Uk politics

Cameron’s Downing St dinners with donors

14 July 2010, dinner at No.10 Anthony and Carol Bamford Michael and Dorothy Hintze Murdoch and Elsa Maclennan Lord John and Lady Sainsbury Andrew Feldman Jill and Paul Ruddock Mike and Jenny Fraser Michael and Clara Freeman 28 Feb 2011, dinner in the flat David Rowland and Mrs Rowland Andrew and Gabby Feldman 2 Nov 2011, dinner in the flat Mike and Jenny Farmer Ian and Christine Taylor Henry and Dorothy Angest 2 February 2012, dinner in the flat Michael Spencer Sarah, Marchioness of Milford Haven

Cameron u-turns on donor secrecy — but what now?

One distinct feature of the ‘cash for access’ row is that we’ve seen it all before. And not just the glutinous mix of politics and money, but also the debate over what should be done to fix it. Last November, Sir Christopher Kelly, chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, released a report into the funding of political parties that featured many of the options we’re hearing today. It landed on 24 recommendations, of which one stood out: ‘the only safe way to remove big money from party funding is to put a cap on donations, set at £10,000’. But to prevent a subsequent shortfall in parties’ funds,

The problem for Cameron is his proximity to the problem

The happiest news for David Cameron this morning is that the ‘cash for access’ story hasn’t quite made it onto every front page. But that’s it, really, so far as the glad tidings are concerned. All the rest is poison for No.10. The Prime Minister is now fighting off calls — including from his own MPs — to release the names of those donors who enjoyed dinner at his Downing Street flat. Labour are, of course, pressing for him to go further than an internal party inquiry, and launch an independent investigation instead. Today’s furore is not going to simmer down after a few days, or even after a few

Transparency, not state funding

Cutting the 50p rate was economically the right thing to do, but the politics of it are hugely complicated. The biggest danger is that it bolsters the sense that the Conservatives are the political wing of the privileged classes. For this reason, it is particularly unfortunate for the Conservatives that it is this Sunday that The Sunday Times has done an expose (£) on how potential donors were being lured with the offer of supper with Cameron and Osborne and the chance to influence policymaking. Labour are already trying to link the two, asking the Prime Minister to ‘provide details of all donors who have made representations, both written and

The borrowing behind Osborne’s Budget

Will George Osborne’s refusal to look again at high levels of state spending become the greatest risk to Britain’s economic stability? There have been plenty of rude comments about the Chancellor’s supposed tactical ineptitude in the weekend press, but he has still managed to keep on borrowing and have almost no one notice. Osborne’s iron commitment is to spending, and a programme of cuts which total just under 1 per cent a year. His commitment to deficit reduction is flexible, as his three Budgets have demonstrated: Osborne spent the election campaign berating Labour for its lack of ambition in halving the deficit in four years. He’s now doing it in

Why access Cameron? The Lib Dems would be an easier target…

Why would anyone pay £250,000 to change Tory policy when the Liberal Democrats would do it for £2.50 and a hug? The brilliant Sunday Times investigation today makes you wonder whether businessmen don’t actually realise that out that, in this coalition, it doesn’t matter what you persuade David Cameron of. Policy is decided by horsetrading with the Lib Dems, who wield disproportionate power (for good or for ill). For example, Osborne was personally inclined to bring the top rate of tax down to 40p, but the Lib Dems told him they’d only allow this in exchange for their mansion tax. Cameron refused to do the deal, so 45p it was.

Ken’s identity crisis

Jonathan Freedland’s column in The Guardian today, explaining why he can’t vote for Ken Livingstone, is a remarkably direct piece of journalism. Freedland states that he ‘can no longer do what I and others did in 2008, putting to one side the statements, insults and gestures that had offended me, my fellow Jews and — one hopes — every Londoner who abhors prejudice’. Now, as Paul Goodman argues, we shouldn’t overstate the importance of a traditionally Labour supporting Guardian columnist coming out against Ken Livingstone. But Freedland’s reasons for doing so are ones that, I suspect, will resonate with a significant section of opinion. The issue with Livingstone is that

Spending will become more significant as 2015 approaches

Four days after George Osborne signed its death warrant, there is still life in the 50p rate yet. The two main political interviews in today’s papers — Ed Miliband in the Telegraph, Danny Alexander in the Times (£) — both focus heavily on the top rate’s impending demise. The Labour leader, of course, is continuing to ask whether David Cameron and George Osborne will themselves benefit from the move to 45p, without actually managing to commit his party to a policy. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury is left defending a 45p rate, and does so by borrowing a recent Lib Dem slogan for the coalition as a whole: ‘This

Previewing my Week in Westminster

I’m presenting Week in Westminster at 11am on Radio Four today, and get to choose four topics for discussion. My political nodes were, of course, amputated for the purposes of this production. Here are the topics I chose: 1. Young vs Old. Osborne stepped on a landmine on Thursday: he didn’t expect his pension tax (minor, as Charles Moore argues in the Telegraph) to cause such a reaction. But I suspect he hadn’t realised the depth of feeling in this emerging clash of the generations. Osborne’s idea for freezing pensioners’ tax threshold was lauded on Twitter but lambasted in (most of) the press. Ian Mulheirn’s blog for us claims that

What did the public make of the Budget?

After weeks of hearing what people think about the policies that Osborne might’ve adopted, we now have the first evidence of what they make of the Budget itself. Today’s YouGov poll lists eight of its main policies, and it seems they fit into three broad groups. First, the very popular ones: raising the personal allowance and increasing stamp duty for £2 million houses. Second, those backed by the majority but not so overwhelmingly: the corporation tax cut, the child benefit changes, Sunday trading during the Olympics and the tobacco duty rise. And finally, the unpopular measures: cutting the 50p tax rate and phasing out the extra personal allowance for over-65s.

Cameron’s minimum pricing plan is politically risky

David Cameron’s plan for a minimum price for alcohol is one that several of his Cabinet colleagues, including the Health Secretary, have grave reservations about. But the Prime Minister’s personal enthusiasm for the policy has overridden these reservations. To my mind, a minimum price for alcohol is not a good idea. I expect that the effect of it will be to shift those who are intent on getting drunk, off beer and wine and onto spirits, whose prices will probably remain unchanged. Tory MPs also tend not to like the idea, viewing it as an unnecessary interference with the market. Indeed, I suspect there’ll be a fair few Tory backbenchers

In defence of Special Brew

The Prime Minister today introduces plans for minimum pricing on alcohol. In this week’s Spectator, Leo McKinstry mounts a defence of Special Brew, the tipple of Kingsley Amis and Churchill. I have a confession to make: I am writing this article under the influence. As I tap away at my laptop, a can of lovely Carlsberg Special Brew sits on the table beside me, acting on my brain as oil acts on a car engine: lubricating the moving parts. Ever since I found that it could help to speed up my word output, strong Danish beer has been essential to my writing career, so it’s a great shock to discover

Another voice: Pensioners ought to contribute more

The pensioner lobby has been predictably and tiresomely strident about George Osborne’s ‘granny tax’. Ros Altmann, Director-General of Saga, called the move to bring pensioners’ tax allowances into line with everyone else’s an ‘outrageous assault on decent middle-class pensioners’. It’s nothing of the sort. In fact, it’s high time that pensioners start to contribute to the unprecedented fiscal squeeze we’re going through — and here are the three main reasons why.   First, they’ve contributed next to nothing to the deficit reduction programme so far. Better-off pensioners are set to lose just over 1 per cent of their income from the changes planned by 2014, according to the IFS. Meanwhile,

Transcript: Osborne defends his Budget

Here’s the full transcript of this morning’s Today programme interview with George Osborne: Evan Davis: If you believe in using the tax system to cut the incomes of those at the top and in using the welfare system to hand money to the poor, then yesterday’s budget was probably not for you. The Chancellor  hinted at big further cuts to welfare and he clearly thinks the tax system has gone too far in trying to harvest cash from those at the top. Yes, he’s ironing out some loopholes but for him 50p rates don’t work. Believe him, and the game’s over for those who want government to iron out the

Why Osborne saved Wallace and Gromit

‘It is the determined policy of this government to keep Wallace and Gromit exactly where they are.’ So proclaimed George Osborne in his Budget speech yesterday, as he announced new tax credits for the video games, animation and televesion industries. But what prompted this? Had he been reading The Spectator? In an interview for the magazine a couple of months ago, Miles Bullough — head of broadcast at Aardman Animations, the studio that produces Wallace and Gromit — told Lloyd Evans of the competition that the British animation industry faces from other countries where the governments do offer subsidies, and the need for something similar here. Here’s the full interview:

Osborne hopes business will see past the bad headlines

Today’s front pages concentrate on the so-called ‘granny tax’, the surprise of the Budget. But the real test of this Budget is going to be whether it delivers growth. If it does, then it will make a Tory majority in 2015 more likely. If it doesn’t, then the decision to cut the 50p rate will become even more politically problematic.   Given that the Budget is fiscally neutral, this growth is going to have come from either the couple of supply side measures in the Budget or by finding a way to unleash those elusive animal spirits. Indeed, I think this desire to boost confidence is one of the main

The Spectator’s Budget briefing

What was really in George Osborne’s Budget? Last night we held an event, in association with Aberdeen Asset Management, to discuss just that. Click here for a free pdf copy of the briefing paper produced for the event.

Tory MPs welcome the Budget

George Osborne and David Cameron have just addressed the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers. They received the traditional desk banging reception and Tory MPs seemed in good spirits as they left the meeting. Interestingly, they were nearly all relaxed about the increase in the personal allowance, believing that they would get the credit just as much — if not more than — the Liberal Democrats. One told me that ‘the public view this as a Conservative government when things are going well and a coalition one when things are going badly’. Perhaps the biggest piece of news out of the meeting is that Osborne offered Tory MPs considerable encouragement that

Balls goes on the attack against 45p

Ed Balls committed Labour to voting against the reduction in the 50p rate at his post-Budget briefing. But he wouldn’t say whether or not Labour would pledge to restore it in their manifesto; sticking to the classic opposition line that all decisions on tax will be made in the manifesto and not before. Balls, though, was on typically pugilistic form; few politicians relish a scrap as much as he does. The Labour leadership clearly view the abolition of the 50p rate as a major political opening for them. Balls went out of his way to attack the HMRC report that Osborne used to justify the move. He mockingly declared that