Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
Alistair Darling has not set out a new fiscal framework in his much-delayed Mais lecture – but he has read the last rites over the so-called the financial rules. “To apply the fiscal rules in a rigid manner today would be perverse,” he says. Not to say impossible: the rules set a 40% limit on
Finally, the right line from Prime Minister’s Questions – and it’s one that Gordon Brown will fear the most. “What people need now is more money in their pockets. He could deliver big tax cuts for people who desperately need help”. It was from Nick Clegg. You can argue – as I do – that the Liberal
I was joking when I said a few weeks ago that Gordon Brown spoke about the recession as if it were the SARS virus. But at his press conference this morning, and just now at the press conference with Sarkozy, he has used a new phrase: “stop the contagion”. Contagion? If it is, it was
Danny Finkelstein argues that I am not “precise” when I say that the Tories have been equating tax cuts to instability – and, as ever, he’s right. This is, happily, a historical argument as the Cameron project has evolved substantially since the first weeks when this “stability before tax cuts” slogan was implied. One does
The debate about taxes was successfully closed down by Gordon Brown when he persuaded the Tories to equate tax cuts with instability. Actually, even Brown didn’t go this far – this “instability” point was Oliver Letwin’s. Even now, when the disastrous effects of Brown’s economic policy are painfully clear, it’s still hard to get a
It’s funny to hear politicians solemnly talk about “debt-financing”, as if the cash comes down on a moonbeam from the lending gods. In truth, some poor souls have to buy the gilts the Treasury are flogging – and with what? Governments may well find it as hard as the rest of us to find creditors
The sterling crash has now begun in earnest. The pound has today (today!) fallen 9% against the Yen and is off 4% against the dollar to a lowly $1.56 with forecasts of $1.40 or lower next year. Against any other currency you may mention, it’s now plunging. The proximate cause is news that the UK
Phil Woolas has only been immigration minister a few weeks, and is already controversial enough a figure to be pulled from Question Time. A humiliation for him? I suspect his job is going completely to plan. His Times interview in which he called for the population to be capped at 70m looked part of a co-ordinated campaign, slated as
In Uganda there is a law against annoying the president, and last night I met an incredible person who has been jailed 12 times for breaking that law. Andrew Mwenda, founder of The Independent newspaper, was giving the keynote address at The Bastiat Prize and asking why the West was so timid in defending free
How bad are the Deripaska allegations for Osborne? At the very least, climbing on board that yacht raises questions over his judgement. But, as with so many Westminster scandals, all hangs on what more is to come. Labour will gun for him as hard as they can, knowing how important he is to Tory strategy.
He’s done it. I blogged a while ago about how Gordon Brown lost his battle to have Northern Rock struck off the books, causing trouble for his oft-repeated Brownie that he has reduced debt from 43% to 37% of GDP. In August, the ONS showed National Debt was 43.3% – and had actually been at
Much as though I applaud David Cameron’s plan to give struggling small companies a VAT holiday, a rather large obstacle occurs to me. Wouldn’t this be illegal under European Union law? The Sixth EU VAT Directive mandates all states to apply VAT the same way as long as the main rate is a minimum of
Few would dispute that, in the last fortnight, Gordon Brown has shown why he has been a fixture for so long at the very apex of British politics. His economic model has imploded and his debt pyramid collapsed. The taxpayer is up to his neck to the tune of half a trillion pounds to clear
I’ve read and re-read Cameron’s speech on the economy, hoping that I had somehow missed the radical message to answer Gordon Brown. I have given up. Britain is facing a tsunami of unemployment, two years of recession if we’re lucky and what do the Tories have to say? They’ll set up a new quango, and
British households are far less able to deal with the credit crunch because taxes have risen by the equivalent of £6,520 per household compared to 1996/97 levels. This ratcheting up of the tax burden has been a steady feature of the Brown years but it is being felt with particular force now. During the boom
I am hearing that Brown is to make up his own debt measurement, after losing a battle to have Northern Rock struck from the official national debt. It will be used in the pre budget report, exclude Northern Rock, and would show the figure Harman gave in PMQs today, national debt falling from 43 percent
Ben Brogan spots this gem from an interview with the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker: Gordon Brown “begged” to turn up at the Eurozone meeting last week. Brown desperately wanted to turn up so that could present to a domestic audience this carefully crafted image of Brown the Saviour, the man called in to
How bad can unemployment get during the Brown Bust? Predictions of two or three million unemployed miss an important point. The concept of the “dole” has changed: unlike in the 1980s it has become a way of life, as well as a safety net. There were 5.2 million on out-of-work benefits last February of which
The Brown Bust: house prices This is the first in a short series on the illustrated Brown Bust, we’ll show you graphs looking at the various aspects of the bursting of the Brown Bubble. After failing to control monetary policy – giving the Bank of England an inflation-only remit – the out-of-control money supply led
Harman v. Hague with Fraser Nelson from noon: 12:00 I’m still cross with William Hague for pitching up at that Lake Como villa at the Barclays Wealth shindig that was in the papers before he left. Utter idiocy. Sure, he arrived on its last day to accompany his wife who works there. But his political