Politics has a big, blond hair-do today, with Boris wiff-waffing all across the airwaves. The Mayor of London has already, this morning, called on George Osborne to do more to cut taxes, specifically the 50p rate and national insurance. And he will be leading a series of events, throughout the day, to mark the fact
What a difference four months of air sorties make. Back in the early days of the Libya intervention, David Cameron was unequivocal when it came to Muammar Gaddafi remaining in the country: there was “no future” for the dictator within its borders, he said. But now, on top of comments by William Hague yesterday, the
Today’s growth figures are a problem for George Osborne. It’s basically part of his job description to nurture growth — but, looking at the graph above, he’s not having much joy in that. Even allowing for the fact that without one-off shocks such as the Japanese tsunami and the Royal Wedding Q2 growth might have
The release of the Q2 growth figures is still half-an-hour away, but Westminster is already on the boil. Much of the fuss and froth is because it’s expected that the economy barely grew at all between April and June, or perhaps even shrank. But some of it is down to this Telegraph story, which suggests
Just when everyone is all afroth about the murky connections between the political class and the media, a letter by Andrew Lansley to Danny Alexander has mysteriously leaked to the Telegraph. It was sent two months ago, and it concerns the government’s public sector pension proposals. For five pages, Lansley riffs on about why the
It has mostly been a weekend of terrible and grisly news, especially with the details emerging from Norway about Anders Behring Breivik and his murderous brand of politics. But there was also, behind it all, a slight rebalancing of the British political debate. After weeks of grandmaster-like focus on the phone hacking scandal, our politicians
Normally, Coffee House prides itself on being the cafe that never sleeps. But now, after four years — and a particularly furious recent few weeks — we’re taking a weekend break to cool our typing fingers and our keyboards. Normal service will, of course, resume on Monday. In the meantime, you can either use this
In some ways, Gordon Brown’s absurd speech yesterday evening felt like the crest of a wave. It’s not that the phone hacking scandal has gone away — far from it. But the initial surge of political activity and spite has abated, having achieved many of its immediate goals: the end of the BSkyB bid, a
The Office for Budget Responsibility’s 126-page Fiscal Sustainability Report really oughtn’t make for electrifying reading. But it does. What Robert Chote and his gang of number-crunchers have done is to gaze into our fiscal abyss, and summon up forecasts so that the abyss can gaze back into us. I mean, look at the graph above.
A change from the Coffee House norm for this last PMQs before the summer recess. Instead of the usual live-blog, we’ll be live-tweeting the session, and our tweets will appear in the special window below (you may be familiar with it from Guido’s PMQs coverage). Tweets from other political types may also appear. And you
Politicians are swarming all over the phone hacking scandal today, in even greater number than during the past week. If it isn’t the main topic at PMQs at noon, then it certainly will be immediately afterwards; when David Cameron delivers his statement on an inquiry into the whole mess. And then there’s Labour’s Opposition Day
Gordon may have come carrying dynamite, but News International has some explosives of its own. In a pair of statements this afternoon, the Sun and the Sunday Times have set about undermining, or just plain denying, our former Prime Minister’s testimony. By the Sun’s account, not only did they get the story about his son’s
As promised: And here’s a pertinent tweet from Andrew Neil:
So far as today’s inflation figures are concerned, it’s April all over again. Just like then, CPI inflation has fallen (in this case, from 4.5 per cent to 4.2 per cent). And just like then, I’d urge against excitement. We are still, don’t forget, ballooning above the target level by over 2 percentage points. And
We’ll try to post the video of Gordon Brown’s interview with the Beeb soon. But, for now, here’s the transcript of his remarks about News International and his son’s medical records: Gordon Brown: [The Sun] told me they had this story about Fraser’s medical condition, and that they were going to run this story. Interviewer:
“It’s like Blair and Brown — but without the acrimony.” So sayeth one Cabinet Office source, describing the prolonged build-up to today’s public services White Paper to me a couple of months ago. His point was that, although the yellow and blue halves of the Downing Street operation are genuinely chummy with one another, their
The clunking fist is descending on Rupert Murdoch. After rumours all afternoon about Gordon Brown giving a statement on phone hacking to the Commons, the Guardian has come up with specifics: News International, they allege, used private investigators to target our Prime Minister’s phone, his bank account and his family’s medical records. You should be
What Jeremy Hunt’s letter this morning started, Nick Clegg has just finished. Thanks to the Deputy Prime Minister, it is now even clearer that the coalition is reluctant for Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB deal to go ahead. “Look how people feel about this, look how the country has reacted with revulsion to the revelations,” he exhorted
There’s a lot to sift through in the papers this morning, even apart from history’s final edition of the News of the World. I mean, a report that Rebekah Brooks is to face police questioning over the phone hacking scandal; an interview with the assistant commissioner of the Met, who apologises and flusters over the
More fuel for the firestorm: this time, a letter by Rebekah Brooks, answering questions put to her by the Home Affairs select committee. It truth, it doesn’t say much that wasn’t either spelt out or suggested in Brooks’ earlier statement this week. But its three main assertions are still worth noting: Brooks had “no knowledge”
