Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
Gordon Brown is not used to being spoken back to in Cabinet, which made a recent session on tackling David Cameron all the more memor-able. The civil servants were sent away, as is the custom at political Cabinet meetings, and the Prime Minister laid forth the Gospel according to St Gordon. The Conservatives had not
The City economist I mentioned yesterday, Michael Saunders from Citibank, has today revised forecasts and believes the UK recession will start this year and expects growth of 0.3% next year with a feeble 0.6% in 2010. He says: “Recession is not certain, but seems more likely than not. Our base case now has GDP falling
My wee film about Glasgow East will be shown on BBC Daily Politics today. I’ve blogged plenty about this, but if CoffeeHousers will indulge me here’s my take on the debate so far. There has been some controversy about the claim that life expectancy there is worse than the Gaza Strip; part of this is
For months we’ve been hearing that however bad it may be with Brown, it was worse under Major. But new house price data from the Halifax shows that this is not the case. House prices have declined more sharply than at any time since 1983. Prices have dropped 8.7 percent year on year, 8.5 percent
Talk about how to depose Gordon Brown is widespread in Labour circles, but for journalists it is hard to know how to convey it. There is no real news story, insofar as there has been no rebels’ meeting (that we know about) but the whispers have reached such volume that it has become an event
As Joni Mitchell said, you don’t know what you got till it’s gone. Only when cheap credit is over do we realise how much we relied on it, and that what Gordon Brown wrongly labelled “prosperity” was a debt-fuelled mirage. The key to making sense of the credit crunch is to ditch the old measurements
Drive around Glasgow East and it seems the SNP is making most of the headway. Its simple yellow fluorescent logo is everywhere. When I was in the constituency yesterday, I saw the same SNP van in four different parts of the seat– blasting out music and with “on your side” written in big letters on
I’m in Glasgow East for the day, making a short film of my column in the current Spectator for the BBC. We’ve just been in perhaps the most run down housing estate I have seen – there is a doll in the doorway next to a dead rat. Houses were boarded up, and you’d think
Is it significant that Cameron will speak in a Catholic church in his visit to Glasgow East today? You can bet any Scottish politicians would have avoided any church in a constituency where sectarianism remains a factor – and one not very well understood in Westminster. Church observance may not be high, but the east
Like James, I’ve been admiring the new issue of Time – what caught my eye was its superb report on the Kajaki Damn in Afghanistan. This is Britain’s top reconstruction project in the Afghanistan and it’s taken an American publication to give us the low-down (and a stunning collection of photographs) on how Our Boys
When John Reid was given his last-ever appointment, he’d have fun introducing himself at meetings by saying “I’m John Reid and I am the current Home Secretary.” It was a good joke, both at the instability of the post and his own itinerancy. But if you Google “Labour” then its first line of introduction is
David Cameron is heading up to Glasgow East on Monday to make a visit with Iain Duncan Smith – and they will be campaigning like mad. You may think they’d take their foot of the pedal and leave it to the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders (aka the Scottish National Party). But it suits the Tories
Does Kylie Minogue deserve an OBE? News of her honour has irked the usual suspects, perhaps because they are not up to date with her career and cultural achievement. Virgin Radio was once caught out in this way. It launched in 1994 with a a daft slogan “we’ve improved Kylie’s songs – we’ve banned them.”
With a little help from the Daily Telegraph, David Cameron staged an ambush for Gordon Brown at PMQs today – the letter to Keith Vaz from Geoff Hoon promising he will be “rewarded” for supporting the government. It went up on the Telegraph website just before midday, and either David Cameron’s Blackberry is working with
Glasgow East symbolises — as few other places in Britain can — the fact that the problem Labour faces is not just lack of leadership but lack of mission. What is to be seen in this constituency encapsulates and dramatises Labour’s abject failures to comprehend, let alone tackle, the nature of the poverty which grips
I have always considered the West Lothian Answer to be fairly simple. The Speaker decides if legislation is England-only, and if so then only English MPs get to vote on it. This has been in the last two Tory manifestos – but Ken Clarke today offers something different. He suggests all MPs vote on second
Sometimes you really do wonder if Labour’s wide-eyed Euro supporters realise just how tightly they have tied their own hands. Take Jack Straw, proposing new “emergency legislation” to allow anonymous witnesses in trials. No one seems to have mentioned the European Convention on Human Rights, which is senior to English law since our gullible MPs
John Major’s mistake was to believe time would be a healer. It was not for him, nor will it be for Gordon Brown. Instead of nursing his wounds from the English locals, Crewe and Henley, he is facing a meltdown in his own back yard, as the Scottish Labour Party faces a by-election in Glasgow
With a 13,500 Labour majority, Glasgow East is as unwinnable for the SNP as Crewe was for the Tories. Expectation here in Edinburgh is that the election will take place next month, and will be a test as to whether Salmond can take a big a chunk out of Brown in the north as Cameron
I’ve been catching up with some old friends here in Edinburgh and in between speculation about what will happen next – the Glasgow East by election would be miles worse than Crewe to lose – I have assembled the rather hilarious story of Wee Wendy and her call for a referendum on independence. You may