London

Benedict Brogan’s latest post is built around an observation from Jo Johnson on the 50p rate, yet it is Brogan’s own observation that gets a place in our Budget scrapbook: “Some people I have spoken to think George Osborne might be sufficiently worried about the growing exodus of entrepreneurs to put down a marker on 50p in the Budget next week.” Whether this “marker” transpires — and what it might look like, if it does — is something we shall have to wait for. In the meantime, it’s worth noting that Labour have already set a marker on 50p: that it will have to remain for the duration of this

Ken Livingstone was out on the stump in Croydon yesterday. So far, Livingstone has not made any election pledges; his entire campaign has been founded on his past record as London Mayor. So, when can Londoners expect to hear what Red Ken plans to do, and how he intends to fund it? 6:30 into this interview with the Mayor Watch website, he said: “On the morning after the election, I’ll let you know.” Thirty seconds later, he repeated himself for clarity’s sake.

Project Merlin, the deal between the government and the banks, was meant to turn the page on banker bashing. But the deputy prime minister is still stuck on the previous page, telling Radio Sheffield today ‘I want to wring the neck of these wretched people’ the bankers.   The language isn’t very statesmanlike and is sure to infuriate many of his coalition colleagues (it is also hardly sensible for the deputy prime minister to be using language which appears to condone violence ahead of a conference where the police are preparing to deal with a riot). But it does reflect a political reality: the banks remain public enemy number one.

In October last year, Osborne announced a new levy on banks’ balance sheets. It was 0.05 percent for this calendar year, before rising to 0.075 percent from 2012 onwards. But, today, the Chancellor has announced that the ‘introductory’ rate has been abolished – so banks will be charged the 0.075 percent rate on all liabilities. Here’s my nine-point Q&A, by way of delivering my take: 1) So, a retrospective tax? Not quite. He’s imposing a 0.05 per cent rate on balance sheets in January and February. But he’ll up the charge to 0.1 percent for March and April to compensate. It will go back to 0.075 percent in May. This

We at The Spectator have not had much company in criticising Mervyn King for the failure of his monetary policy. The Bank of England governor has a status like the Speaker used to: someone whose position must command respect, otherwise the system collapses. And yet there are Octopuses with a better track record in inflation forecasting. People have been repeating that the Bank’s independence is a great success for so long that it has become a truism. Why? We’ve just had a huge crash, the result of a credit bubble – fuelled by dangerously low lending rates. And the recipe for restoration? Even cheaper debt, with resurgent inflation. The British

David Cameron and George Osborne must have hoped that their message from Davos today would be broadcast unimpeded. It is, after all, a blunt message, designed to smash through all the radio chatter: we must continue with deficit reduction, there is no alternative, etc. But, inconveniently for them, there are other voices saying what we must do – among them Boris Johnson. The Mayor of London’s interview with the Telegraph is at once typical and quite intriguing. Typical, because he holds aloft the same standards as always. “I understand 50p tax politically,” he says, “but there has got to be a sense of where we are going and where we

A potent Tory tag team in the Sun today, as David Cameron and Boris Johnson join pens to take on the unions. The tone of their article is as blunt as anything we’ve heard from them on the matter, particularly the Prime Minister. “Let’s call these threats what they are,” it says about the prospect of strikes during the Royal Wedding and the Olympics: “nothing more than headline grabbing to score political points”. And it continues to deliver a warning to union bosses: “you can try to drag this country back to the 1970s, to a time when militants held our country to ransom, but you will not succeed.” It’s

‘Tis the season to bash a banker – or it is if you’re a Lib Dem, at least. After the stresses of last week, Nick Clegg lets off steam with an aggressive interview in the FT. “They don’t operate in a social vacuum,” he says of the City’s moneymen, before seething that, “it is wholly untenable to have millions of people making sacrifices in their living standards, only to see the banks getting away scot-free.” He even suggests that the government should consider a one-off bonus tax, like that introduced by Labour last year.   Will anything come of it? On the evidence so far, probably not. The coalition –

It’s costing more than the government cuts in welfare, more even than the UK’s Irish bail-out, but what exactly is all that money set aside for the 2012 Olympic Games actually being spent on? You might be surprised. In this week’s Spectator, Andrew Gilligan and I disclose, for the first time, all the petty, legally-binding demands made by the 115-member International Olympic Committee (IOC) of London. This is information that the government, the mayor and the London Olympic organisers never wanted you to see – even though it forms a binding part of the Host City Contract signed when we won the right to host the games in 2005. Paul