Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
Most paradigm shifts in politics are recognisable only in retrospect, but it’s fairly clear we’re living through one now. When you have the US seeking to nationalise $700bn of dodgy assets and the average British household now liable for £3,020 of Northern Rock debt something has changed. But what? I’ve been struggling to find a
Gordon Brown’s Baldrick-style Cunning Plan for global finance involves using the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as an “early-warning system”. Great idea. When I was a business journalist, I remember the IMF early warnings – about how Brown’s switch to debt-fuelled profligacy post-2000 would end in tears. The key misjudgement made by both Brown and Greenspan
A new Brownie was born today at 7am. Gordon Brown came on to BBC Breakfast this morning to tell presenter Sian Williams about how, as a family man himself, he sympathises with Ruth Kelly wanting to devote more time to her children. He didn’t expect to be grilled on his untrue claim that he has
So Ruth Kelly’s last act as Transport Secretary was to deny Gordon Brown the privilege of sacking her. Word of the reshuffle leaked last night – Geoff Hoon out and to succeed Mandy as European Commissioner (not a straight switch, Mandy’s there till Jun09). Des Browne to stay in Defence but (finally) cede Scotland to Paul
Fraser Nelson says that the Tory leader must not be tempted by a ‘safety first’ strategy at his conference in Birmingham. The global financial crisis has transformed the political context and left an opening for the Conservatives to promise true radicalism and to be proudly bold The Labour party conference already had an apocalyptic aura
There are two reliable tricks which can fill the room at any Tory speaking event: offer free beer, or put Michael Gove on the panel. His fusion of almost comic politeness and intellectual ruthlessness have given him quite a following, whether he’s defending neoconservatism or David Cameron. In three short years he has been propelled
Bless. Dennis MacShane says Brown could not possibly be have used a false quote in his leadership speech. In his write-up of Brown’s speech for Comment Is Free, the ex-Europe minister has this to say: Brown sought to take the battle to the Conservatives. Did George Osborne really say that in the midst of a
Brown’s hour-long speech may have been saved by his six-second “no time for a novice” line. He managed to smile as he said it, with a glint of menace that the cameras picked up quite well. And as for the rest of the speech – I’ve spoken to a few Labour delegates and have to
In David Miliband’s “leaving do” speech for Gordon Brown, one line jumped out at me – when he said Gordon Brown has “transformed the debate about international development in Britain”. He has certainly transformed the accounting, by pioneering dodgy off-balance sheet financing of overseas aid. It’s worth revisiting, in the light of his new pious
On the basis that a Prime Minister should not be able to mislead his country every time he opens his mouth, here is a list of the Brownies to which we were treated on the Andrew Marr Show this morning. The sheer volume of them is overwhelming: this is carefully woven-together matrix of exaggeration, misrepresentation
Actually, the cameras were rolling during my bout with Prescott. It’s on the BBC website – click here and scroll to 31 mins 45 seconds in for all two minutes of it.
I’ve had the pleasure of doing a column for the News of the World for a couple of years now, but this is the first time I’ve had the newspaper’s title on my conference pass. I wish I’d done it earlier. It seems to drive Labour people quite mad. The ushers here recoil when they
Today Brown claimed that every two-year-old will have a free nursery place – by 2018. Coming from a guy who’ll be lucky to be in power by December 18, it’s just a joke. I wonder if John Major is thinking: ‘that’s what I should have done, announced wonderful things to happen by 2007’. It would
Coffee House is running a series of posts on the contenders to succeed Gordon Brown as Labour party leader. The latest is below. Click here for our profile of David Miliband, here for Jon Cruddas, and here for Alan Johnson. Jack Straw, 62, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice Pros Experience: This is
Interviewing Gordon Brown is a horrible job. He normally regards interviews as speeches with occasional interruptions, and typically he reverts to his lines while his PR man calls up after to say ‘what Gordon meant to say was…’. Yet Sky News team squeezed a fairly decent amount out of Brown in their inteview broadcast at
When Number 10 said that Gordon Brown’s leadership had not been discussed in the Cabinet on Tuesday morning, it sounded a bit odd. After all, every other gathering of Labour MPs in the land has been talking of little else: how much more humiliation lies ahead, and when the end might come. So it came
The Brown demise is on a downward rollercoaster trajectory: it stabilises before it plunges again. I suspect that a period of stabilisation, and maybe even an upswing, is now on the cards. Yesterday went very well for him, and from the quotes I have seen he managed to get through even Jeff Randall on the
This is the moment I’ve been waiting for – China moving in to the chaos and snapping up the giants of Western capitalism. Bloomberg reports that China Investment Corp. may be buying half of Morgan Stanley. The Gulf States got burned by using their sovereign wealth funds to take a chunk of Citibank when the
At 8pm on Friday, Sky will broadcast an interview with Gordon Brown which seals off what will be his best day for months. The risible idea that he somehow played matchmaker between HBOS and Lloyds TSB proved irresistible to news editors last night. It fuses together the political crisis with the financial one and has
Is Gordon Brown trying to take credit for the HBOS-Lloyds merger? Sounds implausible, but the blog of Robert Peston, Brown’s biographer, has this snippet: “I am hearing that this deal has been negotiated at a very high pay grade level, with the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, talking to Sir Victor Blank, chairman of Lloyds TSB,
