George Osborne delivered everything we expected, and then some. This was a confident and wide-ranging speech from a Chancellor who has suddenly discovered a central message: what’s right about burning £120 million of taxpayers’ cash in debt interest payments every day? Wouldn’t it be better to get to grips with that waste as soon as
Rewind the tape to last year’s Tory conference, and David Cameron was assuring us that, “It will be a steep climb. But the view from the summit will be worth it.” Today, it falls to George Osborne to tell us more about both the arduousness off the ascent and the beauty of that view –
When Sir Alan Budd was head of the Office for Budget Responsibility, there was an insistent argument in opposition circles that the independent body was biased in favour of the coalition. Much of this cented around the OBR’s growth predictions. How on Earth, came the question, can growth hit 2.3 percent next year and 2.8
Call it a professional hunch, but I suspect the Tories won’t be too pleased that this Guardian story has come out on the first day of their conference. It’s about Andy Coulson – and, much like the revelations in the New York Times Magazine last month, features one of his former colleagues alleging that Coulson
It’s that time of year again: Conservative Party conference. And with it comes wall-to-wall David Cameron. Our PM has a couple of interviews in the newspapers today and, to accompany them, he slotted in an appearance on the Marr show earlier. In all three, he hops neatly across the all same lily pads – spending
To celebrate 25 years of The Spectator/Threadneedle Parliamentarian Awards, we invite you to nominate the best MP of the past quarter-century The question hangs in the air: what makes a great parliamentarian? And the answer echoes back: many things. A great parliamentarian may be a swashbuckling orator whose rhetoric never fails to draw blood. He
Will Self loves to go a-wandering; this much we know. For the past few years, he has followed the lead of authors such as Iain Sinclair, and undertaken huge, looping walks around city and country, before writing about the experience afterwards — in his case, in a column for the Independent. This ‘psychogeography’ (for such
Exactly as the headline says, really. Interviewed by Mehdi Hasan in this week’s New Statesman, Sayeeda Warsi claims that the Tories “lost” at least three seats in the election because of electoral fraud. The article observes: ‘This is the first time a senior minister has made such a blunt and specific allegation about the impact
After Fern Britton’s triumph over Gordon Brown a couple of years ago, we should know that This Morning interviews can have a certain bite to them. But if you needed more convincing, then how about David Cameron’s appearance on the show this morning? Lurking behind all the talk of baby Florence and the Obamas, was
With the merry dance of shadow cabinet elections upon us, it’s a good time to look back on the last time Labour went through all this. There’s a useful list of all the results from the 1992 Parliament here, but here’s my summary of some of the more eyecatching outcomes: 1) Gordon Brown, from hero
There we have it, David Miliband has announced that he is standing down from frontline politics. In his statement just now, he fluted all the anticipated notes. “The party needs a fresh start from its new leader,” he started, before adding that, “I genuinely fear perpetual, distracting and destructive attempts to find division where none
File David Miliband’s decision not to stand in the shadow Cabinet elections in the folder marked “Worst kept secrets in Westminster”. Here’s what Ed Balls has just told ITV: “I don’t think David Miliband is leaving because of reasons of politics or ideology or policy. I don’t think this is a political divide, I think
At least the political fates have a sense of humour. No sooner had David Miliband’s frustration screamed into view last night, than the Tories were hit by a story that was similar in several regards: the leaked Liam Fox letter, expressing his anger over spending cuts. Here are a handful of those similarities: 1) Leakage.
Make no mistake: David Miliband has handled himself with a fair amount of dignity over the past few days. But now some of his frustration has simmered to the surface. ITV news cameras were trained on him earlier, and caught him leaning towards Harriet Harman as she applauded his brother’s claim that the Iraq War
Where are Ed Miliband’s editors? If twenty minutes had been lopped off that speech, then it might have been quite a decent little number. As it was, it dwelt too long on the past at the beginning; it hit all of its high notes in the middle; and sagged again during an protracted conclusion. Maybe
1522, PH: We’ll leave it there. More reaction on Coffee House shortly. 1520, PH: And there’s the closing summary. He manages to squeeze “new generation” and “optimists” in several times. Then, a standing ovation, natch. 1519, PH: Weird blip as Miliband says that he wants to take on “David … Cameron”. Did he have another
Anyone who isn’t interested in political party websites look away now. For both of you remaining, then it’s worth adding to Ben Brogan’s observation about Labour’s site. The photograph of Ed Miliband that greets you upon clicking here isn’t the best, he notes (perhaps MiliE should have used this image instead). But there’s more: at
Admittedly, this is but an item of marginalia in the notebook of British politics – but I’d appreciate CoffeeHousers’ views on it nonetheless. I’m talking about the Tories’ efforts to squeeze an apology out of Labour for the state of the public finances. This is something that they’ve been trying to do since the election,
The proclamations of economists and economic bodies shouldn’t be taken as the be-all-and-end-all of fiscal policy – for every one claiming that a decision is right, you can find another insisting that it is wrong. But the coalition will still be pleased by the influential International Monetary Fund’s latest report, here. It begins: “The UK
Caveats about positioning after the event, of course, but Andrew Pierce’s account of the speech that David Miliband would have given on Saturday is still worth noting down: “You could have heard a pin drop in the conference hall when the new Labour leader delivered his acceptance speech. Far from being triumphalist, he issued a