Isabel Hardman is assistant editor of The Spectator and author of Why We Get the Wrong Politicians. She also presents Radio 4’s Week in Westminster.
It’s not just Nick Clegg who is having a good long think about immigration at the moment: David Cameron is as well. He’s got a big immigration speech on Monday, which shows how spooked the parties are by UKIP that they feel they need to at least address the topic, even if they insist that
Nick Clegg gave his ‘sensible’ immigration speech this morning. He started off by agreeing with Labour’s Yvette Cooper that politicians shouldn’t enter an ‘arms race of rhetoric’, and then spent a considerable part of the speech either attacking Labour or backing a policy that his own colleagues had previously attacked: a security bond system for
Without wanting to dwell too much on those Scary Graphs from the IFS yesterday, there’s one political point that’s worth mulling about the ones that charted the future of departmental spending. George Osborne knows that his ‘pain tomorrow’ approach means the years after 2015 are going to see even more cuts to public spending. He’s
So the latest twist in the surreal saga of statutory regulation of the press is that the campaign group which had unparalleled access to the three parties hammering out a settlement in the silent watches of the night now thinks there’s been a terrible mistake. Whoops! Hacked Off has put out a statement this afternoon
One other point worth noting from today’s IFS post-Budget briefing was the way the government has dealt with fuel duty over the past few years. Here’s a table showing how things have worked out in Budgets and Autumn Statements: So now there isn’t another fuel duty increase until September 2014. But when I spoke to
George Osborne’s critics like to deride him as the ‘jam tomorrow’ Chancellor. But according to the post-Budget briefing the Institute for Fiscal Studies gave this afternoon, he’s the ‘pain tomorrow’ Chancellor instead. It’s not that things really aren’t getting better, but that the bulk of the pain in terms of spending cuts and tax rises
MPs are debating the detail of the Budget today, and will doubtless pick over some of the lines from George Osborne’s round of interviews this morning, particularly the confusion over whether Help to Buy is available for those buying second homes. There are plenty of queries about whether the government’s new mortgage plans are actually
If this was a Budget for Sun readers, then it hasn’t quite worked out as well as George Osborne might have hoped. The newspaper sounded pretty cheery this morning with its story about the beer duty escalator. But here’s the front page for tomorrow’s edition: Now, this is clearly as much about Leveson and the
Ed Balls has just given his post-Budget briefing in parliament. The striking thing about Balls, no matter how much you might disagree with him, is how much he relishes these occasions. His whole face lights up, like a large Cheshire cat that has spied a snoozing mouse, as he goes in for the kill. He
One of the big measures in today’s Budget was the Help to Buy scheme. It answers two demands: the first for the Tories to continue to support home ownership as what George Osborne called ‘the most human of aspirations’, and the second for the government to do everything it can to get construction moving again.
So did he do it? This was a budget with a strong narrative about the ‘aspiration nation’, and the Chancellor certainly did everything he could to nod to two of those three groups that James identified last week. He had two distinct sections on making Britain competitive in the global race and tackling the cost
We’ve got just over half an hour until the Chancellor stands up to give his Budget statement in the House of Commons. It’s the last Budget, many Tory MPs believe, that he has to make a real difference to the party before 2015. And those who enjoy plotting against the leadership are touting it as
The Treasury has largely managed to maintain discipline in the run-up to the Budget, with only controlled briefings in the past few days, rather than last year’s public row over tax cuts. Yesterday we were told about the additional departmental spending cuts to fund infrastructure: the pain has already been briefed so that today the
How will the eurozone respond to the Cypriot parliament’s overwhelming rejection of the bank deposit levy? There are only a few days in which to make a deal before the country’s banks must re-open, with an ensuing run on deposits. The question is whether Cyprus or the other eurozone countries blink first. Given all members
Earlier, I blogged that Tory MP Charlotte Leslie planned to raise concerns with the Prime Minister about Sir David Nicholson’s incorrect select committee evidence. She’s now written a letter, which I’ve seen, telling David Cameron that the NHS chief executive ‘must go with all speed’, and reminding the Tory leader that she has the backing
The Commons this evening approved emergency regulations for the government’s work experience programme so the DWP can avoid repaying benefits to those who were sanctioned for refusing to take part. This wouldn’t be a particularly interesting vote, but for an uprising on the Labour benches. This is the controversial ‘workfare’ programme, where those on Jobseeker’s
David Cameron is coming under fresh pressure to force out NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson this afternoon. The health boss has had to apologise to the Public Accounts Committee, after his evidence yesterday was directly contradicted by whistleblower Gary Walker’s testimony to the Health Select Committee today. Nicholson told the PAC that Walker ‘didn’t
One of the big challenges for the government in tomorrow’s Budget is how well the Number 10 machine is able to sell some of the positive measures that George Osborne will announce. Some are easy for voters to notice: cancelling the fuel duty rise, for instance. But others, like the personal tax allowance, need a
Cabinet this morning can’t have been a cheery occasion. The Prime Minister did congratulate all those who had been involved in the Leveson talks, with a little bit more congratulation from the Deputy Prime Minister and Maria Miller. But that was where the backslapping stopped. the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury announced
The government’s childcare announcement, fronted by the formidable Liz Truss, is another attempt to appeal to working mothers and to spread privilege by removing some of the barriers for women who want to return to work after having children. Never mind that Labour and a left-leaning think tank complain this isn’t as generous for low-earners