Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
The idea of an ‘empty budget’ later this month is disappointing those who backed George Osborne in the hope of his fixing the problems he so eloquently outlined in opposition. If Brown proposed cutting the deficit by 33 per cent over two years, newspapers who criticised him at the time for lacking ambition — as
At the Conservative Home Victory 2015 conference today, a panel was asked: how can the Tories avoid being seen as a party of the posh? ‘Well, a lot of you are pretty posh,’ replied the journalist Anne McElvoy. ‘Open a cupboard in No10 and an Old Etonian falls out.’ The success of Boris, of course,
I’m at the ConservativeHome ‘Victory 2015’ conference today, which after Lord Ashcroft’s presentation should perhaps be renamed Annihilation 2015. He started the day with one of his mega expensive polls of marginal seats, a survey of 19,200 suggesting the Tories would lose 93 seats to the Labour Party alone, giving Miliband a total of 367
The success of Britain’s coalition government over the last two years has been extraordinary. That two parties could come together, in Westminster’s adversarial system, was itself unusual. That they could agree a radical programme of government: school reform and welfare reform, was exceptional. But in my Telegraph column today, I say suggest that the battles
Before every Budget, George Osborne always seeks the advice of various MPs. He usually doesn’t heed it but it’s a good way, he thinks, to keep the troops happy. As the economic headwinds have strengthened, this advice has tended to be increasingly radical and in a recent meeting with the Free Enterprise Group of Tory
The Prime Minister’s article in today’s Sunday Telegraph is, like all of his major speeches, an uplifting read. It references Sir Keith Joseph, a giant of Conservative thought. Three years ago, I had the honour of delivering the Centre for Policy Studies annual Keith Joseph lecture, as did Cameron three years before that. Here is
Today’s Sunday Times splashes on news that David Cameron is going to crack down on health tourism – that is, foreign nationals coming to Britain primarily to claim free treatment on the NHS. There have been anecdotal reports of this for some time, but the official figures suggest that there is no health tourism problem,
Nick Clegg has come back from Spain to admit that he did know about the allegations about Lord Rennard’s behaviour towards women – and, for good measure, has told us all that so did Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. In a statement, he has this to say: ‘I am angry and outraged
As George Osborne digests the news of the Moody’s downgrade, he can thank his lucky stars for Ed Balls. The Shadow Chancellor’s statement, just released, neatly illustrates why he is the single biggest obstacle to Labour’s regaining economic credibility:- “George Osborne said keeping the credit rating was the key goal of his economic policy. As
Even the pessimistic analysts had given Britain until September to lose its AAA rating. That it has happened now, before the Budget, shows just how fast things are moving. Moody’s has tonight downgraded Britan from AAA to AA1 and has also told us why. Don’t expect economic hell to break loose as a result: these
In the Wall Street Journal today there is a wonderful piece by an American tourist struck by the level of friendliness and civility he found amongst the British people. He starts with our tube etiquette: ‘Three times in the space of 24 hours young men offered their subway seats to my wife, who is neither elderly nor
It’s the 10th anniversary of the Stop the War protest today, which led me to think about a point Christopher Hitchens once made: how the world would look if the ‘stop the war’ protests – in their various forms – had their way? Saddam Hussein would be lord and master of the annexed Kuwait, his
I was on the panel of BBC Question Time this evening, in Leicester. Ed Balls’ tricksy 10p tax proposal was raised, and I raised my reservation: it does very little for the low-paid. Balls says £2 a week, but Policy Exchange showed earlier how benefit withdrawal makes this a derisory 67p a week. And this
The Spectator’s sales figures are out today, and I thought Coffee Housers may be interested to know how things are going here in 22 Old Queen Street. It’s a tough time for print. Newsweek has now gone off to a digital afterlife and even The New Yorker is down 17 per cent on newsstand. As
For the last few weeks, your baristas at Coffee House have been crafting an email summary of the day’s news and tomorrow’s events — combined with a few vital statistics from the markets and bookmakers, from borrowing costs to the Eastleigh by-election odds. You can read the last few here, here and here. We’re now opening
The first papal resignation since 1415 will throw the world’s attention on Nigeria’s Cardinal Francis Arinze, who is the bookies’ favourite to succeed Benedict XVI. Not so long ago, the candidates would all be Italians. Now, the odds on a pope from the third world are quite high. Europe now stands out as a secularist
The Daily Telegraph is more supportive of the Conservative Party than any British newspaper, which is why its leader today – urging George Osborne to change course – is important. “The coalition’s economic policy is not working” it says, and goes on to urge a rupture with the failing policy. Its central recommendation is that
Michael Gove’s enemies will have savoured his defeat yesterday, and enjoyed every second of his Commons speech admitting that his pet project, the EBacc, was ‘a bridge too far’. Gove is fighting a war on many fronts — and he lost a battle. It doesn’t happen often, which is precisely why it’s memorable. I look
Where was Andrew Dilnot in the Gordon Brown era? The head of the UK Statistics Authority has just rebuked the Prime Minister for telling porkies about debt on his ITV broadcast last week. CoffeeHousers will remember that the PM made the flatly untrue claim that: ‘though this government has had to make some difficult decisions, we
David Cameron is continuing his tour of Africa today and is — according to the New York Times — ‘boasting a sheaf of commitments to new partnerships in the fields of defense, counterterrorism, intelligence-sharing and military training’. He was in Tripoli yesterday, where his approval ratings ought to be sky high having been instrumental in