Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
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
The IMF has published its verdict on Britain – who it may very well be bailing out in the next couple of years – and a suspiciously warm phrase is up there, and being singled out by government spin doctors: “The UK government response to the global financial crisis has been “bold and wide-ranging,” adding
You might think this impossible, but there is more chaos from the Michael Martin’s office. They said yesterday that he was resigning as an MP as well as a Speaker – ergo by-election in the summer. I spoke to the SNP and to ministers about it: everyone was geared up. But now it transpires that
So Brown kicked off by praising the Speaker for “unfailing personal kindness to all members of all parties of this house.” And with a straight face too! This kindness was the problem, the way Michael Martin ushered everyone to the Fees Office to claim their Generation Game conveyor belt-style goodies. And then it got worse.
Was that it? Gordon Brown spent an hour talking about “radical action,” “radical surgery,” and the like. So what’s he doing? Setting up a committee. Or, more accurately, publishing a consultation paper on setting up a committee; one that would monitor MPs’ pay and expenses. And does anyone seriously believe it will come down harshly
But will there be a by-election? Sure, Michael Martin will step down on 21st June, but what about Glasgow North East? I know how much Gordon Brown enjoys Glasgow by-elections – and personally, I’d love another chance for the nation’s spotlight to fall in these Labour rotten boroughs. One of the worst aspects of
The big question is what changed Michael Martin’s mind. I suspect that both Brown and Cameron withdrew support. But I’d argue that Cameron should have done so last weekend in public as Nick Clegg did. And, come to think of it, I agree with the LibDem proposal that all capital gains on property bought with
So will David Cameron ride the wave of anti-politics or be crushed by it? I have for years thought that trends towards people power and away from hierarchies – in every sphere of life – shows the world is moving the conservative way and that the idea of a big government belongs in the last
If our MPs keep paying back the expenses they claimed at the current rate we’ll have the national debt down in no time. What strikes me about ex-Labour chairman Ian McCartney is that even the prospect of having his claims made public led him to reach for his cheque book and refund £16,000 of our
As soon as I saw Norway’s entry on Eurovision last night, I knew what the vikings were up to: doing a Blair. Here in the land of fjords and A-Ha, their entry was a Minsk-born Russian with cossack-style dancers in a naked pitch for slavic votes. And what a success it was: the full 12
Damian McBride may be gone, but his spirit lives on in Labour’s latest party political broadcast (watch it after the jump). It features a young chap in a suit (boo! class enemy!) who goes into an empty room and starts hitting a punchbag. Then it comes up with all sorts of claims that could have
What a weird day. I’m blogging this, crouching below a camera on college green, about a metre away from Nick Brown being grilled by the BBC’s Jon Sopel over Elliot Morley. Brown is a chief whip who seldom talks, but he has just admitted to BBC News that Morley ‘fessed up to this days ago.
How significant is Andrew MacKay’s departure? A few weeks ago, I did a column on his weird Rasputin-like influence over David Cameron. His role is to sniff the air, see which tribes of Tory MPs are gathering where. To advise, say, if David Davis is up to mischief on the backbenches. To be a shadow
Brown looked dejected, buffeted and battered by events. Cameron looked confident, in charge of them. The Tory leader kicked off asking why all new claims can’t be put online? (Ben Wallace did so ages ago, and was hated by many in his party, but Cameron backed him). Brown’s response was in auto-garble, speaking as if
Fraser Nelson says that the scale of public disgust at the MPs’ expenses scandal presents the next Prime Minister with a huge challenge — and a huge opportunity. If Cameron devolves power to voters, he will be rewarded. But if he fails, the punishment will be swift It will be a brave parliamentary candidate who
Ben Wallace has just called for the Speaker to resign, joining Douglas Carswell’s call. This doubles the number of MPs who have broken the parliamentary protocol and are openly calling for the Speaker to go. Wallace explained his rationale on Channel Four news: from 2001 when Freedom of Information legislation was passed, it was clear
Michael Martin has just exploded. Kate Hoey raised a point of order: doesn’t the Metropolitan Police have better things to do than investigating leaks? You often get the feeling that Martin is just waiting to snap “You can’t handle the truth!” à la A Few Good Men. Hoey seemed to tip him over the edge.
So has Michael Gove been caught home flipping? What I heard about the latest revelations, it struck me that he mentioned his home moving in an interview with The Spectator back in September last year. The write-up is here, but in the magazine piece I left out his full explanation behind his house move. Here it
How, you might ask, do these MPs with their snouts in the trough justify it to themselves? Margaret Moran, the Luton MP who has claimed for her partner’s home in Southampton, gave her rationale to BBC1’s Politics Show earlier. MARGARET MORAN: My partner works in Southampton. He has done for twenty years. If I’m ever
So, no Ed Balls in the Sunday Telegraph tomorrow, no Shadow Cabinet. But we do get Sinn Fein (of which, more later) as well as Kitty in the City, aka Kitty Ussher who succeeded Balls as City Minister and is now benefits minister. Anyway, she spent £22,000 of taxpayers’ cash doing up her terraced house
