Philip hammond

In the autumn statement, Philip Hammond chose to mock Boris’ failed leadership bid. This wasn’t the first time that one of the Foreign Secretary Cabinet’s colleagues had had a laugh at his expense. At our parliamentarian of the year awards, Theresa May joked that Boris would be put down when he was no longer useful. But Boris and his circle are getting rather fed up with him being the butt of the joke, as I say in The Sun today. Those close to Boris feel that these gibes undercut him on the world stage. ‘If they want the UK to be taken seriously, they need to back him not mock

Theresa May likes to give a kitten-heeled kicking to conference audiences, even when they are police officers or her own party delegates. But at the CBI gathering at Grosvenor House in London on Monday, she was out to make friends with soothing (if essentially hollow) remarks about Brexit, and promises of the lowest corporate tax rates in the G20 and an extra £2 billion a year for research and development to help the UK stay close to the forefront of technology and bioscience. Assembled fat cats may still have been irritated by her commitment to binding annual shareholder votes on executive pay, but at least she backed away from putting

From the moment she arrived in 10 Downing Street, Theresa May has been commendably clear about her economic priorities for Britain. She wants the country to be a beacon of free trade, at a time when protectionism is on the rise the world over. She is annoyed at the way in which quantitative easing has manipulated asset prices, making property unaffordable. And while David Cameron was very successful in raising the incomes of those at the bottom, she is concerned that those in the middle have not fared as well. She wants a ‘country that works for everyone’ — that is to say, one where effort is always rewarded. This

For most people being Foreign Secretary would be a great job, but Philip Hammond never looked like he particularly relished that role. What he has always wanted to be is Chancellor and today in his first major parliamentary event in the role he crisply set out what he thinks is wrong with the UK economy. He said that to make a success of Brexit, Britain would have to deal with its productivity gap, the housing challenge and address the regional imbalances in the economy. Cabinet colleagues say that Hammond talks more passionately about productivity than any other subject. Judging by today, he views investment in economically productive infrastructure as the

Ahead of tomorrow’s Autumn Statement, speculation has been growing about what policies the government have up their sleeves. However, another thing to look out for is strained relations between the Chancellor and the Prime Minister. Speculation has been growing in Westminster for some time that Theresa May and Philip Hammond don’t particularly see eye-to-eye. So, with that in mind, Mr S was intrigued to read an article by Rachel Sylvester in today’s Times. In a piece titled ‘our control-freak PM has met her match’, Sylvester looks at relations between the pair before May became Prime Minister. She says that an MP tells her Hammond regularly told Osborne he could not stand the then

Corporation Tax The Prime Minister will today pledge to match the lowest corporation tax rates within the G20 — even if that means sinking to President-elect Trump’s 15 percent, says The Times. At her conference speech, Theresa May seemed to signal that she would be cracking down on big business which saw tax as ‘an optional extra’. She also criticised companies that use cheap foreign labour over British workers. But now she is softening her stance on businesses, and will tell the CBI Annual Conference today that she plans to make the UK one of the most vibrant economies in the world by keeping tax rates low. Corporation tax currently

This morning’s Marr show was something of a financial matter, with the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell sharing the sofa. As Andrew Marr pointed out, having the pair of Chancellors share a sofa is a ‘great tradition’, but one that had a stop put to it when George Osborne was in charge. Now the tradition has come back – but it this morning’s performance might be a good example of why Osborne chose to put a stop to it in the first place. The general consensus seems to be that McDonnell came out on top – with commenters saying that he ran rings around Hammond. Naturally, lots

Normally, the Saturday before an autumn statement would be dominated by speculation about what is in it. But, as I say in The Sun today, both Number 10 and the Treasury are emphasising that while there’ll be important things on productivity, infrastructure and fiscal rules in Wednesday’s statement, there’ll be no rabbits out of hats. Partly, this is because of  Philip Hammond’s personality: he’s not a political showman. But it is also because he’s not got much room for manoeuvre.  As he has emphasised to Cabinet colleagues, the growth forecasts might not be dramatically lower than they were in March, but cumulatively they have a big effect—limiting what the government