George osborne

George Osborne spent an hour in front of the 1922 this evening. 40 Tory MPs took the opportunity to promote their own Budget ideas to him. From what I understand, the tone of the meeting was cordial with Osborne in relaxed form. A big theme was the cost of living with three MPs including Rob Halfon pushing the Chancellor on fuel duty. Osborne’s responses were non-committal but significantly he didn’t say that binning the fuel duty rise scheduled for September was unaffordable. Instead, a distinct vibe was given off that these MPs concerns would be accommodated. Two other MPs-- Steve Brine and Henry Smith—made the case for a cut in air passenger duty, something that the influential chairman of the ’22 Graham Brady has been a public advocate of.

George Osborne was playing historian today as he responded to Ed Balls' urgent question on the credit rating downgrade, charting Labour's role in the UK's loss of the AAA rating; particularly the deficit it bequeathed the Coalition. But he was in revisionist mood when it came to his own stance. As Ed Balls repeatedly leant across the despatch box and tried to hand the Chancellor a copy of the Tory 2010 manifesto in which the party lists 'we will safeguard Britain's credit rating' as the first of its eight benchmarks, George Osborne told MPs that what he had always said was important was the confidence of the markets. MPs were largely in a tribal mood.

The United Kingdom’s triple A rating is now lost with one credit rating agency, Moody’s. This is a politically difficult moment for George Osborne. Back in February 2010, he set keeping the triple A rating as one of the key tests of a Conservative government’s economic policy. His opponents will delight in pointing out that he has failed the test he has set himself, while nervousness on the Tory benches about the coalition’s economic strategy will be heightened by this news. Economically, though, I doubt that this will have much impact. In recent weeks, Britain’s debt has been trading more like that of France, which has lost its triple A rating, than Germany, which still has it.

Oh dear. George Osborne's claim in December's Autumn Statement that 'the deficit is coming down this year, and every year of this Parliament' was already looking hubristic, even before today's news that the 4G mobile spectrum auction raised just £2.3 billion, rather than the £3.5 billion that the Office for Budget Responsibility had forecast. As Fraser blogged in November, there were hopes that Britain would — like Ireland — raise even more than expected from the auction. At the Autumn Statement, the OBR predicted that borrowing (once you strip out the effects of various one-off accounting changes, such as the transfer of Royal Mail pensions) would fall ever-so-slightly this year, from £121.4 billion in 2011-12 to £120.3 billion in 2012-13.

John Rentoul draws attention to a new ComRes poll that goes some way towards explaining George Osborne's predicament when it comes to managing government finances. Put simply, the public is not interested in public spending cuts. On the contrary, British voters want to see public spending increase. Sure, they might agree that, all things being equal and in the broader scheme of matters, it might be a good idea if the government balanced the books but all things are rarely equal and as soon as you get into the narrow, particular view of these matters it becomes clear that, actually, the only departmental budget voters want to decimate is that small portion of government spending devoted to foreign aid.

The state owning banks is not a good thing. It is, as the annual row over bonuses at RBS demonstrates, very difficult to keep politics out of the running of the business. So, it’s encouraging news that the Treasury is moving to sell the government’s 82 percent stake as soon as possible. Today, the Mail and The Independent report that George Osborne is considering simply handing over the shares to taxpayers, who would then be able to sell them when they at a time of their choosing. As I wrote earlier this month, Osborne is very keen to avoid a row over RBS bonuses in February 2015, just three months before the general election.

Today's PMQs was not, as James says, a tricky one for David Cameron. He had some good jokes and embarrassing gossip to poke Ed Miliband with, even though the Labour leader chose to attack on the thorny issue of living standards. The key to the next election will be whether voters feel their lives have improved under the Coalition far more than it is about the latest ONS release on GDP. And the key challenge for the Coalition is to be clear that though things won't be rosy - as Miliband pointed out, the squeeze on living standards will still be taking place when polling day arrives - they would be worse under Labour.

The Daily Telegraph is more supportive of the Conservative Party than any British newspaper, which is why its leader today – urging George Osborne to change course - is important. “The coalition’s economic policy is not working” it says, and goes on to urge a rupture with the failing policy. Its central recommendation is that corporation tax drops below Irish levels so Britain offers the lowest company tax in the European Union. Osborne could announce this on his 20 March budget. And he could spend 21 March listening to the sucking sound as companies started relocating to Britain.

David Cameron clearly rated Adam Afriyie's 'stalking horse' plot as a sufficiently ridiculous threat to make a joke out of it at Prime Minister's Questions this week. After their premature outing in the papers last weekend, the plotters might sensibly have gone to ground for some time while Afriyie fended off lunch invitations from journalists trying to get the measure of him. But according to the Mail and the Guardian, they're still at it, now with George Osborne in their crosshairs. They're clearly a determined bunch, plotting to deliver an ultimatum to the Prime Minister in May to replace his Chancellor if the Budget fails to revive the economy. That's quite some ask.

Starbucks had a go at David Cameron on Sunday for his 'cheap shots' at the coffee chain's tax arrangements in the UK. The company felt it was being unfairly singled out in comments about companies legally avoiding tax needing to 'wake up and smell the coffee'. So what about other firms known to be avoiding tax? Coffee House has learned that the former Lib Dem Treasury spokesman Lord Oakeshott is writing a rather scathing pair of letters to David Cameron and George Osborne about the government's dealings with Google, which paid only £6 million in corporation tax in the UK in 2012 by funnelling £6 billion worth of transactions through the tax haven of Bermuda. Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, currently sits on the government's Business Advisory Group.

George Osborne, Patrick McLoughlin and Simon Burns have been flying the flag for the second phase of High Speed Rail 2 this morning. Politically, Osborne and Co see rewards in a project aimed at closing the North/South divide, rewards clearly so great that the Chancellor doesn't mind the second half of the route zipping through his own constituency and irritating local councillors and campaigners. Osborne was careful to underline this when he appeared on breakfast television this morning, saying: 'Our country has become so unbalanced and for the last 15 years as a country we gambled on the City of London and its prosperity and look where that got us.

'George Osborne is under pressure to tear up his austerity programme after Boris Johnson called on the government to drop its ‘hair-shirt, Stafford Cripps agenda,' reports the delighted Guardian today. Even Boris is against it! Even he can see that the obvious solution to our debt crisis is even more debt! Except, as you’d expect, it’s all nonsense. Kamal Ahmed at the Telegraph got it right: Boris’s problem is with Osborne’s language: talking about pain, rather than recovery. He quotes Boris: 'We need to junk the rhetoric of austerity and be confident.

Finally: Number 10 admits that far from 'dealing with debt', the government is seeing it rise. This morning the Prime Minister's spokesman was grilled on the party political broadcast that horrified Fraser last night in which the Prime Minister said 'we are making progress. We're paying down Britain's debts.' Fraser has explained the reality - that Cameron is in fact increasing Britain's debt by 60 per cent - in this post with two unnerving graphs, and the Prime Minister's spokesman conceded that 'the debt as a percentage of GDP has risen'. Asked whether the Prime Minister understood the difference between the debt and the deficit, he said: 'Yes, he does.