Tom Goodenough is online editor of The Spectator.
Given that Jeremy Corbyn barely seemed to notice Philip Hammond’s Budget blunder, it’s unlikely the Chancellor will be too worried about Labour’s response to the National Insurance rates row. He will be troubled, though, by the rumblings on the backbenches behind him. The prospect of a Tory revolt is now very much on the cards; 18
Philip Hammond is feeling the heat this morning. This was supposed to be the ‘boring’ budget, with no headline-grabbing announcements or spending splurges. Instead, the Chancellor’s face is splashed across the front pages this morning for all the wrong reasons. And the reception for Hammond doesn’t get any warmer inside the newspapers. The Daily Mail starts
Philip Hammond has finished his Budget announcement. The stand out points? £2bn in funding for social care – although only half will come in the next year; money for new schools; help for businesses – including pubs – that will be hit hardest by the business rates hike. There’s only one policy which will grab
Philip Hammond doesn’t do box office. Unlike his predecessor George Osborne, he doesn’t do burgers either, with his austere pre-budget picture showing the Chancellor looking characteristically gloomy as, we’re told, he prepares Britain to be ‘match fit’ for the future. So what do we know about Hammond’s first – and last – spring Budget? For
Remember David Cameron’s renegotiation with Brussels in the run-up to the referendum? There’s a good chance you’ve probably forgotten; after all, even the Prime Minister wasn’t keen to talk up his paltry deal. Yet there’s a danger of history repeating itself if peers have their wicked way, warns the Sun. ‘Peers and rebel Tory MPs’
You don’t earn a nickname like ‘Spreadsheet Phil’ for being a showman. But is Philip Hammond’s powder-dry demeanour and unwavering focus on the numbers actually his strong point? Yes, says the Sun, which suggests the chancellor’s cautious approach is exactly what Britain needs right now. The paper says that whereas Hammond’s predecessors would use their Budget announcements
Peers haven’t made themselves popular by voting for an amendment to the Government’s Article 50 bill. They’ve been called ‘contemptible’, accused of an ‘insidious plot to thwart democracy‘ and threatened with abolition. But is there a chance they were right to try and make MPs think again? That’s the argument made in the Times this morning,
When the House of Lords voted against the Government’s Brexit bill last night, peers won’t have been expecting much in the way of thanks in today’s newspapers. But the ferocity of the attacks on the Lords could still come as something of a surprise: it’s time for the Lords to go, says the Sun in its
Sir Philip Green has dug deep into his bulging pockets to plug the gap in BHS’s pension scheme. But the newspapers are in agreement: the tycoon’s £363m gesture counts for precious little. Even this huge payout won’t save Green’s reputation, says the Sun, which argues that while the former BHS boss has done the ‘right thing’,
The Government is getting worried. So far, the passage of the Article 50 bill through Parliament has been relatively smooth. Tomorrow, there’s a chance that could change: peers will debate the issue of what happens to EU citizens in the UK after Brexit. This topic has been something of a political hot potato for the
The ghosts of Prime Ministers past aren’t making life easy for Theresa May. John Major has now followed in the haunted footsteps of Tony Blair by criticising his successor’s approach to Brexit. Major used a speech yesterday to say people are being offered an ‘unreal’ vision of Brexit by the Government. Unsurprisingly, Major’s intervention has
‘Take back control’ was the mantra of the Brexit bunch during the referendum – but eight months on, Britain is still waiting to be handed the keys. Next month, says the Daily Telegraph, part of the wait could be over. The paper reports that Theresa May is planning to announce an end to free movement for EU migrants
Labour’s defeat in Copeland is nothing short of a disaster – but you won’t hear that from the shadow chancellor. Instead, John McDonnell said the fact that the Tories snatched away the seat – becoming the first Government to win a by-election since the 1980s – was a ‘disappointment’. His biggest concession to those who
Ronald Fiddler doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as Abu-Zakariya al-Britani, which perhaps explains the British Isis fighter’s decision to change his name. Either way, Fiddler’s death during a car bomb attack in Mosul has sparked an almighty row. It’s emerged that Fiddler is a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who was paid compensation –
If Britain really is still a nation of shopkeepers, the Government seems to be picking its enemies rather unwisely with its plans to ramp up business rates – in some cases by as much as 400 per cent over the next five years. The policy – and the somewhat bungled attempt by Communities Secretary Sajid Javid
Peers can continue their Brexit debate in relative peace today without the watchful glare of the Prime Minister gazing over them. Theresa May’s brief appearance at the start of the Lords’ Article 50 debate yesterday was unprecedented but given how long she stayed you’d be forgiven for thinking it was little more than a publicity
After Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell returned to urge a revolt against Brexit, only one thing was missing: Peter Mandelson, who turned up on Andrew Marr’s sofa yesterday. Ever on-message, he repeated Blair’s line that the 52 per cent of the country who backed Brexit ‘had no idea of the terms on which the government would
The Article 50 court cases sparked an angry backlash in the newspapers, with the judges involved famously labelled ‘enemies of the people’. Yesterday was the day the Supreme Court president Lord Neuberger hit back: Neuberger criticised politicians for being slow to defend judges and said the attacks on the justice system risked undermining the rule
More Brits then ever are now in work, with the proportion of the working age population in jobs hitting 74.6 per cent at the end of 2016. Good news such as this about Britain’s job market has become ‘almost mundane’, says the Daily Telegraph. But even in this climate of healthy jobs figures, these latest
A key part of Theresa May’s strategy for wooing Donald Trump was making it clear that Britain was pulling its weight with funding Nato, with the PM calling on other countries to match the two per cent of GDP that Britain spent on defence so ‘that the burden is more fairly shared’. The report from
