Ross Clark

Ross Clark

Ross Clark is a leader writer and columnist who has written for The Spectator for three decades. His books include Not Zero, The Road to Southend Pier, and Far From EUtopia: Why Europe is failing and Britain could do better

A recession is coming – but that doesn’t mean Brexit is to blame

The Office of Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) makes a point in its Fiscal Risk Report today that ought to be obvious and yet which hardly ever seems to feature in debate over the public finances and ‘austerity’. It is virtually certain that sooner or later the UK economy will suffer another recession which will cause tax receipts

Are our pizzas really under threat from Brexit?

Last week it was Vince Cable trying to tell us that Brexit was depriving Wimbledon spectators of their strawberries – swiftly denied by the All England Club. This week it is the turn of pizza chain Franco Manca to try to scare us of the consequences of Brexit. Announcing the company’s results, chairman David Page said,

Self-employed workers don’t need rescuing

‘Workers,’ says Matthew Taylor, whose report into modern practices is published this week, ‘should be treated as human beings, not cogs in a machine’. How very grand – and how fatuous. His entire report, commissioned by Theresa May in one of her first acts after becoming Prime Minister last July, is pointless, based on the

What if Hinkley Point proves Jeremy Corbyn right?

Theresa May spent her first few months as Prime Minister reversing many of her predecessor’s policies. But there is one which she may well end up regretting that she failed to reverse: going ahead with the contract for French state electricity company EDF to build the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. Yesterday, EDF announced

Ross Clark

How to solve the public sector pay cap dilemma

Of all the mistakes in the Conservative election campaign, possibly most grievous of all was the promise to maintain a public sector pay cap of 1 per cent until 2020. It was one thing to maintain such a policy in the 2015 election campaign – when the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) stood at 0.4 per

Iain Duncan Smith assesses the government’s welfare record

When the Conservatives returned to power in 2010, in coalition with the Lib Dems, lifting people out of poverty was one of their signature policies. It would be hard to say that now. Theresa May has shown more interest in devoting time and energy to the ‘just about managing’ classes further up the socio-economic spectrum.

Glastonbury wouldn’t survive under a Corbyn government

Only Jeremy Corbyn could speak at Glastonbury and think he was addressing the oppressed proletariat. Glastonbury, he said, while introducing an unintelligible US rapper on the Pyramid Stage, shows ‘that another world is possible if we come together’. To most observers, rather, it shows what is possible when the middle classes pay £228 a head

Philip Hammond’s Brexit plan is the worst of all worlds

Had last week’s expected landslide actually occurred Philip Hammond would by now be working on his memoirs. Instead, he is still in his job and demonstrating why, according to rumours, Theresa May might have liked to have removed him from the Treasury. He has reportedly demanded that May’s policy on Brexit be watered down so

Let’s stop blaming Brexit for higher inflation

No time has been lost in blaming Brexit for today’s rise in the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) to 2.9 per cent. It wasn’t just those on the left, either. The head of Theresa May’s policy unit, George Freeman, tweeted this morning: ‘This is reality of the devaluation of the £ post Brexit’. While George Freeman has

George Osborne must bitterly regret quitting politics

I am no psychologist but I don’t think you have to be one to appreciate that there is some turmoil going on in the mind of the man who wrote the Evening Standard’s four front page headlines today. ‘May Hung Out to Dry’, ‘May’s Right Royal Mess’, ‘May’s Irish Bailout’, ‘Queen of Denial’ – these

Ross Clark

There’s only one solution: a coalition between the two parties

How utterly, utterly miserable it could be for a minority Conservative government. They can forget their lacklustre, un-costed manifesto now. They are not going to get any of that through. But how even more miserable would be it for the government’s negotiators in Brussels, stripped of their authority. Theresa May is finished, that is clear. She

Generation wars | 8 June 2017

British general elections have often evolved from contests between parties into battles between two opposing themes or ideas. In 1964, it was modernity vs the grouse moors; 1979, trade unionism vs individualism; 1983, Cold War strength vs unilateral nuclear disarmament. This year was supposed to be the Brexit election, yet instead developed into something loosely