Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson

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

Why Georgia matters

When David Cameron flew to Georgia last year, it was perhaps the clearest and most welcome statement of foreign policy made by the party since he became leader. Liam Fox’s piece on conservativehome today pays tribute to this, and gives us a welcome reminder of the stakes. The Russian threat is growing: there are 10,000

The difficult slog ahead

With about 5,000 people being laid off every day, it sounds strange to talk of an economic recovery – as Stephen Timms did at the World at One. But he’s right. I reckon that, even now, the recession is over and that the economy will be shown to have grown in Q3 – ie, July,

Why Cameron should ditch the 50p tax rate

When justifying his decision to keep Gordon Brown’s 50p tax for the super rich, Cameron has recently taken to saying that the well-off must “pay their fair share”. This is worth closer examination. The richest 1% in Britain contribute 24 percent of all income tax collected – it is unclear whether Cameron regards this as

Balls keeps on telling porkies

So, it took me two weeks to get out of the blogging mindset – when you read something outrageous, and start mentally composing a blog. I found out that James and Pete had a bet to see how long I’d last for while on holidays – they reckoned four days. Ha! I was back yesterday,

Escaping the Internet

This little phone, pictured, is my present to myself for this summer. It’s a Nokia 2630, costing £35 and distinguished by what it can’t do. No 3G. No email. No internet. No PoliticsHome, no ConservativeHome – just my wife’s family home in the outskirts of Stockholm, where I will be spending the next fortnight. I

Fraser Nelson

A soldier’s tale

This picture is, for me, one of the most haunting images of the Afghanistan war – Sally Thorneloe at her husband’s funeral last week.  Lt Col Rupert Thorneloe, who was killed by a Taleban roadside bomb three weeks ago, told me about her when we were on a trip to Iraq last summer. It’s weird,

Purnell starts building his leadership platform

Since I hailed James Purnell as a possible Labour leader just over a year ago , CoffeeHousers have been, to put it politely, unconvinced. But pick up The Guardian today, and I tell you: my boy’s on track. He has given an interview to Allegra Stratton which puts him squarely in the frame to be

The IMF reveals just how bad it is

Gordon Brown calls the recession the “world economic downturn,” but the IMF has just released a devastating report into Britain which puts things in a different perspective. It’s really worth downloading (here) and saving somewhere: all sorts of ammo is in there. Page 22 is devoted to the  “Potential Spillovers from the UK Financial System

Why marriage should be recognised in the tax system

Cameron has been fairly bold in entering the debate on marriage, because we don’t like do that debate in Britain. Not really – it’s private, and we Brits don’t like debating private things. Anything which helps marriage can easily be paraphrased as “deploying fiscal incentives to force something which should largely be a private decision”.

Fraser Nelson

Political reform mustn’t be left to politicians

The House of Commons is not, technically, the ‘mother of all parliaments’. This phrase was coined in 1865 by the radical MP John Bright, who was referring to England. She was, he said, the ancient country of parliaments: men had held these august gatherings for 600 uninterrupted years, even before the Conquest. So of course,

Behind the swine flu panic

I am instinctively sceptical about health scare stories, so have been watching the Swine Flu story with much suspicion. We are seldom reminded that it’s less serious than normal flu. Hysterically, Andy Burnham claims there could be up to 100,000 infections a day in Britain next month – the latest worldwide tally is 121,000. We

Continuing the immigration debate

My post on immigration the other week was picked up by BBC World Service, who invited me to discuss it with Lord Maurice Peston (podcast here). I regard it as one of the most important yet least discussed issues in Britain right now, and my original also raised some typically robust comments and critiques from

What Labour women think of Gordon

For those of you who missed it, Radio Four has just broadcast a piece about what the women who worked with think Gordon Brown think of him. Not a lot, it seems. Here are some of the quotes: Jane Kennedy “Well I think that the Labour Party is expecting us to do better. The Parliamentary

Not a patch on our scandals

Inspired, perhaps, by The Spectator’s list of the top 50  political scandals, Bloomberg has run a list of the ten best American ones. I have to say, these prudish Americans just don’t do scandal like us. The list has a common theme: moralising politician caught having an affair! Please. Where are the Russian spies, the society

Fraser Nelson

Politics | 11 July 2009

The debate over the 10p tax controversy on Tuesday was more like a requiem for the Labour party than a rebellion. MPs spoke mournfully about how — yet again — their government would hit the poorest hardest. Gordon Brown had used the 2007 Budget to trick newspapers into reporting that he had lowered the basic rate of

Brown’s legacy of inequality, poverty and joblessness

We all know Labour has failed to run an efficient economy or public services, but what’s little discussed is its failure to achieve even its own goals. Had Brown bankrupted the country but, say, made the poorest much better off, then Labour members might not be facing such an existential crisis. As it stands they

Harman’s debt calculator is broken

I know Harriet Harman is not supposed to be taken seriously, so I’m prepared to believe that she just struggles with numbers and didn’t knowingly mislead MPs today. But it’s worth correcting the record on one crucial point. “We have paid down debt,” she says. Actually, if you take the last Budget into account –

A welcome rejection of assisted suicide

I’m delighted that Lord Falconer has just failed in his attempt to legalise assisted suicide for people sending friends and relatives to Swiss death clinics. This is a topic which I suspect even CoffeeHousers will be evenly divided on, but to me the whole idea is just wrong – and it goes straight to the