A-bomb or B-movie? Sir: I have no idea whether or not we really came close to WW3 last month, as your correspondents Douglas Davis and James Forsyth insist (‘We came so close’, 6 October), but one line in their exciting piece brings doubts to mind. After ‘secretly’ crossing into Syria (as opposed to coming in
By Fraser Nelson Pennies are dropping in the city about the inheritance tax con. Here is Nigel May at MacIntyre Hudson: “The Chancellor has done some wonderful arithmetic here by adding together two allowances that already exist, and passing it off as doubling the allowance. Any married couple receiving advice about reducing their inheritance tax
By Fraser Nelson Here’s the weasel. The Inheritance Tax “reduction” is a canard. Anyone with financial acumen (or a lawyer) will not benefit at all. KPMG have just been on the phone explaining it all to me and explain it here. “This change, although likely to grab headlines, is in practice only giving to most
By Fraser Nelson • Buy-to-let bonanza: Previously, if you sold a buy-to-let house you’d pay between 24% and 40% on the capital gains. Now it’s 18%. Great news, which may help housing market liquidity. • Welfare: Might Brown be aping Cameron on welfare reform as well? The CSR balances by assuming a fairly heroic 5% annual reduction
By James Forsyth The Tories, who have been pumping out information at a ferocious rate all afternoon, are saying that taxes will rise by £2.2bn over the next 3 years. They are basing their calculation on page 164 of the Pre-Budget report and Comprehensive Spending Review, which is—in tune with the political buzz word of
By Fraser Nelson I now have the costings. This is indeed a tax raising budget. By 2010-11 they plan to net £1.4 billion extra in tax. Highlights are: £440m a year by “state second pension white paper reforms”…. Sounds dodgy…. Raise £500m from non doms, lose £1.4 billion on inheritance tax (nb Tory proposal would
3:30pm: The House is in confrontational mood and Darling is off on a party political point scoring exercise straight away. First mention of aspiration, the new political buzz word. 3:35 Darling has just, as expected, downgraded his growth forecast for 2008 to 2 to 2.5%. Darling has adopted the Brown strategy of death by figures
From 3PM, Matthew d’Ancona, Fraser Nelson and Allister Heath will be leading Coffee House’s coverage of the Pre-BudgetReport and the Comprehensive Spending Review. Can Alistair Darling wrestle back the political agenda from the Tories and help Gordon Brown put his nightmare week behind him? Join us from 3pm to find out.
Tomorrow night from 6:45 pm, we’ll be broadcasting via this site a debate on the motion, “We should not be reluctant to assert the superiority of Western values.” There is an all star cast of speakers involved. David Aaronovitch, Douglas Murray and Ibn Warraq are speaking for the motion while Tariq Ramadan, William Dalrymple and
Arnie on the big screen Sir: There’s no truth in Fraser Nelson’s suggestion that Governor Schwarzenegger changed his schedule in response to polls or any other political considerations (‘This will be Cameron’s finest hour’, 29 September). The Governor was delighted by the opportunity to speak to the Conservative conference, and only regrets that other responsibilities
Gordon Brown has ruled out an election this year following a poll of marginal seats that showed Labour significantly behind the Tories. No election is now expected until 2009. Coffee House has reaction and analysis to this news. Click here to read the latest from our political team.
Ten years after New Labour came to power, it is remarkable that the unions can still hold us all to ransom. This issue of The Spectator has gone to press a day earlier than usual, to minimise the risk of disruption to our readers from the threatened postal strike. It is depressing that such precautions
If you want to follow Coffee House’s coverage of and reaction to David Cameron’s speech on your mobile phone just text SPECTATOR to 88010 *Normal operator data charges apply.
I was surprised to see Andy Coulson, George Eustice et al at the packed (and hot) Telegraph party last night with big smiles. Seeing today’s papers, I see why. This is the best day for the Tories for a long, long time. “9 Million Families Free from Death Tax” says the Mail. The Times, Telegraph
Thank you for Peter Oborne’s ruthlessly accurate exposé of the Political Class (‘The Establishment is dead’, 15 September). Established truths Sir: Thank you for Peter Oborne’s ruthlessly accurate exposé of the Political Class (‘The Establishment is dead’, 15 September). The collateral damage caused by the killing of the Establishment can be distilled into just five words:
Spectator.co.uk has full coverage of the Tory Conference. Matthew d’Ancona and Fraser Nelson are reporting the latest development from Blackpool here. George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor and Tory election coordinator, is blogging for Coffee House, to read his thoughts click here. Up and coming Tory MP Nadine Dorries is also lending her unique perspective to
Ostensibly, Gordon Brown’s first Labour conference speech as Prime Minister on Monday was grandly non-partisan: there was not a single mention of the Tories or of David Cameron. In practice, the Conservative party generally, and Mr Cameron specifically, were present in every line. Though presented as a lofty civic oratory by the father of the
There is a consensus in the papers this morning that for all the politiical skill of Gordon Brown’s speech, it puts us no closer to knowing how Brown plans to achieve his ambitious aims. As Peter Riddell says in The Times, “we are no nearer to understanding how a Brown Britain would work in five or
We’ve just posted the latest instalment of Jon Cruddas’s conference diary which includes details of a classic encounter with Peter Mandelson and an explanation of what Gordon Brown is trying to appeal to. We also have a sketch from Lloyd Evans on Gordon Brown’s performance which absolutely skewers the Labour leader.
Talk here is turning to Brown’s decision not to blast the Tories in his speech. This fits with the idea of him transcending party division, and of course wooing Tory voters. The new business cards they’re handing out here say “New Labour for Britain” the last two words in far larger type. And this is