David Blackburn

The Sunday Telegraph has news that Boris Johnson will give a speech next week in which he will throw his weight behind a report, published by Volterra, calling for Britain to renegotiate its membership of the EU. The Telegraph reports: ‘The capital’s gross domestic product (GDP), currently £350 bn — or just over a fifth of the UK economy — would grow to £640 bn by 2034 if Britain stayed in a reformed EU and adopted policies encouraging more trade with the world’s fastest-growing markets, the report will say.  But if the UK left the EU, while pursuing its own trade-friendly policies regardless, the London economy would still grow to £615 bn over the next 20 years.

Nato is 65 years old this year; but there’s little cause for celebration. The Defence Select Committee’s latest report suggests that the populations of western Europe and North America are lukewarm about Nato’s collective defence guarantee – the principle that an attack on one Nato member is an attack on all. Paragraph 70 quotes research conducted in the aftermath of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Georgia in 2008; it found that less than 50 per cent of the populations of major Nato powers would support the defence of the Baltic States if they were attacked.

The Telegraph’s Christopher Hope tweets the news that David Cameron is open to raising the threshold for the 40p rate: NEWS! PM: "I would love to raise the 40p tax threshold, I understand the problem, but would have to look at the books before doing it" — Christopher Hope (@christopherhope) July 30, 2014   The Telegraph has been pushing for this change for some time. Cameron has, in political terms, flashed a bit of thigh at Middle England. One of the strange features of this parliament is how little credit the government gets for keeping taxes low. This sense was reinforced recently by one of Lord Ashcroft’s polls, which found that voters thought that they would pay less tax under Labour. This is errant nonsense, as this morning’s revelations suggest.

Moeen Ali, the England cricketer, faces a possible reprimand after the International Cricket Council (ICC), the game’s governing body, censured him for wearing two wristbands, one saying ‘Save Gaza’, the other ‘Free Palestine’. International cricketers are, you see, prohibited from making political statements on the field. The English Cricket Board, which is not above making political statements (as its various boycotts of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe suggest), dissents from the ICC’s view, and says that Moeen’s stance is ‘humanitarian not political’. What, then, of ‘Save Gaza’ and ‘Free Palestine’? There is politics here. And, yes, it is partial.

Talk to most Tory strategists about Ukip and Ed Miliband and they say something along the lines of ‘Vote Farage, get Miliband’. They hope that this will deter people from voting Ukip or win back those Ukip supporters who are not irreconcilable to the Tories. The Telegraph has news that Labour’s private polling confirms the Tory view: Ed Miliband will win Downing Street if Ukip polls 9 per cent of voters, which it is more than capable of doing on current projections. The Tories, I suspect, will be fairly pleased that Labour has published this information. It reinforces what we’ve known all along: an unpopular left-wing party will win power if the right remains divided.

Some of what David Smith, author of the essential Economic Outlook column in the Sunday Times, says today will be salve to George Osborne: ‘…the government intended to spend £722bn in the 2013-14 fiscal year. In fact, it spent £714bn. Spending has been lower each year than set out in 2010. Current spending was originally intended to be £679bn in 2013-14. In fact, it was £668bn. Unusually for any government, spending has come in comfortably within budget. There has been no slippage.’ Other parts will not: ‘Where there has been slippage is in tax receipts, which have been weaker than expected.

Ukip are holding an action day in Thurrock today. Their tails are up at the moment because a recent poll of marginal seats by Lord Ashcroft put them in first in Thurrock on 36%. The party also leads in Thanet South, according to this round of polling. Ukip very kindly offered me the chance to interview its candidate in Thurrock, Tim Aker MEP (pictured above). I declined due to diary commitments; but I did submit some written questions which I thought might prove relevant if Aker was indeed elected to parliament. I haven’t heard anything back from Ukip, so I reproduce them here for readers of Coffee House to consider: 1).

Labour will launch its summer campaign later today. The centre-piece is Ed Miliband’s speech. He will present a ‘big choice’ to the British public, arguing that they cannot afford 5 more years of Conservative rule. Miliband’s argument is simple: the economy is broken, only we can fix it; the NHS is threatened, only we can save it; the Tories represent the few, only we care for the many. You will have heard these mantras many times before; but, this time, the presentation is different. The speech bears the mark of David Axelrod, who is busy ‘reframing’ Ed Miliband as an honest yeoman of the shires rather than a metropolitan oddball. Rafael Behr of the Guardian has an extensive account of this ‘reframing’ effort.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind was right: there was no agreement in Europe on serious against Russia. The FT’s Peter Spiegel tweets the news that many have been expecting: The #EU ambassadors meeting finally breaks. No decision on "phase three" sanctions, but meeting again tomorrow. And maybe Mon. And Tues. — Peter Spiegel (@SpiegelPeter) July 24, 2014   The EU's account of the meeting refers, comically, to an 'exchange of views' on the 'preparatory work' on tier three sanctions. There was some agreement on the extended list of 'Putin cronies'. Zero Hedge has a summary of the discussion, drawn from a variety of sources.

‘Somewhere between zero and minus five.’ That is the verdict of former Foreign Secretary and current Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, to the question in the headline. The general consensus is that the European Union will not – indeed, cannot – agree substantial sanctions against Russia. European countries are, variously, too dependent on Russian trade and resources, or too weak in themselves, to punish Putin. The disagreements at yesterday’s summit were plain to see. Europe, the narrative goes, can only agree on more provisions against ‘cronies’ who use international markets to conduct their nefarious business and then spend their spoils in the great playgrounds of the West (see Taki for details).