Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
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Anyone listening to Lord Mandelson’s claim this morning that the Brown stimulus saved “at least” half a million jobs would have smelt a large, whiskered rat. The Treasury has tonight told The Telegraph that the 500,000 figure was a maximum estimate, not a minimum as Mandy claimed. Your baristas here at Coffee House have asked
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Why is this recession so cruel to the young? The unemployment figures – now up to 2.44 million – are bad enough. It’s the largest single quarterly drop since data began in 1971. But look deeper and there’s a striking disparity amongst the age groups. The under-18s – school leavers – are hit the most,
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Conservatism is beautifully simple. It flows from the belief that society is stronger and fairer when power lies with the many and not the few. It is about trusting institutions — the family, the community — while being sceptical about the grander claims of government. It is about believing that a man will spend the
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I don’t for a minute believe that Mandelson believes this class war nonsense, brilliantly rubbished by Melanie Phillips today. His decision to reprise the “posh unis don’t let in poor kids” theme is a more a sign that even someone as horribly powerful as Mandy feels the need to kowtow to a certain element of
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Is Andrew Lansley using his untouchable status* to bounce David Cameron into a three-year budget settlement? On the Marr sofa (or the Sophie Raworth sofa as it was today), he announced that the Tories are planning “real term increases to the NHS year on year.” Well, David Cameron has only said he would protect health
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When David Cameron flew to Georgia last year, it was perhaps the clearest and most welcome statement of foreign policy made by the party since he became leader. Liam Fox’s piece on conservativehome today pays tribute to this, and gives us a welcome reminder of the stakes. The Russian threat is growing: there are 10,000
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With about 5,000 people being laid off every day, it sounds strange to talk of an economic recovery – as Stephen Timms did at the World at One. But he’s right. I reckon that, even now, the recession is over and that the economy will be shown to have grown in Q3 – ie, July,
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When justifying his decision to keep Gordon Brown’s 50p tax for the super rich, Cameron has recently taken to saying that the well-off must “pay their fair share”. This is worth closer examination. The richest 1% in Britain contribute 24 percent of all income tax collected – it is unclear whether Cameron regards this as
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This is turning into a summer of extraordinary good luck for the Conservatives. First the Norwich North by-election victory, then the extraordinary success of the Totnes open primary. And all set against the background of what is, for Tories, the most mellifluous sound in politics: Harriet Harman’s voice. As David Cameron enjoys what will probably
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So, it took me two weeks to get out of the blogging mindset – when you read something outrageous, and start mentally composing a blog. I found out that James and Pete had a bet to see how long I’d last for while on holidays – they reckoned four days. Ha! I was back yesterday,
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This little phone, pictured, is my present to myself for this summer. It’s a Nokia 2630, costing £35 and distinguished by what it can’t do. No 3G. No email. No internet. No PoliticsHome, no ConservativeHome – just my wife’s family home in the outskirts of Stockholm, where I will be spending the next fortnight. I
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This picture is, for me, one of the most haunting images of the Afghanistan war – Sally Thorneloe at her husband’s funeral last week. Lt Col Rupert Thorneloe, who was killed by a Taleban roadside bomb three weeks ago, told me about her when we were on a trip to Iraq last summer. It’s weird,
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Since I hailed James Purnell as a possible Labour leader just over a year ago , CoffeeHousers have been, to put it politely, unconvinced. But pick up The Guardian today, and I tell you: my boy’s on track. He has given an interview to Allegra Stratton which puts him squarely in the frame to be
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Gordon Brown calls the recession the “world economic downturn,” but the IMF has just released a devastating report into Britain which puts things in a different perspective. It’s really worth downloading (here) and saving somewhere: all sorts of ammo is in there. Page 22 is devoted to the “Potential Spillovers from the UK Financial System
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Cameron has been fairly bold in entering the debate on marriage, because we don’t like do that debate in Britain. Not really – it’s private, and we Brits don’t like debating private things. Anything which helps marriage can easily be paraphrased as “deploying fiscal incentives to force something which should largely be a private decision”.
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The House of Commons is not, technically, the ‘mother of all parliaments’. This phrase was coined in 1865 by the radical MP John Bright, who was referring to England. She was, he said, the ancient country of parliaments: men had held these august gatherings for 600 uninterrupted years, even before the Conquest. So of course,
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I am instinctively sceptical about health scare stories, so have been watching the Swine Flu story with much suspicion. We are seldom reminded that it’s less serious than normal flu. Hysterically, Andy Burnham claims there could be up to 100,000 infections a day in Britain next month – the latest worldwide tally is 121,000. We
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My post on immigration the other week was picked up by BBC World Service, who invited me to discuss it with Lord Maurice Peston (podcast here). I regard it as one of the most important yet least discussed issues in Britain right now, and my original also raised some typically robust comments and critiques from
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For those of you who missed it, Radio Four has just broadcast a piece about what the women who worked with think Gordon Brown think of him. Not a lot, it seems. Here are some of the quotes: Jane Kennedy “Well I think that the Labour Party is expecting us to do better. The Parliamentary
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Inspired, perhaps, by The Spectator’s list of the top 50 political scandals, Bloomberg has run a list of the ten best American ones. I have to say, these prudish Americans just don’t do scandal like us. The list has a common theme: moralising politician caught having an affair! Please. Where are the Russian spies, the society
