Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
“Never hate your enemies – it affects your judgement”. This advice from Michael Corleone is very relevant to Gordon Brown, who makes his worst mistakes when he thinks he’d destabilising Tories. He loved how scared they were about talk of an October election last year, but didn’t realise how stupid he’d look when he didn’t
You have to give David Cameron marks for trying. He’s still trying to breathe life into the word “responsibility” in hope that it can become some kind of a political battle cry. Steve Hilton literally built a business making “corporate social responsibility” into something that companies buy into – but it’s harder to do the
I say in my political column this week that Cameron must “offer tax cuts before Brown does” – and seems I may not have to wait long before David Cameron repays my faith in him. Patrick Hennessy says in the Sunday Telegraph today that the Tories are planning an employment-orientated tax cut financed by spending
There was something almost comic about Gordon Brown and David Cameron’s rush to associate themselves with Barack Obama’s victory, each offering their own quite different interpretation. The Prime Minister declared that people are looking to government to help them during the economic downturn. The Conservative leader, with no less confidence, asserted that people are obviously
Jim Murphy deserves some credit for last night’s win. The new Scotland Secretary has become Labour’s patron saint of lost causes, tasked with selling the EU Constitution to Britain, Blairism to Labour, and Labour to his formerly-Tory constituents. Now he’s selling Brown to Glenrothes, and yesterday they bit with an increased share of the vote
The SNP should have walked Glenrothes – yet Labour came out on top. Sure, the 6,737 majority is lower than the 10,644 with which they won it three years ago – but the SNP since took the Holyrood seat and the council. After Salmond’s win in Glasgow East, winning Glenrothes should have been a formality.
Is inflation really falling? I am understandably taken to task by some CoffeeHousers for claiming that it is. When Brown claimed it was in PMQs yesterday, it was submitted to me as a possible Brownie. But what he says is perfectly true, and it’s worth looking at in more detail – for this not only
The dramatic and urgently-needed cut in base rates – by 1.5 points to 3 percent – is a comment on the extent of the deep recession that Britain is sliding into. It has been made possible by the collapse in inflation expectations. Because fewer Brits will have salaries – and most of those who have are coping with
I have been pretty hard on Cameron and Osborne during the financial crisis for three reasons: their failure to shoot down Brown’s fake narrative, the sheer size of the open goal in front of them, but most of all because of their ability. Both can do far better than this, neither suffer from the politicians’
It’s strange hearing US pundits solemnly explain that the banking turmoil of the last month was always going to hurt the incumbent government, because it hasn’t hurt Brown. Yet the UK and the US both went through the same reign of error: profligate spending, huge deficits, a housing bubble created by underpriced debt. The Bush-Brown
Some early thoughts on the American election results: 1) What Bradley effect? Obama won white men 57-41– that’s five points higher than Bush managed in 04. So much for the idea that this election would expose America’s racist underbelly. I wonder if those who have been banging on about it for the last few weeks
Rather than stay up very late, I got up very early and have been watching the American networks. Any leftie tuning in to Fox looking for a dose of schadenfreude will be sorely disappointed. There is no sense of the anger that the left had when George W Bush won. Bill O’Reilly describes Obama as “brilliant and
The below is the memo sent to Barclays staff yesterday from John Varley, chief executive, explaining why he didn’t go for a taxpayer bailout. Remember, Barclays badly need British shareholders to approve this deal – so it will have been written with that in mind. This email is itself a comment on the times we
Only two days to go before we find out which candidate for the American presidential campaign will be suing the other for voter fraud. Or, more likely, Barack Obama will carried home by an historic turnout – and, I have to confess, I will be quite pleased by that result. Not because I’ve succumbed to his
The angry reaction to Barclays’ decision to recapitalise using Middle Eastern money rather than a taxpayer bailout mystifies me. In my News of the World column today, I argue that Barclays may well become 30% Arab but its 100% correct. It has no duty to accept a UK taxpayer bailout over more expensive Arab money,
Are UK drugs seizures really going up? The Home Office said exactly this in a press release last week but closer inspection reveals the most extraordinary statistical manipulation, rumbled by my colleague at the Centre for Policy Studies, Kathy Gyngell, who blogs on it here. Here’s the scam. The Home Office boasts about “a record
A nanosecond is easily measured in Westminster as the time between a politician’s hearing of a colleague’s impending resignation and wondering ‘What’s in it for me?’ It takes perhaps a full second to construct a theory as to why the unfortunate soul had it coming and probably deserved it. It takes about a minute to
Estimated number of households in negative equity, 2003-10 If you’re a homeowner, turn away now. CoffeeHousers may remember recent reports of 1.2 million houses at risk of negative equity – well, that may just be the start of a negative equity tsunami. This Citi graph, the latest in our occasional series, shows what would happen
Like Darling’s Mais lecture, Osborne’s speech to the LSE was rather long with no discernable points of action. No matter how much you say the word “responsible” (ten times, in his case), it just doesn’t add up to a policy. First the good news – Osborne uses Japan as an example of Keynesian spending. That’s
Now that even Nigel Lawson says tax cuts are not the right way to go, why am I calling for them in my column? Lord Lawson did not issue a fatwa on all tax cuts, but warned against “massive tax cuts.” He is wary of so-called Keynesian fiscal activism – borrowing massively, to cut taxes.
