Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
Hogmanay is still a couple of days away, but it’s proving to be a very happy old year for us at 22 Old Queen St. The Spectator just been named political magazine of 2009 by readers of Iain Dale’s blog. Normally, we’d maintain a bashful silence: but I’d like to say a quick thanks to
The Ed Balls leadership cart is revving up a gear. He wants to position himself as the main mover behind the election campaign, now that Gordon Brown is dead in the water. It was his plan to stop Darling jacking up VAT to 20 percent, so he can accuse the Tories of wanting to do
I have some advice for CoffeeHousers hungry for the latest evidence about the guy who tried to blow up the Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight: go to the American press and their websites. They are 100% free to pursue these stories: the press in Britain isn’t. Not any more. The suspect suffering second degree burns in hospital, named
The Tories have missed a trick in responding to the predictable news that Gordon Brown won’t be giving evidence to the Iraq Inquiry until after the election. William Hague has just said that it stinks. He should have followed up by listing the questions Brown should be asked – highlighting the extent of his personal
Is Greece too big to fail? When the Eurozone project was up and running, its taxpayers were promised: this was not a system where they’d have to bail out a badly-run country like Greece or Italy (or Brown’s Britain, were we members). But this rule (a clause in the Lisbon Treaty) is being torn up
When Mandelson said in his Spectator interview that he plans another 15 to 20 years in politics, what could he have meant? Now that his European career is over, there is only one decent post coming up for a Labour figure in the first half of the next decade – and I float the latest
Like David, I’m a fan of Polly Toynbee. Every compass needle needs a butt end, after all. She is 180 degrees wrong on most things: but splendidly, eloquently, passionately wrong. I’d like to pick up on one aspect of her column. “Social democrats are the world’s optimists, knowing human destiny is in our own hands
Would cutting spending “risk the recovery?” This claim is, literally, Gordon Brown’s re-election manifesto. He is hoping that the Tories haven’t learned to use numbers as weapons – so any economic message he has will not be effectively countered. In fact, his claim is very easily exposed as being bogus by a simple look at
Our Christmas double edition is out today, and is choc full of writers to keep y’all entertained over the festive season. Someone who certainly entertained me is Lord Mandelson. I interviewed him just after Charles Moore’s disclosures about the shooting party: he didn’t shoot, he says, but was at a large dinner chez Rothschild where
It’s said that every newborn either looks like Winston Churchill or a pound of mince. But this gorgeous, wee creature, I’m sure you’ll agree, looks like neither. Born at 5.52am this morning, after a wait of what felt like an eternity, he weighed in at 9lbs 1 ounce. The staff at the hospital (Kingston-upon-Thames) were
Lord Mandelson of Foy sticks his nose into the room in which I am waiting for him and sniffs the air theatrically. ‘This place smells,’ he declares. And this, it seems, is my invitation to follow him through to his office — for an interview and some light admonishment. He is cross with Charles Moore
It has started. The Labour attack unit is out today talking about a “Tory VAT rise” – as per Paddy Hennessy’s scoop. Osborne stated his (to me, relatively paltry) position on the deficit: that he’d reduce it faster than Labour but can’t say how much. The Labour attack unit keeps partying like its 1999 with
Two polls out tomorrow: one (ComRes/Sindy) showing 17 point Tory lead and other (YouGov/Sunday Times) showing a 9 point lead. This is the difference between a comfortable majority and a hung parliament. ComRes shows that the Eton class war attack backfires (I hope Balls/Ian Austin etc are reading) with 70% disagreeing that it makes any
It has taken eight years, but Tony Blair has finally leveled with the British public and admitted that the WMD thing didn’t really matter: he wanted to depose Saddam Hussein anyway. That’s what he has said in a BBC interview, presumably to pre-empt his appearance before the Chilcot inquiry. His chosen confessor: Fern Britton. His
I will sign off tonight with this sickening graph from the earlier IFS presentation – showing the extent to which Gordon Brown’s economic incompetence has transformed the public finances for a generation. Servicing this debt will absorb money that would otherwise be spent creating jobs, lifting people out of poverty, advancing education, promoting prosperity. The
The truth about the Pre-Budget Report was revealed today by the Institute for Fiscal Studies: the new National Insurance tax will hit everyone on £14k or over, not £20k – and there are implied 19 per cent cuts of some £40 billion in the “non-protected” areas. The event was sold out, because it now has the reputation as
So Alistair Darling today repeated the same trick he used in April’s Budget – referring only to rising “current spending”, so as to hide the full extent of Labour’s spending cuts. Current spending is only one component of total spending, and when you add in some of the other components – as we have done
The Treasury have just banned transcripts of the all-important briefing they give to journalists after the budget. Coffee House broke the mould after the April budget by producing the first-ever transcript – releasing to the public the spin which journalists are given in the precious few hours they have to write up the Budget. This
I’m not that worked up about the National Insurance increase. Sure, a tax on jobs is the best way to choke a recovery – but this is only due to come in April 2011 by which time Darling will be collecting the royalties on his memoirs. It only matters if the Tories support it, which
As I suspected, Darling has cooked the figures by laughably unrealistic growth forecasts. He is predicting a sustained economic sprint that will mysteriously come to Britain the April after next. Table B1 of the PBR shows that he expects 3.25% growth every year for a whole four years: from April 2011 to April 2015. How
