extremely expensive childcare offer, and has been hard

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Ministers avoid awkward vote on foreign criminals as Tories rebel on press damages plan

The Crime and Courts Bill, which contains one half of the government’s response to the Leveson recommendations, has just passed its third reading in the House of Commons. An earlier amendment on exemplary damages, which the Mail’s James Chapman reports this evening has roused the ire of Boris Johnson, saw this group of Conservative rebels troop through the ‘No’ lobbies: Richard Bacon, Christopher Chope, Tracey Crouch, Philip Davies, Richard Drax, Nick de Bois, Andrew Percy, Mark Reckless, John Redwood, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Andrew Turner, Martin Vickers, Charles Walker and Sarah Wollaston. The amendment passed 530 ayes to 13 noes (the list above includes tellers Rees-Mogg and Drax, who are not listed in

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Theresa May tries to deter Tory uprising on foreign criminals

MPs are hard at work in the Chamber tonight: once they’ve finished voting on the Leveson amendments to the Crime and Courts Bill, they’ll move on to everything else in this piece of legislation. And everything else includes that amendment signed by over 100 MPs on Tory and Labour benches which limits the ability of foreign criminals to resist deportation. The Leveson debate has been a bit of a gift to ministers, as this big proposal would have enjoyed far greater attention had the Chamber not ben more exercised over press regulation. But that hasn’t stopped a ‘Dear Colleague’ letter going out from Theresa May to Conservative MPs to explain

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Newspapers irritated by exclusion from Leveson talks

As he summed up today’s debate on press regulation, the Prime Minister repeatedly stressed that the new system was a voluntary one, with incentives for journalists to join. It marked a shift in the tone from the leaders at the start of the debate: the Prime Minister was now trying to coax the industry to join the new system leaders had agreed on. Perhaps it was this statement from the Newspaper Society that made him a little more conciliatory: ‘We would like to make it clear that, contrary to reports broadcast by the BBC this morning, no representative of the newspaper and magazine industry had any involvement in, or indeed

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Press regulation: Tory backbenchers worried by proposals

MPs are continuing to debate the cross-party deal on press regulation in the Commons at the moment. The debate has been divided between congratulations for the party leaders and their colleagues who hammered out the deal, and wariness from some Tory backbenchers about what the proposals actually mean. David Cameron insisted during the debate that this wasn’t statutory underpinning, but Nick Clegg said ‘of course’ when asked whether it actually was. Some Tory MPs agree with Nick: they believe this does include statutory underpinning. Perhaps the most forceful speech came from Charles Walker, who started his speech by saying that this country has a ‘pretty revolting’ press, but that he

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Leveson Royal charter debate: statutory or non-statutory?

The three party leaders have just opened the debate on the Royal Charter. David Cameron was at pains to stress that this is not a ‘statutory approach’. But this was undermined by the deputy Prime Minister describing the approach as ‘a mix of Royal Charter and Statute.’ It was Miliband, though, who looked most satisfied with the deal. He dished out praise to those involved in securing agreement as if he was the Prime Minister. Labour are still in shock about how Letwin wandered into Ed Miliband’s office to negotiate last night without a political adviser or the backing of any other minister. One of the things that worries me