Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
You don’t mean a thing if your seat’s not a swing – that is the rule which governs Britain’s constituency voting system. Its worst aspect is the emergence of modern day rotten boroughs, where no mainstream party votes. The more I hear from Glasgow, the more likely it looks that the forgotten voters of Glasgow
Today’s march on poverty – with church leaders at the front; Gordon Brown giving the sermon – overlooks an important point. Thanks to global capitalism, we are living in a golden age of poverty reduction: never in human history has the West’s wealth been shared more quickly with the developing world, and to such incredible
Reading George Osborne’s responses to Coffee House has made clearer my own advice to him: save money by decelerating NHS and education budget increases. Max out with rhetoric about “we will outspend Labour” and say “every penny of Brown’s spending will be locked in” etc. It will all be true. But simply increase at very
This must be the opposite of “rapid reaction”. Some two weeks late, Labour is responding to David Cameron’s speech in Glasgow. It is Alan Johnson who is trying to divine some clear, red water: “Before we evoke the Victorian notion of the deserving and undeserving poor we should take a moment to consider how complex
Conventional wisdom is that Labour will win by a small majority tomorrow in Glasgow East. But isn’t a prediction of winning by a few hundred the equivalent of saying “too close to call”? A friend of mine, a former SNP by-election candidate, calls in with a few thoughts: 1. Word is that David Marshall had zero
When I was in Afghanistan two months ago, I was told – with some pride – that no one had been killed by gunfire so far this year. It seems, alas, that the gun battles were delayed rather than cancelled. Today, the MoD has announced that a REME soldier, attached to the Paras, was killed
At a recent dinner party in the British embassy in Kabul, one of the guests referred to ‘the Afghan-Pakistan war’. The rest of the table fell silent. This is the truth that dare not speak its name. Even mentioning it in private in the Afghan capital’s green zone is enough to solicit murmurs of disapproval.
As soon as David Marshall resigned as Glasgow East’s MP, everyone was looking for the “real” story. Unkind souls say that most MPs stay in office through invalidity so their families can receive the mammoth death-in-service payout (a lump sum of four times their pensionable salary, plus whatever their ill-health pension would have been –
What to make of James Purnell’s reforms? When I heard Neal Lawson from Compass on the radio this morning debating IDS, I thought that Purnell will be delighted: is this the toughest opposition he can get? The Campaign Group of socialist Labour MPs would always oppose him. In a way, it’s precisely what he wants. But
Gordon Brown must have been at his happiest in Opposition, delivering sermons about how Labour would deliver employment to cure the Tories’ wicked devil-take-the-hindmost approach. In launching the New Deal in Feb98, he had this to say: “Young people are our future. Yet unemployment among the under-25s is twice the national average”. It was true
Spotted: Alastair Campbell tucking into a full Scottish breakfast in the Crutherland House Hotel in East Kilbride – a mere 20 minutes drive from the Glasgow East constituency. Coincidence?
A devastating report on how the state unwittingly bankrolls drug addiction, timed to come out with tomorrow’s Green Paper, can now be downloaded from the DWP website. I’m not sure if this is intentional or not, but there we go. It looks at addiction to opiates (heroin) or crack cocaine, the so called Problem Drug
That wee film I presented about Glasgow East – just over 3 minutes long – is now up on YouTube (you can watch it after the jump), It’s based on my political column from a couple of weeks ago and was broadcast last Friday and commissioned by Robbie Gibb, editor of the BBC’s Daily Politics.
The Conservatives are making about as much headway in next week’s Glasgow East by-election as they would on Mars. ‘I told one guy I was from the Conservative party,’ moans one shadow Cabinet member who was campaigning there. ‘He said, “Oh, aye. Where’s that happening then?’’’ Hatred would at least entail some kind of recognition.
It is a red letter day for welfare reform. James Purnell’s Green Paper, leaked today, is a clear, honest and robust approach to the scandal of Britain’s 5.1m on benefits. I say in my political column in this week’s magazine that it is so close to Chris Grayling’s report (mainly because David Freud essentially wrote
The Scorched Earth policy has begun. The FT has a hugely significant story – that the Treasury is “working privately on plans to reform Gordon Brown’s fiscal rules” which would “initially allow for increased borrowing”. In the vernacular, Brown has realised that if the Tories win the next election the he is now spending with
Has Glasgow East influenced the postponed 2p increase in fuel duty, as David Cameron implied today? I doubt it, for a depressing reason. The place is so poor that most households in that constituency – 59% to be precise – simply don’t have access to a car (let alone own one). For the record, here
Just as Mr Brown’s jokes are no laughing matter, you imagine his facts are not supposed to be taken seriously anymore either. His statistics go over the heads of the public and one almost tires of correcting them here. But as Simon Mayo mentioned CoffeeHouse on air on Five Live and our fondness for “Brownies”
I watched PMQs from the vantage point of Simon Mayo’s Radio Five studio today, with John Pienaar. We both scribble furiously during the PMQs – John has to select clips and present a narrative instantly. Now Cable has gone, only Cameron provides the jokes. And he was on especially good form today. John spotted that
Just back from two great functions – George Osborne’s excellent speech to the Centre for Policy Studies and the HM Treasury summer reception. Osborne’s speech was basically the best Cameron ideas without any of the dodgy ones (like that Chapter 11 malarkey) – and a full narrative, focusing on worklessness and Labour’s failure in unemployment.
