Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
The more you study the Recession Budget, the more it hits you: this horror story is a best-case scenario. It’s based on almost comically optimistic assumptions. We are apparently halfway through a recession that finishes next May. Then growth starts again, they’ll magic up £5bn of efficiency savings and the rich will somehow break the
So this was the Recession Budget surprise: a seven-year horizon with no debt repayment plan. Ha! Bet you didn’t expect that. Britain is to be transformed from a low-debt country into a nation saddled with a wartime debt without having fought a war. And as for today’s Brownie – it’s one the Stern Review used:
Might Gordon Brown take so many risks with the public finances that Britain would be considered in danger of defaulting on its loans? This prospect may be laughed off in Westminster, but not in the City where five-year contracts on UK gilts today surged another 4bps to a record high of 87.5bps. In English, this
Okay, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, but I suspect I’ve spotted the first tax con of the budget – because there is a way Brown can turn the VAT cut into a tax rise for small businesses. He may find it too alluring to resist. Small firms and sole traders must charge VAT
The Great Budget Game starts at 4.30pm today. Darling will have delivered his speech; copies of the report will have been sent out; and journalists across the land will be rushing to write it all up. With the post-Budget briefing finishing at 5pm and news desks shouting for copy from 6.30pm onwards, that leaves very
The latest rumour is that Brown will pay for his VAT cut with a delayed 45% rate of tax for those on £175,000 and over. So off the radar has this move been that (unlike a VAT cut) it’s not even in HM Treasury’s ready reckoner. Enough is now know about tax economics at these
Whatever you may think about Gordon Brown, he does deserve to be recognised as a master of his art. I can’t think of a more accomplished confidence trickster ever to enter Westminster. And he’s ready to unveil a whole Potemkin Village tomorrow, the climax of his life’s work. It will be built out of non-sequiteurs,
It looks like Brown will cut VAT from 17.5% to 15% – the lowest the EU will allow. This would be the crux of Monday’s recession budget. The move costs £12.5bn and the idea would be to get retail sales moving, then jack up VAT later. The threat of the increase, of course, being the
Is Britain going the same way as Iceland? Iain Dale says that my reference in my political column to senior economists referring to London as “Reykjavik on Thames” is “terrifying, if true.” Cheeky wee monkey. ‘Course it’s true. The phrase I can attribute directly to Willem Buiter, one of Brown’s first appointments to the MPC
Given that Gordon Brown spent his adult life plotting to get into 10 Downing Street, he has been understandably quiet about his decision to leave it. Tony Blair’s old office certainly brought him rotten luck, and his new open-plan base in Number 12 has far better feng shui for a man of his disposition. There
After months of dodging the question, Gordon Brown has finally admitted he was wrong to repeatedly claim that he’s abolished boom and bust. Jeremy Vine has just asked him on Radio Two if that was a mistake and he replied: “Yes. Of course politicians make mistakes and I’ve got to be honest that we’ve made
George Osborne needs your help, or at least we think he does. He will be spending this weekend hunting for lines for his all-important speech on Monday answering the Pre-Budget Report. Left to his own devices, he may be tempted to go all “responsible” saying “what’s important is that we get credit markets moving” or
Daniel Finkelstein has been fighting a heroic but rather lonely battle warning those of us on the right about the limitations of the tax-cutting message. He’s been on the lookout for what he wonderfully terms “punk tax-cutters” and he and I have an exchange of emails on the subject in this week’s magazine – read
Most debates about what the Tories should do are split between what’s right, and what would go down well to win elections. I believe that strong parties start with the former, and work up a way of converting it to the latter. This is why I disagree with James. Refusing to match Labour on health
It was a subdued David Cameron we saw in PMQs today, which is understandable after last week. He’ll need all the arrows he can get in George Osborne’s quiver next Monday. The aim is to make the economy a real issue, hence he went on case studies of businesses denied credit – details later released
Cameron’s announcement today grows more radical the more you study it. I was struck that he didn’t vow to protect health and education spending in 2010/11, as the party has in the past. In my “how to cut £40 billion” guide, my chief recommendation was freezing NHS spending to give the system time to digest
Yvette Cooper doesn’t like Cameron’s announcement that he’d spend less than the £680bn Brown intends to in 2010/11. “Unlike the Conservatives, we refuse to abandon people in tough times. The British economy needs a shot in the arm, not a slap in the face.” Except giving people their money back in tough times – as
Is the Tory right secretly gunning for Cameron? Rachel Sylvester today raises this prospect, and you can take as read this reflects thinking at a senior level within the Cameroons. This bodes ill and suggests someone is worrying that “the Wicked Tory Right are coming for Dave, that explains all the criticism of George, let’s fight them” rather
One of Gordon Brown’s favourite tricks is claiming he’s pursuing a particular agenda at the behest of a person/organisation above party politics. Hence those endless reviews: Stern on climate change, Wanless on health, Barker on housing – all with parameters set so tight that they were programmed to come out with what Brown thought. I’ll
Gordon Brown says he “regrets” George Osborne’s “partisan talk” warning that we may have a sterling crisis on our hands – his implication being that the Opposition should be supporting him, the Father of the Nation. In fact, there has never been a greater need for full-blooded, disrespectful, combative, full-on scrutiny of what he says.
