Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
From our UK edition
An electric atmosphere in the Commons today. Labour MPs with faces like murder, Tony McNulty skulking in the back where the cameras won’t get him, and Sean Woodward to Brown’s left. To his right, Harman then Straw. A chastened Michael Martin started proceedings with a question from the SNP’s Mike Weir – isn’t the Cabinet
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Hazel Blears capacity for detonation is not yet exhausted. Shot one was “YouTube if you want to”, shot two – some argue – was her leaking of Jacqui Smith’s resignation plan. Shot three her resignation right before PMQs, which one senior government source has described to me as a “rank betrayal” coming ahead of the
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“It’s like the Masque of the Red Death” Stephen Pound said on Newsnight recently. “The band’s playing, the wine’s being served but half the dancers are dead and are just going through the motions.” And indeed, just yesterday, five more Labour MPs fell. According to the polls, about half of them will lose their seat
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I suspect Jacqui Smith has done a Ruth Kelly – she knew she was going, so why wait to be knifed? Why not go at a time of her choosing, and take control? She doesn’t need to make an announcement. She just needed to let it be known that she will resign, and sooner or
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The Christmas issue of the Spectator is in the shops now, but if you don’t yet have a copy, here are the contents in full: Features In defence of Blairism – Tony Blair Michael Gove interviews the Archbishop of Canterbury James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson interview David Cameron Mark Clarke, Bercow, Sewel: 2016 was a vintage year for
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After Patricia Hewitt, Beverley Hughes and David Chaytor we are now up to 16 undead MPs: ones who have decided to stand down at the next election, but hang on a year until they can get their payoff – which is up to £120,000 depending on age and length of service. Go now, and they
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So when will Iran get enough nuclear material for a bomb? In evidence to the Knesset this morning, Israeli military intelligence has suggested this could happen as early as this year. Of course, the Iranians don’t (yet) have the right missiles. There was some concern about Russians selling a S300 anti-aircraft missile to China who
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Gordon Brown v Evan Davis this morning – and while most Brown interviews before 9am have a soporific effect, this one was (by Brown’s standards) a belter. The Dear Leader had come with an announcement: he is proposing a National Council for Democratic Renewal and was inviting questions on it. Davis had other questions, and
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The Dear Leader did Andrew Marr this morning – I’ve just returned from a beautiful day out to watch it online and give it a quick Fisk. Here are my top half dozen points. 1. “To be honest, what I’ve seen offends my Presbyterian conscience.” Is this the first recorded use of the phrase? And
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Why should Labour keep Gordon Brown as their leader? If Labour come third behind the LibDems at the Euro elections, this question is certain to be raised in public by someone. I hear that the Dear Leader has prepared an answer: green shoots. Seriously. Look, he will say, the economy is on the turn. And
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I have the dubious honour of being cited by Ed Balls in a press conference as proof that the Tories are hiding a cuts agenda. I say in the Daily Telegraph that the Tories’ plan is for a 10% cut across defence, education, transport and the Home Office. In typical word-twisting fashion, Balls said it
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British politics is currently suspended in one of those strange Road Runner moments, when we’ve run over the cliff but haven’t looked down. From April 2011, spending on public services will start to fall by a cumulative 7 percent over three years, according to Budget 2009. And given its fairytale economic assumptions (trampoline recovery, etc)
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Angela Wallace is one of a new breed of wavering voter. ‘I’m disgusted with all of the parties,’ she says, peering suspiciously at the men with clipboards on her doorstep. ‘MPs are not like they used to be. Now they’re all as bad as each other.’ The political activists I am accompanying have a ready
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The central deceit behind Budget 2009 – Alistair Darling’s trampoline recovery theory – is steadily crumbling. CoffeeHousers will remember the scam. He pretends that Britain will, from April 2011, enjoy three years of turbo-charged growth averaging 3.5 per cent a year, hence justifying his pre-election splurge. It was, in my view, an extraordinary moment –
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The Telegraph tonight makes two substantial revelations. The first is that nine Cabinet members – including Alistair Darling – have charged the taxpayer for accountants to do their personal tax returns. And while the figure – £11,000 – is bad enough it’s the principle that’s damaging. This government has had millions of British taxpayers submerged
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So how scared should Gordon Brown be of Caroline Flint? In my News of the World column, I warn against underestimating the wrath of Labour women. They suspect that Brown, in his anger, is now beating up on the female members of the Cabinet and are making a pre-emptive strike. Remember last summer’s rebellion: it was
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Only this morning, Andrew MacKay said that he would stand for election again – but after a conversation with David Cameron he has now decided to stand down at the next election. The open meeting he held had several calls for him to go, and there was talk of a petition. The grassroots momentum was
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It is typical of Michael Martin that his laughably short resignation statement contained a fundamental misunderstanding of parliament. ‘This House is at its very best when it is united,’ he said. The precise opposite is true. Gordon Brown and David Cameron’s places are precisely two sword lengths apart because it is intended to be an
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Should celebrities stand to become MPs? I have just done a phone-in on Richard Bacon’s Five Live programme where I was in favour of it. My point was that voting in someone like Esther Rantzen sends an important democratic message: that the voters think the Westminster menu is uninspiring. This is an entirely legitimate means
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Standard & Poor has just become the first credit rating agency to downgrade the UK from a “stable” assessment to “negative” – and given that the Tory borrowing proposals until 2014 are virtually identical to Labour’s, it is a warning that should chill Cameron. It’s feasible to fund your government with IOU notes now, with
