George osborne

Monday

Isabel Hardman

The Tories are repeatedly reminding voters of their achievements – finally

It’s no surprise that the Conservatives want to take the credit for the tax cuts in the Budget, or that the Lib Dems are rather peeved about this. The Chancellor will make a speech today in which he describes Britain as ‘starting to walk tall in the world’ and drive home what he sees as a series of key government achievements on ‘reshoring’ and the rise in the personal allowance of income tax, which comes into effect this week. Nick Clegg, meanwhile, is giving his monthly press conference where he will argue that the Conservatives are trying to ‘steal’ his own party’s prize ideas. Those two men can tussle about

Saturday

Isabel Hardman

Osborne and Alexander deny Scotland could keep the pound

After Nick Watt’s stunning scoop this morning on an unnamed minister saying that an independent Scotland could keep the pound after all, George Osborne and Danny Alexander have released this joint statement: ‘A currency union will not work because it would not be in Scotland’s interests and would not be in the UK’s interests. Scotland would have no control over mortgage rates, and would be binding its hands on tax and funding for vital public services. The Scottish Government are proposing to divorce the rest of the UK but want to keep the joint bank account and credit card. The UK would not put its taxpayers at risk of bailing out a

Thursday

Martin Vander Weyer

Why I’ll join the silver stampede to cash in a pension

At the beginning of the last decade, a young man who claimed to be my ‘premier banker’ paid me a visit. He was accompanied by his boss, evidently there to assess the junior’s performance. Once upon a time — at least in popular imagination — bank managers were kindly, cautious, long-term advisers, but by the turn of the new century they had become shameless product-pushers with targets to fill, and it was obvious from the body language of both visitors that this poor chap had to sell me something by the end of the call or his job was on the line. So I took his ‘advice’, signed for a

Tuesday

James Forsyth

Today’s inflation fall means the Tories can have their interest rate cake and eat it too

Today’s inflation figures bring more good news for the government. CPI inflation is now down at 1.7 per cent, the lowest rate in four years and below the Bank of England’s target – so making it less  likely that interest rates will rise before the next election. Inflation as measured by RPI is 2.7 per cent, down from last month’s 2.6 per cent. With Osborne’s pensioner bonds, which will offer 4 per cent return, the Tories can now have their interest rate cake and eat it. Adding to the buoyant mood in coalition circles is that Labour still hasn’t worked out its critique of the Budget. I’m told that Labour

Monday

George Freeman

Budget 2014: a torpedo Budget which will split the Shadow Cabinet

Last week’s budget has transformed the political landscape. The welfare cap, new savings and pensions freedoms and ‘NISA’s, have all been much commented on. So too other micro measures, like the very welcome continued investment in science and innovation for the innovation economy, and support for exports. But I think the events of Wednesday went far beyond entrenching the defining key fiscal reforms of ‘Osbornomics’. It laid down the dividing lines on which we will fight, and can win, the next election. And as we saw in the Chamber on Budget day it has brilliantly exposed the growing tensions between Ed Balls and Milliband, who couldn’t agree how to respond.

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

Budget 2014: what Osborne didn’t tell us about the crunch to come

Getting to the truth of a Budget is far easier under George Osborne’s new system. His creation, the Office for Budget Responsibility, now writes its own report  (pdf here) and it’s like having your own mole in the Treasury flag up what the Chancellor would rather gloss over*. I read its report over the weekend – it’s too rich a document to skim on Budget day. I found a few charts that CoffeeHousers may be interested in. The graphs are all about Osborne’s decision to defer tough decisions – what James Forsyth brilliantly called his Saint Augustine tendency: give me fiscal discipline, Oh Lord – but not yet. Osborne’s glacial progress on

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 20 March 2014

Home In the Budget, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that the economy was working but the job was far from done. He expected further falls in unemployment and wages rising faster than prices this year. The economy, he suggested, would return this year to its size in 2008. Before the Budget, Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, said that as many as 1.9 million working families could receive a tax-free childcare allowance worth up to £2,000 per child. Mr Osborne had announced that the help-to-buy scheme for new homes would be extended until 2020. He also let it be known that a garden city of 15,000 dwellings would

James Forsyth James Forsyth

It’s time for the state to trust adults with their own money

The changes that George Osborne announced to pensions yesterday were so big that there was always going to be a backlash. Sure enough, the IFS and various others have today voiced concerns about the scheme. The essential complaint is that if you let people take charge of their own pension pots, they might spend their money too quickly. This is an argument that George Osborne should relish taking on. Trusting people with their own money is a fundamentally Tory idea. It is also slightly absurd to suggest that people who have been diligent enough to build up a pension pot over their working life are suddenly going to become spendthrifts

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: Buying your way into the establishment and Osborne’s 2014 budget

How easy is it to buy your way into the British establishment? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Harry Mount and journalist Ben Judah discuss whether Britain has become a bankrupt country. Why are so many Russians throwing hordes to cash to buy their way into new Britain? How are Prince Charles and Tony Blair involved? And is it a good thing that the establishment is regenerating itself? Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman also analyse George Osborne’s fourth budget — what the announcements mean, the winners and losers, how the Chancellor has carefully targeted Ukip, the significant changes for pensioners and Ed Miliband’s meek response. Plus, Fraser

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

George Osborne’s Budget elephant trap is still open and waiting for Labour

Yesterday the Opposition didn’t really do all that much opposing. Labour announced it was going to vote in favour of George Osborne’s AME welfare cap, with Ed Balls arguing that Ed Miliband had set this out in a speech last year anyway. This cap was supposed to be an elephant trap for Labour, but Labour initially appeared to have tip-toed around the edge without falling in. But Osborne has set a secondary snare for the party: the ‘bedroom tax’. The Conservatives are keen to point out that restoring the ‘spare room subsidy’ would lead to a £465 million welfare spending rise in 2015/16, and want Labour to answer how they

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The British jobs miracle

George Osborne rather glossed over the single most solid piece of good news in the Budget today: the Jobs Miracle. His pensions announcement means that tomorrow’s papers are likely to skip over it too. But it’s worth looking at – the government seems genuinely baffled as to why so many people are finding work. As I wrote in my last Telegraph column, the Treasury does not seem to recognise a supply-side, cross-departmental success when it bites them on the nose. I’m just back from the annual Spectator Budget presentation, sponsored by Aberdeen Asset Management. We spoke a lot about this – the below graph sums it up… As my earlier

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Budget 2014: Who benefits from Osborne’s savings revolution?

The most obvious beneficiaries of George Osborne’s savings package are pensioners. They now can buy government bonds with an interest rate of 2.8% for an annual bond and an annual rate of 4% for a three year bond, making up for how low the Bank of England base rate is. But it is not just pensioners who benefit. The fact that people no longer have to buy an annuity will benefit those coming up to retirement most. Those planning for retirement know that they now have far more flexibility about how they structure their retirement. While increasing the ISA limit to £15,000 helps those trying to save up a deposit

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Budget 2014: Has Osborne come up with a silver bullet for dealing with Ukip?

The Budget today contained a host of measures that’ll benefit the silver savers; those in, or coming up to, retirement. From January next month, pensioners will be able to buy pension bonds that offer a 2.8 per cent interest rate for a one year bond and a 4 per cent annual rate for a three year bond. This is far better than the rate available on the high street and will cost the government £170 million in 2015-16. It should assuage the pain, and anger, that many pensioners have felt at the government’s deliberate policy of keeping interest rates as low as possible. Considering that defections from the Tories to

Steerpike Steerpike

Budget 2014: Osborne’s Budget banter

The Budget has, in recent years, been more tears than laughter, more pain than gain. Yet the upturn in Britain’s economic fortunes has put the Chancellor, whose ‘5 and 2’ diet has had a dramatic effect on his waistline, in a buoyant mood. Osborne’s wit – famously sharp in private – shone through in public this afternoon. He began slowly, by teasing Ed Balls. He reminded the chamber of Labour’s dire financial record, which elicited his first laugh: ‘Or, as the Shadow Chancellor put it: “some mistakes were made”.’ Boom-tish. The gag about the slow pace of construction at Ebbsfleet was a groaner (‘more ebb than fleet’); but things looked

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Budget 2014: George Osborne’s pensions revolution

This will take a while to sink in – we simply have never seen this before in a Budget. George Osborne has just revolutionised the way pensions work; millions of people will have just found their pensions pot turned into a bank account. The punitive 55 per cent tax rate they faced if taking out more than they should from a pension has been abolished. And how much does this cost Osborne? That’s the beauty. No wonder the Chancellor’s aides were briefing that he’d found a very radical, very ‘clever’ policy. This will make a massive pre-election difference to pensioners, the group most likely to vote at the next election.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

What could George Osborne’s rabbit be?

Presuming that George Osborne isn’t sitting in the Treasury, perspiring slightly as he tries to work out what on earth he could offer as a big surprise in the Budget, here are some suggestions on what that surprise rabbit from the hat could be*. A lower AME welfare cap funds a higher personal allowanceThe Chancellor is due to set the level of the spending cap for welfare in today’s Budget. Could he set it much lower than expected, and use the extra money saved to raise the personal allowance much higher than expected? This would mean he can tie welfare spending to taxpayers’ money in an even more explicit way

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Budget 2014: Will Cameron’s disciples spread the message?

Lynton Crosby addressed the Conservative parliamentary party last night about the party’s messaging for the European elections. Amusingly, I hear he told those gathered to watch one of his powerpoint presentations that while Jesus only had 12 disciples, David Cameron has 305 to spread his message. Perhaps the next Downing Street wooing event will see the Prime Minister handing out loaves and fishes to his backbenchers. After a rather off-message week, the Conservatives need their MPs to get into line and start talking about that long-term economic plan today as George Osborne unveils his Budget. One of the key words to look out for is ‘resilience’, which the Chancellor has

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Will Ebbsfleet lead to a deluge of new garden cities?

One of the announcements in tomorrow’s Budget that George Osborne has been very keen to trail is his support for a garden city at Ebbsfleet. It’s not a new location, and the project has got many eagle economic eyes fixed on it; I wrote about the ambitions that Labour’s Lord Adonis holds for the area back in February. But one crucial difference between the Adonis plan and the Osborne plan is that the Chancellor doesn’t see Ebbsfleet as a way of making the case for more garden cities in the future. This New Town or garden city or whatever you fancy calling it is remarkable because it has the support

Ed West Ed West

What I want from the Budget: some conservatism

Budget day tomorrow, and I’m sure many of you will relish the reminder that you are, in George Osborne’s reported view, ‘successful’ because you pay 40p tax band. It’s better than that, in fact. I know of men who ask their partners to make obscene references about their tax contribution during intimate moments, about how they are part of the 15 per cent of taxpayers who are reducing the deficit and making Britain the fastest-growing economy in the G7. Stranger still, Osborne is reported to have said, although he denies everything, that the 40p tax made people more likely to vote Conservative. This is the polar opposite of the truth;