Society

Tuesday

The Spectator

A tax raising report | 9 October 2007

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 have cost £3.5bn) and £900m from the raid on venture capitalists plus £500m on the new airline tax. In the first two years this would be a net loss to the Exchequer, but overall taxes are up.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

A tax raising report

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 have cost £3.5bn) and £900m from the raid on venture capitalists plus £500m on the new airline tax. In the first two years this would be a net loss to the Exchequer, but overall taxes are up.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The scene is set for Darling

This is a posthumous Brown budget. Let’s not forget he finished the Spending Review last year, but held it over to now updating it now and again. So you may see Darling’s lips move, but we will be hearing Brown’s voice. We will be blogging live on this, but we’re aware of the pit-falls. Here are the ingredients of a Brown budget… 1. The speech. Normally a ploy to wrong-foot the Opposition and set the press on the wrong scent. The real story will only come out once we have seen the documents (made available when he sits down) and studied the footnotes. Remember the 2p on tax cut that never

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Olympic Fever

From today’s Guardian: London Olympic organisers have been forced to abandon their original plans for the canoe slalom venue after the original site in Spitalbrook, Hertfordshire was found to be severely contaminated.

Matthew Dancona

A taxing friendship

At the risk of infuriating Coffee Housers (and Polly), I rather like Polly Toynbee. She’s good company and we chatted happily before appearing on Marr on Sunday. It’s just that she’s wrong, and particularly wrong about tax. See her article in today’s Guardian, calling on Gordon to open up clear red water between himself and the Tories, and to explain “what tax is for, why it is a public good and not a burden, how it is the agent of social justice.” Tax is a necessary evil to most people, especially the least affluent. They accept it as the membership fee of society, and the price they pay for common

Monday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Brown faces the press pack

Every time I’ve stood in a queue waiting for these No10 press conferences, the chat is usually “he’s really screwed now.” We’re usually disappointed. Same this time. This was neither the triumph nor the crucifixion many had predicted. Here’s my summary. 1) No speech: Blair would always start his hour-long press conferences with a little speech – using the focus of 24-hour News. Brown didn’t. A reminder of how unsure he still is on TV. 2) Whodunnit?? “My first instinct, if I were honest with you, was that I wanted to get on with putting my vision of the country across… but I did listen to people”. Ah, the dastardly

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Society v. the state

It’s always a pleasure to hear Will Hutton on the radio, the perfect antidote to the idea that the battle in politics is over. He justified inheritance tax on the basis that “society” deserves a slice of other people’s savings: of course, he meant the government. To me, the dividing line is between society and the government. On the one hand, communities – people doing the best for their families and neighbours: on the other, the looters – mistrustful of the public and hungry for the fruits of their labour. David Cameron stood up for society last week and it shook Labour to the core. As he says, there is

Sunday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Allez les Bleus!

Sympathy? You gotta be kidding me. The New Zealand press has not – suprise! – taken France’s stirring victory in Cardiff yesterday very well. Of course, like their neighbours across the Tasman Sea they’re not quite so insufferable in defeat as they are in victory. Even so, schadenfreude* demands that one scour the Kiwi press today: Shattered All Black rugby fans can ease their mental pain by sticking with the World Cup until the bitter end, psychologist Marc Wilson says. Ignoring the tournament in the wake of yesterday’s shock 20-18 quarter-final loss to France would not help people get over the All Blacks’ early exit, said Dr Wilson, deputy head

Saturday

Richard Sennett

Just say no | 6 October 2007

In New York, I head for Citarella on Broadway only to be confronted by a noisy demo at the entrance. (Among New York foodies, Citarella is to Whole Foods what in London Waitrose is to Tesco.) People in straw sandals and peasant dresses are handing out leaflets proclaiming ‘Say no to foie gras!’ Citarella is probably one of the few places in the world which sells foie gras in volume, so this is a strike, as it were, at the very heart of the evil empire. Foie gras is goose liver swelled up by force-feeding just before the bird is killed; the liver, lightly sautéed or made into a terrine,

Jeremy Clarke

Smoking zone

As of this week my boy (17) is no longer legally entitled to buy cigarettes. His half-brother (16) the same. It must be galling for a teenager finally to reach an age when he or she becomes legally entitled to join the adults in one of their glamorous vices, to enjoy that entitlement to the full for several months, and then to have it peremptorily withdrawn again by a sanctimonious Scotsman. My boy has only two months to go before he can service his addiction legally again. To bridge the time gap he popped across to Brittany on a cross-Channel ferry last week to stockpile a couple of thousand cigarettes.

The Spectator

Letters to the Editor | 6 October 2007

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 prevented him from making an appearance. We’re grateful that technology allowed the Governor to appear via a video link. Governor Schwarzenegger appreciated Mr Cameron’s invitation and was pleased to highlight how California’s move away from hardline partisanship has helped the Governor’s administration achieve groundbreaking new policies. Mr Cameron is realising a similar opportunity with the

Iain Dale

Diary – 6 October 2007

Thank the Lord this will be the last time conference-goers have to endure the hellhole that calls itself Blackpool. The last time I stayed in a Blackpool hotel at a party conference was in the mid-1990s. I woke up at 2 a.m. on the first night covered in sweat. I hadn’t been indulging in any, er, nefarious activity and didn’t feel ill, but I eventually worked it out. The caring Blackpool hotel owner had thoughtfully put rubber incontinence sheets on the bed. Now I am sure some people would pay good money for that sort of thing, but I decided to check out the next morning. Each time I have

Toby Young Toby Young

Ten years on, I’m still prone to a townie’s faux pas when I go deerstalking

As a lover of good drama, my favourite week of the year falls in the late summer when I make my annual pilgrimage to Scotland. The fabulous scenery, the weird and wacky costumes, the inventive use of language — it all adds up to a very memorable few days. No, I’m not talking about the Edinburgh Festival, but about deerstalking in the Highlands. For sheer, heart-stopping excitement, it knocks spots off a trip to the theatre. If you’re lucky, you’ll come home with more than just a fistful of programmes, too — though hand-luggage restrictions make it advisable to stick such souvenirs in the hold. Admittedly, it has taken me

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 6 October 2007

I was having lunch with friends last week in a fairly swanky gastropub, and the menu promised a ballontine of quail. The waiter told me that ballontine meant that the quail had been deboned, then stuffed. It was quite nice to eat, but I have only just discovered what the menu intended to say, which is ballotine. I was put right by an amusing little book on French words in English with the not fantastically funny title of French Letters and the English Canon (Timewell Press, £9.99). It is by Mark Daniel. Actually, Mr Daniel says that the correct spelling is ballottine. He has seen it on menus even as

Mary Killen

Your problems solved | 6 October 2007

Q. An elderly relative has developed the disgusting habit of licking her knife after using it for, say, jam, and then using it again to help herself to butter. It’s horrid having to take butter from a dish into which some one else’s saliva-strewn knife has been plunged. Any ideas? B.M, North Berwick A. Re-educate your relation by giving her tea at your own table. Serve scones from the oven, handing out the first one ‘to test’ by an accomplice who will have been primed to load it with butter, then lick his knife. As his knife-wielding hand now lunges for the jam, cry ‘Greystoke! Greystoke!’ and steer the hand

Alex Massie Alex Massie

When Morons Attack

It’s the baseball play-offs. Hurrah. Let’s Go Yankees! But that also means it’s time for America’s sportswriters to be even dumber than is customarily the case. For the sake of your sanity as well as for proper hilarity, trot on over to the lads at Fire Joe Morgan. Recent highlights include: how your mother probably has a better understanding of the value of “wins” than the average Hall of Fame voter, why yes of course you’d be better off packing your team with people who aren’t very good at baseball come the play-offs because, hey, they’re plucky! And gusty! and, today, yet another welcome takedown of America’s worst gasbag, Mr

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Picture of the Day | 6 October 2007

I trust that Steve Clemons, pride and joy of the New America Foundation, won’t object if I thieve this adorable picture of his dogs, Oakley (left) and Annie. I grew up with spaniels and have no idea about Weimeraners at all. Are they loopy and excessively highly-strung? Or are they as beautifully melancholy as they look? Explain, people, please. PS: Now that I think of it, the Weimeraner is a cousin of the (regal) Vizsla, is it not?

Alex Massie Alex Massie

OK, let’s talk Turkey…

Andrew Sullivan says Turkey may be the United States’ “most important ally” (really?) and condemns “myopic” Europe for not immediately welcoming a non-European country into the EU. Easy for him to say of course. So does Andrew support the resolution coming before Congress that would (finally) recognise the Armenian genocide? Or does he line up with the American foreign policy establishment and think this is a subject best left under the carpet? I think I can recall Andrew being pretty vociferous about the horror of western indifference to Darfur and I doubt he’d be quite so friendly towards anyone who denied the Jewish (and gypsy and homosexual) holocaust so where

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Brown’s Black Saturday

This is Brown’s Black Saturday. He could have won even on these polls, but it would have been a fight rather than a massacre. And this is what he balked at. He has shown himself to be a graduate of the Scooby Doo school of conflict: he saw danger, yelped “yikes” and skedaddled. Fleet Street will not forget this in a hurry.

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

A chastened City

Can we make a link between the chopping of 1,500 jobs, mostly in London and New York, by the Swiss banking giant UBS, and the news that the City of London Corporation has come up with a £300 million contribution to the financing of Crossrail, the long-awaited Heathrow-to-Docklands transport link? Well, connecting unrelated news events on any given day and extracting lessons from them is what columnists are supposed to be for. So let me have a go. The jobs lost at UBS Investment Bank, which include that of its chairman and chief executive Huw Jenkins, are the tip of the iceberg of City redundancies to come this autumn. Not