Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
It suits a great many people to blame the banks. The ministers (like Ed Balls) who oversaw the debt-fuelled credit bubble; the Tories (like George Osborne) who signed up to Labour’s debt-fuelled spending binge; the regulators who failed so appallingly (a global crisis but how many collapsed banks in Australia and Canada?); and Mervyn King,
I’m presenting Radio Four’s Week in Westminster tomorrow at 11am and discuss George Osborne’s U-turn with former chancellors Alistair Darling and Nigel Lawson (the latter pictured above when editor of The Spectator). I put to them that it is unwise for a chancellor to perform a U-turn because it undermines his credibility – a very
The Union is safe — at least if last night’s Spectator debate was anything to go by. The motion ‘It’s time to let Scotland go’ was defeated by 254 votes to 43. The SNP weren’t present (they demanded two representatives on the panel, and we refused), but independent nationalist Margo MacDonald opened the debate. I
The Battle for Britain is heating up this week, with the pro-union campaign launched in Edinburgh this morning and a Spectator debate on the union on Wednesday. We have, as ever, a strong lineup – but the Scottish National Party is noticeable by its absence. I thought CoffeeHousers may like to know why not. We
David Cameron’s 10 Downing Street has an unusual setup — it has a pollster, Andrew Cooper, as its chief strategist. This helps explain why the government is (to put it politely) more able than its predecessors to modify its policy positions to align with the nation’s priorities. Cooper’s polls are showing that pretty much the
What are we to make the split between Danny Alexander and his predecessor as deputy Chancellor, David Laws, over the size of the state? Laws says today it should be 35 per cent of economic output, which is an excellent ambition. In an interview with BBC1’s Sunday Politics today, Danny says 40 per cent. A
13 years of Labour rule taught us two vital lessons about school reform. The first is that there is no direct link between money and results. Funding per pupil more than doubled under the last government: But for all that extra cash, Britain’s schools have slipped down the international league tables over the past decade.
Your Spectator will be a bit heavier this week. Free with every issue is a free copy of Spectator Life, our new quarterly magazine, full to overflowing with the kind of features you might not find in the main Spectator. Peter Hoskin, late of this parish, writes the cover story: an interview with the film
“I have some thanks and apologies for my parents,” said Melissa Kite at her book launch last night. “Apologies?” said her dad, from the corner. “Yes, I’m afraid so. For years, you have been telling people that your daughter is a successful journalist in London. Now, the world knows that I’m a complete car crash.”
This time next week, we’ll hold the third Spectator School Revolution conference, and it’s our best-ever lineup. If any CoffeeHousers are in the world of education, or know anyone who is, then I’d strongly recommend coming (more for details can be found by visiting spectator.co.uk/schools). The keynote speaker is Michael Gove, the education secretary, who
The Sunday Mirror and the Independent have jointly commissioned an opinion poll which finds that George Osborne is ‘too posh’ to be chancellor. This just happens to fit the prejudices of both newspapers, and I for one do not believe it. Poshness certainly obsesses Tory strategists, and Gordon Brown sometimes played the class card because
Warm congratulations to Alexander Chancellor, who has received an CBE today for services to journalism. (Congratulations, too, to regular Spectator contributor Susan Hill, who has received a CBE for her services to literature.) Chief among those services was creating the modern Spectator. As he put it, ‘The Spectator is more of a cocktail party than
The myth that George Osborne has held firm on his deficit reduction plan persists. When I was on Question Time last month, Alan Duncan said that Osborne may have changed some policies but he had not budged an inch from the deficit reduction programme. This was not a porkie; he genuinely believes this to be
‘If we lose sight of the central role of debt in this crisis, we will come to the wrong conclusions about how to respond,’ said George Osborne last night — before announcing another massive tranche of debt. The Mail and The Telegraph put it at £140 billion, the Times and the FT at £100 billion
David Cameron acquitted himself well at Leveson yesterday, as he does in all such events. But it was odd to hear him say that there should be ‘more distance’ between politicians and the press. The implication of his comment is that he has been sucked into the brutal realpolitik of the newspaper industry; that he
The Keynes vs Hayek debate is at its sharpest on the issue of employment. Can government create jobs (as Balls says)? Or does large public sector employment simply displace economic activity that would happen elsewhere (as Osborne says)? A fascinating study has been released today by the Spatial Economics Research Centre at the LSE showing
Will The Sun’s story about David Cameron leaving his daughter in a pub be politically damaging? Not in the least, I suspect. These stories only hurt if they seem to fit a trend of behaviour, or confirm what everyone suspects. But no one, even the prime minister’s harshest critic, could accuse him of neglecting his
George Osborne writes in the Sunday Telegraph today that the British recovery ‘is being killed off by the crisis on our doorstep.’ This sounds uncannily like Gordon Brown’s ‘it started in America’ excuse, and it’s only mildly more convincing. While Osborne blames Europe, and Balls blames cuts, there is no doubt that the British economy
I know it’s wrong to take John Prescott seriously, but his attack on the government’s work experience programme epitomises a sneering attitude that is quite widespread. It was most egregiously displayed by the BBC Today Programme in its flagship 8.10am report about those who volunteered to steward the Jubilee celebrations — except the BBC report
Ed Miliband laid out his vision for Scotland today, which didn’t quite set the heather alight. But word reaches me about what David Cameron is planning. He has already said that if Scotland votes ‘No’ they’d get a special something as a thank-you. But he did not specify what that something was. A bluff, says
