George osborne

Wednesday

Sebastian Payne

Listen: The Spectator’s verdict on the 2015 Budget

From our UK edition

George Osborne has delivered the last budget of this Parliament, was it a success? In a View from 22 podcast special, Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth, Isabel Hardman and I discuss the Chancellor's speech and what it means for the impending election campaign. Did Osborne announce anything of particular interest? Who was the Budget targeted at? How influential were the Liberal Democrats in creating this budget? And on which points will Labour attack the government?

James Forsyth

A typical coalition Budget – designed to put the Tories back in power | 18 March 2015

From our UK edition

Here is a preview of James Forsyth's political column from this week's Spectator, out tomorrow George Osborne usually tells his aides to prepare for each Budget as if it were his last. This time round, the Chancellor and those around him needed no reminding of what is at stake. They knew that this statement had to boost the Tory election campaign and define the choice facing voters in May, otherwise it really will be the last Budget he gives. As one Tory MP put it, ‘The Budget’s got to deliver some political momentum or we’re done for.’ Osborne has long been aware of the importance of this Budget for his career. If David Cameron returns to No. 10 after the election, Osborne will take the applause.

George Osborne

Budget 2015: Full text of Osborne’s speech

From our UK edition

Mr Deputy Speaker, Today, I report on a Britain that is growing, creating jobs and paying its way. We took difficult decisions in the teeth of opposition and it worked - Britain is walking tall again. Five years ago, our economy had suffered a collapse greater than almost any country. Today, I can confirm: in the last year we have grown faster than any other major advanced economy in the world. Five years ago, millions of people could not find work. Today, I can report: more people have jobs in Britain than ever before. Five years ago, living standards were set back years by the Great Recession. Today, the latest projections show that living standards will be higher than when we came to office. Five years ago, the deficit was out of control.

Isabel Hardman

Cabinet celebrates the Budget ‘in the traditional manner’

From our UK edition

The Cabinet met this morning to discuss the Budget, with the Chancellor telling ministers that today the Conservatives will ‘set out the next stage in a plan that is working’ and deliver a ‘truly national recovery’, a reiteration of the comments he's already posted on Twitter. The Prime Minister's official spokesman told journalists that 'there was an exchange of views from around the table' and that the Budget was greeted 'in the traditional manner' by those present. He refused, though, to clarify what the 'traditional manner' is. Is it popping the cork of your own individual magnum of champagne in unison?

The Spectator

Budget 2015: key announcements and figures

From our UK edition

George Osborne delivered his final Budget of this Parliament today. Here is what you need to know. Key announcements Personal Savings Allowance: From April next year, the first £1,000 of the interest on all savings will be tax-free. Tax free allowance up to £11,000: The personal tax-free allowance will rise to £10,800 next year and to £11,000 the year after. Osborne said it will means the typical working taxpayer will be over £900 a year better off. Help to Buy ISA: From the autumn, for every £200 put into a deposit, the government will top it up with £50 more. 'Fully flexible' ISAs will be introduced to allow savers to withdraw money without losing their tax-free allowance.

Isabel Hardman

How will the Tories sell today’s Budget?

From our UK edition

It's Budget Day, possibly George Osborne's last Budget and certainly the last big event in the House of Commons that anyone outside it will notice. The Chancellor will, within the limits set by the Coalition, try to give voters a vision of what life after the cuts will be like, with glimpses of sunlit uplands in the form of further rises to the personal tax allowance, freedom for pensioners who already have annuities to sell them for a lump sum, whizzy online tax returns, as well as the sort of spending that helps voters feel more secure, with the Sun predicting more cash for the intelligence services. He will describe today's announcements as forming a Budget 'that works for you'.

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

Budget bloopers – five graphs that George Osborne won’t be sharing on Wednesday

From our UK edition

George Osborne is the most political of Chancellors, and his Budget today will doubtless read like a party political broadcast. The economic momentum is on his side: soaring employment, plunging inflation, fuel prices down. But he has had more trouble with the public finances than he expected (as things turned out he could afford it, as global borrowing rates have plunged). But in the interests of balance, here are a few economic bloopers that he won’t be boasting about. 1. The deficit plan: the single biggest disappointment of his five years. Once, he defined himself by his ability to abolish the structural deficit by the 2015 election. Now, it’ll be 2018-19 before the books are balanced.

Ros Altmann

George Osborne’s annuity plan explained

From our UK edition

George Osborne has today said that he’ll allow people to sell their annuities for cash, and will consult on how best to establish a market for second-hand annuities.  This move will be popular with many of the five million or more who have been forced to buy these annuities in recent years. Here's what you need to know. 1. Annuities have become worse value but people still forced to buy as there was no other way for many to take money out of their pension funds.  The rules required anyone who wanted to withdraw some cash from their pension savings to ‘secure an income’ and if they did not have very large amounts in their fund, they had no other option – they had to buy an annuity. When interest rates crashed, so did the annuity payout.

James Forsyth

How George Osborne got the Liberal Democrats to agree to an ‘interesting Budget’

From our UK edition

George Osborne and Ed Balls have just done their pre-Budget interviews with Andrew Marr. The show, though, was dominated by talks of post-election deals rather than the contents of the Budget. Ed Balls said that Labour had ‘no need, no plan, no desire’ to do any kind of deal with the SNP. But, as Andrew Marr kept pointing out to him, he wouldn’t rule it out. While when George Osborne was asked about any kind of arrangement with Ukip, he simply took the opportunity to repeat the claim that ‘voting for Nigel Farage makes Ed Miliband the likely Prime Minister’. It was a pity, though, that more time wasn’t spent on the Budget as I suspect it will be more substantive than expected. One Downing Street source described it to me as ‘interesting’.

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 12 March 2015

From our UK edition

Home Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, said that ‘a huge burden of responsibility’ lay with those who acted as apologists for those who committed acts of terror. Parliament approved new obligations for passenger carriers to restrict the travel to or from Britain of people named as a terrorist threat. The Charity Commission required the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Roddick Foundation to give unequivocal assurances that they had ceased funding Cage, the advocacy group known for speaking up for Mohammed Emwazi, the British jihadist involved in videos of Islamic State murders. England were knocked out of the Cricket World Cup.

James Forsyth

The Tories must commit to spending 2 percent of GDP on defence

From our UK edition

At a time when Russian fighter jets are forcing civilian flights into UK airports to be diverted, you would expect defence to be one of the big issues of the election campaign. But it is not. It doesn’t fit into the script that the two main parties want to stick to. The Tories’ long-term economic plan doesn’t have space for any foreign entanglements and Labour would rather talk about the National Health Service than national security. But we do need to have a discussion about Britain’s role in the world and how we respond to the Russian threat. It is worth remembering that if Putin tried any funny business in the Baltics we would be obliged—because of Nato Article 5—to come to their aid.

Martin Vander Weyer

Won’t someone please unleash the challenger banks?

From our UK edition

In my Yorkshire town of Helmsley the NatWest branch, originally an outpost of Beckett & Co of Leeds, has closed down — collateral damage of its crippled parent RBS’s continuing struggle for viability. Our branch of the Australian-owned Yorkshire Bank, descendant of the West Riding Penny Savings institution, became an antique shop some time ago. HSBC, formerly Midland, is now a hairdressing salon. When they arrived a century ago, all three were ‘challenger banks’ of their day. But now they have gone, no challengers have ridden in to replace them — unless we count Handelsbanken, the progressively old-fashioned Swedish retail bank that has a thriving franchise down the road at Scarborough.

Wednesday

Steerpike

Labour’s lame ‘same-name’ email campaign

From our UK edition

‘Labour has vowed not to feature Prime Minister David Cameron on billboards ahead of the general election,' reported the BBC last month. ‘The party said it would focus on issues rather than personalities. and not use negative personal campaigning.’ It seems that has not stretched to the party’s email campaigning though. Steerpike’s inbox has been inundated with fundraising emails from all of the parties, but a particularly naff example is doing the rounds today. Labour appear to have enlisted the help of people with identical names to Tory leaders to send out emails. Such as: I couldn't resist jumping on the bandwagon here! I'm a Labour Party member of 25 years' standing.

Monday

James Forsyth

Why George Osborne wants to be the new Tarzan

From our UK edition

There is a subtle ideological shift going on in the Tory party. At the top of the party, there is an increasing appetite for a modern form of industrial strategy. As George Osborne argues in an interview in the current Spectator, ‘The Conservative party is at its strongest when it’s not the party that says there is no role for government and the state should just get out of the way… That is not a strand of Conservative thinking that, by itself, is enough. You need to have a bit of the Michael Heseltine: “I’m going to take the Docklands and build a financial centre here and build an airport here.” Or, “I’m going to take the Albert Docks in Liverpool and put the Tate Gallery here.

Thursday

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: Putin’s empire building, Osborne’s election plans and what Ukip want

From our UK edition

Are we heading into a new Cold War? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, we revisit Vladimir Putin’s empire building plans and the Mail on Sunday’s Peter Hitchens debates his intentions with author Ben Judah. Is the West right to mistrust Putin? Do we have the moral upper hand regarding the situation in Ukraine? And should nations always assume that NATO and the EU always have better democratic solutions than Russia? Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth also discuss George Osborne’s interest in the north and what it means for the Tories’ electioneering plans. Will the Conservatives pick up support outside of their comfort areas? Should the Manchester area have devolved powers when they said no to a mayoral referendum a few years ago?

James Forsyth

George Osborne interview: smaller government is not enough

From our UK edition

[audioplayer src="http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/putin-s-empire-building/media.mp3" title="James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson discuss Osborne's election manoeuvres " startat=839] Listen [/audioplayer]Puccini’s doesn’t seem like George Osborne’s sort of restaurant. It is a pizza-and-pasta place in the safely Labour constituency of Salford and Eccles, Greater Manchester, most notable for the fact that Sir Alex Ferguson once took his whole squad there. (‘Penne alla Giggs’ is still on offer to prove it.) In recent years, however, the Chancellor has become something of a regular — he has even taken the Prime Minister along — and is made welcome to the point that when we met there last Thursday diners queued to be photographed with him.

Thursday

Steerpike

George Osborne’s ex-dominatrix friend plans a sequel

From our UK edition

Oh dear. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is not going to be pleased. Natalie Rowe, the former dominatrix who enjoyed a friendship with George Osborne in the early nineties, is planning a book to follow her autobiography. Further still, judging by the fact she is toying with the idea of calling it 'Budge it' - a phrase that bares a close resemblance to 'budget' - it could well feature Osborne again. Mr S has blanked out one of the words to spare blushes. For those who missed her initial book Chief Whip: Memoirs of a Dominatrix, which was released in 2013, Rowe gave a colourful account of her friendship with Osborne, who she met through her ex-boyfriend William Sinclair. In the book, Rowe claimed that she once licked Osborne's ear.

Fraser Nelson

How Cameron’s jobs miracle ate his immigration target

From our UK edition

The embarrassing truth is that David Cameron did not think carefully about this pledge to take net immigration into the 'tens of thousands'. The pledge originated in a Thick-of-It style farce: it was an aspiration mentioned by Damian Green, then immigration spokesman, that caught media attention. The Tories didn’t want to make a fuss by disowning it, so this pledge ended up becoming party policy and then government policy. Absurdly so: a country can only control who comes in, not who goes out. So immigration, not ‘net immigration’, should have been the target. And even then, it should have been immigration from outside the EU – which Theresa May has done a reasonable job controlling. But the not-so-embarrassing truth is that this is a problem of success.

Martin Vander Weyer

How Labour’s 50p tax trick has ended up helping George Osborne

From our UK edition

Last week’s public borrowing and tax-receipt figures, headlined ‘Chancellor hails biggest monthly surplus in seven years’, received considerably less attention than the employment and wage-growth numbers a week earlier, underlining my belief that voters care a lot less (or indeed not at all) about the intangible ‘fiscal deficit’ and its implications than they do about their own prospects and spending power. And rightly so. Failure to shrink the deficit at the rate he first promised is nevertheless the one major issue on which George Osborne is seriously open to criticism as Chancellor. But what matters in political terms at this stage is that borrowing this year is 7.