Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
From our UK edition
The debate over the 10p tax controversy on Tuesday was more like a requiem for the Labour party than a rebellion. MPs spoke mournfully about how — yet again — their government would hit the poorest hardest. Gordon Brown had used the 2007 Budget to trick newspapers into reporting that he had lowered the basic rate of
From our UK edition
We all know Labour has failed to run an efficient economy or public services, but what’s little discussed is its failure to achieve even its own goals. Had Brown bankrupted the country but, say, made the poorest much better off, then Labour members might not be facing such an existential crisis. As it stands they
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I know Harriet Harman is not supposed to be taken seriously, so I’m prepared to believe that she just struggles with numbers and didn’t knowingly mislead MPs today. But it’s worth correcting the record on one crucial point. “We have paid down debt,” she says. Actually, if you take the last Budget into account –
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I’m delighted that Lord Falconer has just failed in his attempt to legalise assisted suicide for people sending friends and relatives to Swiss death clinics. This is a topic which I suspect even CoffeeHousers will be evenly divided on, but to me the whole idea is just wrong – and it goes straight to the
From our UK edition
A few months ago, I wrote a story about the “California Tories” and the extent to which Silicon Valley has affected the thinking of the people who will be running our country this time next year. I was teased about it later: what a pile of junk it all is, said a few right-thinking friends;
From our UK edition
According to the Sunday Times, poor old Shaun Woodward is getting the blame for inspiring Brown’s mendacious “Labour investment v Tory cuts” line. As if. This is the work of Ed Balls, and his trademark belief that the public can be easily fooled on such issues because their eyes glaze over when you mention statistics.
From our UK edition
Many CoffeeHousers will give a horse laugh to the idea of “green shoots” – especially the idea of Gordon Brown winning a fourth term because a grateful nation will thank him for a recovered economy. It’s a delusion, nothing surer, and the same one Callaghan and Major suffered from. In both cases, there were firm
From our UK edition
I’ve just been on the BBC1 Breakfast sofa doing the “Brown lies on spending” debate with Nick Watt of The Guardian. That they invited us on a mass audience programme to discuss statistical fibs is an indication of how badly all this is backfiring on Gordon Brown. This debate may have started in the blogosphere
From our UK edition
How do you explain what a “zero per cent rise” is? Michael Ellam, Brown’s outgoing press secretary, had this task earlier today and I went along to the lobby to hear him. His answer hints at what I suspect will be an almighty U-turn from the government on cuts. Brown was “interrupted” he said –
From our UK edition
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way” Cameron said on Monday – and today, Brown finally agreed to do it the easy way. He seems to have dropped his Big Lie – that public spending will rise after the election. He’s doing it in stages, so today we had the rather
From our UK edition
In the FT, John Kay has written one of those columns that quietly sums up the calamitous cost of Brown/Balls fiscal model. He concludes that we’ll have to raise some £70bn of taxes and then inflate our way out of debt—and this is a theme worth looking at in greater detail because I suspect it
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The sun-capturing atrium of Portcullis House is no substitute for the Californian coast but it may at least help Steve Hilton acclimatise. He is now back from his year-long absence — though he is still dressed as if he is heading for the beach. It is a reminder of the inverted sartorial hierarchy of the
From our UK edition
Ed Balls has just called me up about my post from this morning , hopping mad. He instructed me to “take that post down now”. I thought he was joking: has there been some change to the constitution where ministers now have power over the media? But he was deadly serious. “You should not call
From our UK edition
Ed Balls has been sounding increasingly desperate since his thwarted attempt to become Chancellor. He has started to hijack radio interviews, splurging out concocted claims about the Tories no matter what he is asked. But this morning, he used outright lies. People exaggerate in politics, they interpret and even stretch the truth until the elastic
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Here is my top half dozen points from Cameron’s angry, feisty, Brown’s-a-liar press conference today. 1. GO AHEAD, BROWN, MAKE MY DAY “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. I can just go on and on, question time after question time, revealing the cuts that he himself is planning. Or
From our UK edition
How long can a Prime Minister in a democracy lie to his country and get away with it? Gordon Brown is trying to find out. His Big Lie – that his published plans do not involve a cut in public services – would not have withstood a Spending Review, which would have spelled out departmental
From our UK edition
As promised, here’s the full story of those immigration statistics that I obtained from the ONS. In our new e-world, I can pass on all the results to you – and they’re worth discussing. The figures show the extent to which Brown’s “boom” was a mirage built not just on debt, but foreign labour. Most
From our UK edition
Does it matter if immigrants have taken (or created) all the new jobs in the British private sector? I reveal this in my News of the World column today, as the key fact from a data request I made from the ONS. It’s a divisive topic, and even exploring it make ministers feel uncomfortable. But this ‘don’t ask, don’t
From our UK edition
There was no mistaking the sadistic zeal with which Labour MPs bounded into the lobbies to vote for John Bercow on Monday. The whole election had been an unexpected gift to them: a chance to foist on David Cameron a Speaker who is loathed by the Conservative party. When Mr Bercow promised to serve ‘no
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So far today I have received six text messages about Michael Jackson’s death – five of them wicked jokes that I shant repeat. The first just said “condolences” – sent from a friend who has long teased me for defending Jackson in pub arguments. Here’s why. For all his wackiness he was, he was by
