Uk politics

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Hacked Off says press damages plan is a mistake

From our UK edition

So the latest twist in the surreal saga of statutory regulation of the press is that the campaign group which had unparalleled access to the three parties hammering out a settlement in the silent watches of the night now thinks there's been a terrible mistake. Whoops! Hacked Off has put out a statement this afternoon which says the amendments to the Crime and Courts Bill approved by MPs on Monday night contain 'an accident in the drafting' and is now trying to change the amendments so that they won't impact bloggers and small publishers. You can read the full statement here, but this is the key section: 'The amendments are the work of Conservatives in government and not of Labour, the Liberal Democrats or for that matter Hacked Off. 'They have not been endorsed in any way by Hacked Off.

Douglas Murray

Somehow, I’m agreeing with Mehdi Hasan

From our UK edition

I won’t often say this, but there is a must-read article at the Huffington Post today. Titled ‘The Sorry Truth Is That the Virus of Anti-Semitism Has Infected the British Muslim Community’ it is a reflection on the recent anti-Semitic outburst by Lord Ahmed of Rotherham. It an admirably honest piece of writing the author says: ‘It pains me to have to admit this but anti-Semitism isn't just tolerated in some sections of the British Muslim community; it's routine and commonplace Sounds like the writing of some terrible ‘Islamophobe’ doesn’t it?

Isabel Hardman

The never-ending fuel duty story

From our UK edition

One other point worth noting from today's IFS post-Budget briefing was the way the government has dealt with fuel duty over the past few years. Here's a table showing how things have worked out in Budgets and Autumn Statements: So now there isn't another fuel duty increase until September 2014. But when I spoke to Robert Halfon yesterday, he seemed pretty content to let the government off from now on, given they've 'done more than any other government in the last 10 years on this issue'. But as the Treasury Select Committee argued after the Autumn Statement, a medium-term strategy for fuel duty would make a great deal more sense, even if it prevented Chancellors in future years from producing a rabbit out of their hat for worried backbenchers. We didn't see that in this Budget, though.

Isabel Hardman

IFS: Osborne’s austerity means more pain, not jam, tomorrow

From our UK edition

George Osborne's critics like to deride him as the 'jam tomorrow' Chancellor. But according to the post-Budget briefing the Institute for Fiscal Studies gave this afternoon, he's the 'pain tomorrow' Chancellor instead. It's not that things really aren't getting better, but that the bulk of the pain in terms of spending cuts and tax rises isn't just not over, it's not even here yet. The IFS team gave a series of presentations (in case you hadn't sunk into a pit of misery after Fraser's six scary graphs yesterday) showing that yesterday's Budget will lead to big tax increases and spending cuts from 2016 onwards. Paul Johnson, IFS director, said there was a 'heavy hint' that the consolidation needed would come from tax: 'There are other changes too which might frighten Whitehall departments.

Hamish Macdonell

Salmond goes for the surprise referendum date

From our UK edition

Always the showman, Alex Salmond did the unexpected today when he announced that the referendum on Scottish independence would be held on Thursday September 18 2014. He knew everyone was expecting it to be in October so he chose something different. He knew, we knew: everyone, it seemed, knew, that the events of 2014 have been so carefully planned in the Nationalist calendar that it seemed impossible for the First Minister to choose another date than October. The 700th anniversary celebrations of the Battle of Bannockburn will take place at the end of June 2014. This bout of Nationalist patriotic outpouring will be followed by the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in July and August – which will see even more waving of Saltires.

Rod Liddle

Just cutting spending isn’t enough. Osborne needs to invest as well

From our UK edition

Economic growth for the next year is predicted to be lower than 1.0%. I can’t think, offhand, or a more obvious indication that the Chancellor is gripped by some sort of weird paralysis which will result, for the rest of us, in continually declining standards of living. I have no great objection to many of the cuts he has made; and believe, à la Dr Fox, that he could be still more stringent. However, he should also be investing heavily in stuff which will see our economy grow – science, engineering, what used to be called 'public works'. Simply cutting spending will not promote growth. Simply investing in the productive parts of the economy will not clear our debt. We need to do both, no?

James Forsyth

The durable coalition

From our UK edition

This time last week, Westminster was full of speculation about alternative coalitions. Politics-watchers, myself included, all started speculating about what the Clegg Miliband alternative coalition on press regulation meant. But the Budget was a reminder of how solid the coalition actually is. The Quad still agrees on the government’s economic strategy. Vince Cable — as his recent essay demonstrated — may have his doubts. But it would be hard to find much distance between Cameron, Clegg, Osborne and Alexander. Indeed, it was striking the relish with which Danny Alexander tore into Labour’s Chris Leslie on Newsnight last night. Going through the whole Budget, it is — unlike last year — quite hard to find the coalition trade-offs.

Alex Massie

The Boys of the Green Brigade

From our UK edition

Och, now's the hour and now's the day for the Historic Announcement of the Historic Date for Scotland's Historic Referendum on Independence. It's only taken the SNP the best part of two years to get to this point and, of course, there's only another 18 months or so to wait for the Historic Day itself. So today's parliamentary announcement is hardly the stuff legends are built from. Never mind. But this being a banner day for the SNP and all that, let us pause to recall one of the party's most dismal - yet telling - failures. I refer, of course, to the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communciations Act. This preposterous, cock-eyed, bill has proved just as illiberal and capricious as its critics predicted.

Isabel Hardman

Forget beer and petrol: will MPs debate monetary policy today?

From our UK edition

MPs are debating the detail of the Budget today, and will doubtless pick over some of the lines from George Osborne's round of interviews this morning, particularly the confusion over whether Help to Buy is available for those buying second homes. There are plenty of queries about whether the government's new mortgage plans are actually very wise at all. The debate will inevitably focus on the doorstep issues on taxes and cuts. But will MPs talk about one of the most important elements of yesterday's announcement? It wasn't on petrol, and it wasn't beer duty. It actually concerned monetary policy.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Osborne’s pitch to Sun-reading voters caught up in Leveson row

From our UK edition

If this was a Budget for Sun readers, then it hasn't quite worked out as well as George Osborne might have hoped. The newspaper sounded pretty cheery this morning with its story about the beer duty escalator. But here's the front page for tomorrow's edition: Now, this is clearly as much about Leveson and the newspaper's industry disgust that it wasn't consulted when the lobbying group Hacked Off was invited to the late night negotiations as it is about the measures announced today. But there's also the point that Fraser makes tirelessly on this blog that politicians like to be lazy at best when it comes to talking about debt and the deficit. One of the bullet points reminds readers that the government isn't 'paying down its debts' as David Cameron has said before: 'Debt!

Isabel Hardman

Budget 2013: Ed Balls sticks to his favourite 50p attack

From our UK edition

Ed Balls has just given his post-Budget briefing in parliament. The striking thing about Balls, no matter how much you might disagree with him, is how much he relishes these occasions. His whole face lights up, like a large Cheshire cat that has spied a snoozing mouse, as he goes in for the kill. He even went through a list circulated by CCHQ of 'questions for Labour'. No wonder some Tory MPs wish they had someone on their side who loves the political game as much as the Shadow Chancellor. Now, Balls had plenty of soundbites: he has calculated that you'd have to drink 50,000 pints of beer a year to make up for the impact on personal income of other tax rises and cuts.

James Forsyth

The Budget puts petrol in the Tories’ political tank

From our UK edition

For the opening half of George Osborne’s Budget speech, the Labour front bench was busy waving around copies of the Evening Standard’s front page. This was visibly putting Osborne off; he wouldn’t be human if the fear that another of his Budgets was going to be dashed on the media rocks hadn’t crossed his mind. But by the time he sat down, the storm over the Standard front had died down thanks to a quick and dignified apology from the paper itself. Osborne will also have been pleased by the cheers of his own side as he returned to his seat. For all the speculation got up by the irreconcilables, most Tory backbenchers seemed as pleased as could be expected with a Budget that was delivered against such a grim fiscal backdrop.

Isabel Hardman

Budget 2013: New ‘Help to Buy’ plan is a boost for Eric Pickles

From our UK edition

One of the big measures in today's Budget was the Help to Buy scheme. It answers two demands: the first for the Tories to continue to support home ownership as what George Osborne called 'the most human of aspirations', and the second for the government to do everything it can to get construction moving again. But there's an interesting political point here. In the summer, George Osborne frightened the living daylights out of Eric Pickles and his team at the Communities and Local Government department by putting it about that he wanted further relaxations on planning regulations to encourage economic growth through construction.

Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Everyone talks about nothing, while no-one listens

From our UK edition

Let’s have a breather. It seemed like a truce had been tacitly declared between the party leaders at today’s PMQs. Instead of going on the offensive, Cameron and Miliband turned their solemn and unified gaze towards the sorrows of the eastern Mediterranean. Miliband asked about Syria. Cameron used the opportunity to take a pot-shot at the EU, still agonising over the arms embargo. Their sluggish and dithersome talks, he said, reminded him of the hesitation that caused needless bloodshed in Bosnia. Cameron wants the rebels to get tooled up pronto and to finish off the appalling Assad regime. He called it ‘hateful’ three times, just be sure. Next the EU bank-raid in Cyprus. The immediate question of liquid cash produced this strange announcement.

Fraser Nelson

Budget 2013: Osborne’s empty budget

From our UK edition

This was, as I suspected, an empty budget. There was the usual whale spray of policies: a penny off beer duty here, petrol tax reduced there. Nowadays, we don’t have to wonder if the Budget will make a blind bit of difference: the Office for Budget Responsibility sees the figures in advance and does the sums. It concludes that the Budget will have 'no impact on level of GDP at the end of the forecast horizon'. To Osborne’s credit, he didn’t try to spin this. The recovery has stalled and he has run out of ideas about how to start it again. It’s difficult to put a gloss on this basic fact. As always, the small steps that Osborne did take were in the right direction. Extending the corporation tax for a year, so it hits 20pc in 2015, is a good idea.

Isabel Hardman

Budget 2013: It’s all about the ‘aspiration nation’

From our UK edition

So did he do it? This was a budget with a strong narrative about the 'aspiration nation', and the Chancellor certainly did everything he could to nod to two of those three groups that James identified last week. He had two distinct sections on making Britain competitive in the global race and tackling the cost of living, while dismissing 'those who would want to cut much more than we are planning to - and chase the debt target'. The cost of living section was a careful attempt to please Sun readers who had been so irritated by last year's Budget. And Osborne also took care to spell out the tangible benefits of scrapping the fuel duty increase and the beer duty escalator. He said: 'Today, I am cancelling this September's fuel duty increase altogether.

The Spectator

Budget 2013: George Osborne’s statement in full

From our UK edition

Mr Deputy Speaker, this is a Budget for people who aspire to work hard and get on. It’s a Budget for people who realise there are no easy answers to problems built up over many years. Just the painstaking work of putting right what went so badly wrong. And together with the British people we are, slowly but surely, fixing our country’s economic problems. We’ve now cut the deficit not by a quarter, but by a third. We’ve helped business create not a million new jobs, but one and a quarter million new jobs. We’ve kept interest rates at record lows. But Mr Deputy Speaker, despite the progress we’ve made, there’s much more to do.

Isabel Hardman

Budget 2013: Five boxes George Osborne needs to tick

From our UK edition

We've got just over half an hour until the Chancellor stands up to give his Budget statement in the House of Commons. It's the last Budget, many Tory MPs believe, that he has to make a real difference to the party before 2015. And those who enjoy plotting against the leadership are touting it as one of the last chances David Cameron and George Osborne have to convince their own MPs that they're worth backing for the long run. So what does the Chancellor need to do to emerge unscathed from this bleak Budget? Here are five boxes he needs to tick. 1. Cost of living. A big issue for Conservative MPs, and one that many of them have campaigned on vociferously.

Alex Massie

An Antediluvian Tory Press Causes Problems for David Cameron

From our UK edition

Today's papers make dreadful reading for anyone with an interest in modern, reformed conservatism. They are a reminder - if it were needed - that the Tory press is estranged from the Prime Minister. Mr Cameron has played his part in the breakdown of relations (his behaviour over press-regulation has hardly helped) but he is hardly the only guilty party. Today is one of those days you look at the headlines and just wonder what decade it is. An Insult To Stay At Home Mothers screams the Mail. The Telegraph is only modestly more restrained: PM's 'slur' on stay-at-home mothers. Good lord, you may think and wonder, what on earth Mr Cameron has done now? Perhaps he has branded stay-at-home mothers a collection of selfish, workshy misfits?