George osborne

Oh dear. George Osborne’s claim in December’s Autumn Statement that ‘the deficit is coming down this year, and every year of this Parliament’ was already looking hubristic, even before today’s news that the 4G mobile spectrum auction raised just £2.3 billion, rather than the £3.5 billion that the Office for Budget Responsibility had forecast. As Fraser blogged in November, there were hopes that Britain would — like Ireland — raise even more than expected from the auction. At the Autumn Statement, the OBR predicted that borrowing (once you strip out the effects of various one-off accounting changes, such as the transfer of Royal Mail pensions) would fall ever-so-slightly this year, from

John Rentoul draws attention to a new ComRes poll that goes some way towards explaining George Osborne’s predicament when it comes to managing government finances. Put simply, the public is not interested in public spending cuts. On the contrary, British voters want to see public spending increase. Sure, they might agree that, all things being equal and in the broader scheme of matters, it might be a good idea if the government balanced the books but all things are rarely equal and as soon as you get into the narrow, particular view of these matters it becomes clear that, actually, the only departmental budget voters want to decimate is that

The state owning banks is not a good thing. It is, as the annual row over bonuses at RBS demonstrates, very difficult to keep politics out of the running of the business. So, it’s encouraging news that the Treasury is moving to sell the government’s 82 percent stake as soon as possible. Today, the Mail and The Independent report that George Osborne is considering simply handing over the shares to taxpayers, who would then be able to sell them when they at a time of their choosing. As I wrote earlier this month, Osborne is very keen to avoid a row over RBS bonuses in February 2015, just three months

Today’s PMQs was not, as James says, a tricky one for David Cameron. He had some good jokes and embarrassing gossip to poke Ed Miliband with, even though the Labour leader chose to attack on the thorny issue of living standards. The key to the next election will be whether voters feel their lives have improved under the Coalition far more than it is about the latest ONS release on GDP. And the key challenge for the Coalition is to be clear that though things won’t be rosy – as Miliband pointed out, the squeeze on living standards will still be taking place when polling day arrives – they would

The Daily Telegraph is more supportive of the Conservative Party than any British newspaper, which is why its leader today – urging George Osborne to change course – is important. “The coalition’s economic policy is not working” it says, and goes on to urge a rupture with the failing policy. Its central recommendation is that corporation tax drops below Irish levels so Britain offers the lowest company tax in the European Union. Osborne could announce this on his 20 March budget. And he could spend 21 March listening to the sucking sound as companies started relocating to Britain. “Overnight, this would make the UK the most attractive location in the

David Cameron clearly rated Adam Afriyie’s ‘stalking horse’ plot as a sufficiently ridiculous threat to make a joke out of it at Prime Minister’s Questions this week. After their premature outing in the papers last weekend, the plotters might sensibly have gone to ground for some time while Afriyie fended off lunch invitations from journalists trying to get the measure of him. But according to the Mail and the Guardian, they’re still at it, now with George Osborne in their crosshairs. They’re clearly a determined bunch, plotting to deliver an ultimatum to the Prime Minister in May to replace his Chancellor if the Budget fails to revive the economy. That’s

Starbucks had a go at David Cameron on Sunday for his ‘cheap shots’ at the coffee chain’s tax arrangements in the UK. The company felt it was being unfairly singled out in comments about companies legally avoiding tax needing to ‘wake up and smell the coffee’. So what about other firms known to be avoiding tax? Coffee House has learned that the former Lib Dem Treasury spokesman Lord Oakeshott is writing a rather scathing pair of letters to David Cameron and George Osborne about the government’s dealings with Google, which paid only £6 million in corporation tax in the UK in 2012 by funnelling £6 billion worth of transactions through

George Osborne, Patrick McLoughlin and Simon Burns have been flying the flag for the second phase of High Speed Rail 2 this morning. Politically, Osborne and Co see rewards in a project aimed at closing the North/South divide, rewards clearly so great that the Chancellor doesn’t mind the second half of the route zipping through his own constituency and irritating local councillors and campaigners. Osborne was careful to underline this when he appeared on breakfast television this morning, saying: ‘Our country has become so unbalanced and for the last 15 years as a country we gambled on the City of London and its prosperity and look where that got us.

‘George Osborne is under pressure to tear up his austerity programme after Boris Johnson called on the government to drop its ‘hair-shirt, Stafford Cripps agenda,’ reports the delighted Guardian today. Even Boris is against it! Even he can see that the obvious solution to our debt crisis is even more debt! Except, as you’d expect, it’s all nonsense. Kamal Ahmed at the Telegraph got it right: Boris’s problem is with Osborne’s language: talking about pain, rather than recovery. He quotes Boris: ‘We need to junk the rhetoric of austerity and be confident. I will be unveiling a seven point economic plan to drive jobs and growth in London which drives the

Finally: Number 10 admits that far from ‘dealing with debt’, the government is seeing it rise. This morning the Prime Minister’s spokesman was grilled on the party political broadcast that horrified Fraser last night in which the Prime Minister said ‘we are making progress. We’re paying down Britain’s debts.’ Fraser has explained the reality – that Cameron is in fact increasing Britain’s debt by 60 per cent – in this post with two unnerving graphs, and the Prime Minister’s spokesman conceded that ‘the debt as a percentage of GDP has risen’. Asked whether the Prime Minister understood the difference between the debt and the deficit, he said: ‘Yes, he does.’

Ministers aren’t just getting ready for March’s Budget: they’re also trying to work out a ‘budget setting process’ for 2015/16. The content of that slimmed-down departmental spending review formed the discussion at today’s Cabinet meeting, with George Osborne and Danny Alexander leading. It’s not clear when this spending review will be announced, other than that it will take place in the first half of 2013. But the discussion centred around that old chestnut, the ‘difficult decisions’. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘They set out that there was going to be a budget setting process for 15/16 in the first half of this year that the treasury will set out

Another week, another former Tory cabinet minister working a room. Last week I brought you news of Liam Fox entertaining the great and good of the Tory party. Now I hear that Andrew Mitchell has been making an extra special effort to be nice to absolutely everyone. The former chief whip was being very friendly to the commentariat at a drinks party at a recently opened hotel in Westminster. He shunned sceptical news journalists, but made determined passes at those with influential column inches. Whatever could he want them to say? George Osborne was at the same private party, pressing flesh like a coiffured madam in a brothel. There was no sign, though, of

An impressive turnout in the Churchill Room of the Carlton Club last night for Liam Fox’s New Year drinks. My eyes in the room reports that a smiling Liam claimed he had ‘invited 180 people’ and 162 had turned up. Interestingly, the big beasts came out for the former Defence Secretary, who is said to be eyeing a political comeback. Chancellor George Osborne stopped by, as did Party Chairman Grant Shapps, and Chris Grayling joined the party together with ‘a smattering of Whips’. Though he was left high and dry by colleagues during the scandal that ended his frontbench career in October 2011, his friends were back for the free

The battle-lines over the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill — which faces its second reading in the Commons this afternoon — have been drawn. Labour has tied its opposition to the Resolution Foundation’s analysis showing that the bulk of the policy will hit working families. As Ed Balls put it last week, ‘Two-thirds of people who will be hit by David Cameron and George Osborne’s real terms cuts to tax credits and benefits are in work.’ They’ve labelled the move a ‘strivers’ tax’, a continuation of the divisive rhetoric from both them and the Conservatives that seeks to pit ‘hardworking families’ against ‘people who won’t work’ (as a recent Tory ad

‘We have reduced the deficit by a quarter in just two years’ — the coalition’s mid-term review. True. But when Gordon Brown proposed to do precisely the same in Labour’s last budget, George Osborne criticised him for not moving fast enough and endangering the economy. The ONS shows that public sector net borrowing was down 24 per cent from 2009-10 to 2011-12. But George Osborne cannot claim to have stuck to his deficit reduction plan. That has been torn up. The below graph shows Brown’s plan (in the middle), Osborne’s original plan (at the bottom) and his current plan (at the top): As you can see, Osborne is now cutting