Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.

Inflation is the price of Brown’s recklessness

Who would have thunk it? Inflation has again “surprised” on the upside – 3.4 per cent against a 2.0 percent target. Why so high? Even the return of 17.5 percent VAT does not justify this bounce. Might it have something to do with all those bank notes which were being printed by the Bank of

How Whelan & Co. exploit Britain’s libel laws

The Charlie Whelan problem is intensifying for Labour, with more revelations in the Mail on Sunday today taking on from our cover story in this week’s magazine. Whelan’s behaviour may be no worse than that of Ed Balls and Gordon Brown – but he is more careless. Like McBride, he was actually caught: and his

The novelty of Clegg wins it for him

“I agree with Nick”, said Brown – and, as it turned out, so did most of the people YouGov polled. Brown lived right down to expectations, Cameron lived up to them (but didn’t exceed them). Few would have had any expectations from Clegg: what we political pundits know to be his clichés will be heard

How Charlie Whelan killed New Labour

Last summer, The Spectator received a letter from Charlie Whelan’s solicitors complaining about this post – where we mention their client’s spot of bother with his colleagues at Unite. Carter-Ruck were instructed on one of the no-win-no-fee deals: it cost Whelan nothing to sue, but could cost us £thousands to defend. So the lawyer’s letter is, by

The Tories’ great manifesto launch

Battersea Power Station is chosen as an allegory for Britain – “a building in need of rejuvenation in a country in need of rejuvenation” says David Cameron. As for Cameron’s speech – great stuff. He delivered the ‘empowerment’ message and gave hard examples, and wrapped it up into a greatest hits of his best soundbites

What Brown really offers Britain…

Labour’s manifesto cover has been the cause of much merriment online – creating what the Americans call “subvertisments”. ConservativeHome has already lined up some spoofs. We asked Carla Millar, who has done quite a bit of work for The Spectator, to do a version with a mushroom cloud of debt in the middle and the

What would you ask Cameron?

David Cameron takes a few journalists with him on each of his one-day tours, and it’s my turn tomorrow: 6am start. I should be able to get  half an hour or so with him, to do an interview for The Spectator. As is customary, I’ll try and ask him some questions on behalf of CoffeeHousers

An ICM marginals poll points to a hung parliament

The News of the World has its expensive and much-awaited ICM poll of the marginals tomorrow. There is some good news for Cameron, and some not-so-good news. First: 66 percent of voters in the marginals agree with the message “it’s time for change”. Bad news: a surprisingly large number think that Nick Clegg represents that

Fraser Nelson

The Times is wrong about the Tories’ marriage tax break

Since The Times moved its leaders on to page two, they’ve also taken on a new vitality. For years, they were the voice of solid good sense. It was pretty difficult to disagree with them. Now, they are more polemical, more risk-taking – and more wrong. But I’m not complaining: I far prefer reading a

Fraser Nelson

The case for voting Conservative

Why vote for Cameron? The reasons for voting against Gordon Brown are so numerous that the positive pro-Tory reasons for voting are often lost. This week’s Spectator gives you all the ammo you need to win around wavering friends, colleagues and family. We have restricted ourselves to the ten most compelling points. I summarise them

Three lessons for the Tories on immigration

The witterings of Phil Woolas about immigration yesterday – where he accused The Spectator of contorting immigration figures and double-counting immigrants – have landed him in plenty trouble. Stephen Timms was on the Daily Politics today and conceded that Woolas was talking out of his hat. They weren’t our figures, they were from the ONS

Woolas on the rack

Phil Woolas has just been confronted on Daily Politics about immigration figures which we uncovered on Coffee House yesterday, showing 99 percent of new jobs since 1997 are accounted for by immigration. His response is (unintentionally) hilarious. He is immigration minister, yet appears not to know what immigration figures mean. Here’s the transcript: Phil Woolas:

Fraser Nelson

Where the Mail’s cover story came from

It’s always gratifying to see Coffee House posts followed up in the newspapers, and I almost admire the way the Daily Mail has just splashed the newspaper on one of our posts without mentioning the source. CoffeeHousers will recognise the story on the Mail’s front page (left) – some 99 percent of jobs created since

British jobs for British workers…

Did you know that there are fewer British-born workers in the private sector than there were in 1997? I’d be surprised if so: these official figures are not released. The Spectator managed to get them, on request from the Office of National Statistics. We use the figures in tomorrow’s magazine, but I thought they deserves

The true cost of Brown’s debt binge

When Alistair Daring admitted last week that there would indeed be job losses arising from the proposed National Insurance hike, it would have struck Gordon Brown and Ed Balls like root canal surgery. This blows wide open the main part of Brown’s election deceit: asking the public to look at the advantages of the borrowing,

Fraser Nelson

Brown helps Cameron to define his Big Idea

Gordon Brown has walked straight into George Osborne’s trap. After bleating that the national insurance tax cut is unaffordable, he has decided to make this a massive election dividing line – claiming that this teeny (1 percent of state spending) tax cut somehow poses a mortal danger to an economic recovery.  Please, God, let him

Why the Tory lead is growing

With the Tories back up to a ten-point lead in the YouGov/Sunday Times poll, it seems that – as James put it yesterday – the ‘big mo’ is with them. David Cameron is about to survive his third political near-death experience: the first being his leadership campaign and the second the election-that-never-was in 2007. This

Why we shouldn’t confuse poverty with inequality

The power of ideas is vastly underrated in British politics. It has become fashionable to dismiss them as “ideology” and declare oneself in favour of “what works”.  But the idea of what works is, of course, driven by concepts. As Keynes put it: “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual