Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.

Thursday

Fraser Nelson

The Economist: Is Gordon Brown doomed?

The Economist sells shares in Brown tomorrow - its front cover will ask ‘Is Gordon Doomed?’ and its lead article will pretty much say that he is. “Mr Brown can scarcely complain about disloyalty, for he helped to inculcate a taste for plots and mutinies during his long march to Downing Street,” it states. Unless Brown gets a grip, “he will go down in history as the worst sort of political failure: the sort who schemes to get a job and then has no idea what to do with it.

Fraser Nelson

Boris’ new recruits

The latest hire for Boris is Patience Wheatcroft, former Sunday Telegraph editor. She will lead a “forensic audit panel” into exactly what Mayor Ken got up to. The rest of the board are good people: Stephen Greenhalgh, leader of low-taxing Hammersmith Council, who will have a fair idea of where bodies are buried, and ditto Edward Lister, Leader of Wandsworth Council. It may sound daft having a journalist lead this, but Wheatcroft’s appointment makes more sense than first meets the eye. I used to work for her when she was Business Editor at The Times and she specialised in taking company accounts to pieces. She had a rare gift for finding the story buried in the footnotes.

Fraser Nelson

Cameron answers your questions

As mentioned the other day, I recently interviewed David Cameron for the lastest issue of the Spectator.  We've just uploaded that article onto the website - you can read it here.  But he also answered your questions, and at some length.  I grouped together many which were on the same theme. To business:-   So, why Follow Gordon Brown’s spending plans?   * Last Thursday showed that the country doesn't believe Brown. Why does he together with George Osborne still believe that Brown's spending plans are sustainable ? (Gavin, 10.22am) * Now the Tories have proved they are a credible opposition and the public is listening to what you say will you break from Labour's spending plans that are leading this country to ruin? (Mike, 9.

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson

The word from Scotland

Brown's PMQs performance, claiming Wendy Alexander in Scotland does not want an independence referendum, has baffled Scottish Labour. I call my old contacts and am told a shocking, but not surprising story.  Wendy Alexander asked Brown a while ago to approve her plan to call for an early independence referendum. Like Madame Tussauds, she didn't get a reply. He dithered and he delayed. She figured McBroon didn't care any more (sob!) and went ahead regardless. Just like that Miliband speech a while ago, Brown only wakes up to its significance when he reads it in the papers. Then tries to stuff the genie back in the bottle today, claiming she didn't say what she unfortunately said to the world.

Fraser Nelson

Another victory for Cameron at PMQs

Another good show from Cameron and dismal one from Brown. Perhaps I’m growing too sensitised to this, but his half-truths and (in this case) outright lies really jump out at me. Cameron seemed to mock him dismissively – perhaps worse than attacking him. Here are my highlights. Cameron started with “Bendy Wendy” and her well-documented support for a referendum on Scottish independence. “That is not what she has said,” said Brown. Cameron at least had the quote handy – though he missed out the crucial “it’s time for him to put up or shut up”. Cameron quoted her saying “’I don’t fear the verdict of the Scottish People. Bring it on” – what else could that possibly mean?

Fraser Nelson

Should the Tories throw Brown a lifeline at PMQs?

Tories should today hope that David Cameron gets panned in Prime Minister's Questions. Hope that Brown scores a resounding success, and leaves with the applause of all Labour MPs ringing in his ears. The longer he clings to No10, the larger the next Tory majority will be. He is the single greatest weapon Cameron has.  Tories may delight in today's Populus poll, but now that Brown-bashing has become a national sport do they want anyone else at the Despatch Box at noon on a Wednesday? Now is the time to throw Brown the lifeline he needs. To bomb. To lose Crewe. I have said before that I can't see a mechanism for him to go. But the way things are going, Labour may not care. If they can't find a way, they'll make one.

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson

Brownie No.3 – Gordon Brown’s “transitional” 10p tax rate

When Gordon Brown was defending his decision to scrap the 10p tax rate in April 2008, he spoke as if he was avenging a great moral wrong. “I think I should tell the House that 85 per cent of the benefits of the 10p rate go to higher-rate and basic-rate taxpayers, and that 11 million people, mainly the lowest-income people in the country, receive no benefit at all from it… We are determined to take action, because we are the party of fairness tackling poverty.” So why did he introduced this 10p tax with such great fanfare in 1999 if it was so regressive? On Sunday 4 May, he told BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “Look, nobody's suggesting the 10p rate be brought back.  Not any of the opposition parties, not Frank Field.

Fraser Nelson

Brown loses another popularity contest

It goes from tragedy to farce. Madame Tussauds has decided against having a Gordon Brown waxwork amongst its world leaders - he dithered over whether to sit for its sculptors and they got fed up waiting for a reply. "Since then we have had no response and, reflecting the climate after the Government's performance in the recent local elections, our guests have become decidedly split about whether we should feature Mr Brown at all," general manager Edward Fuller said.

Fraser Nelson

Cameron dodges the 10p tax issue

Cameron has three times avoided in his press conference answering what a Conservative government would do to help those people stung by the 10p tax. (No, A cock hasn't crowed). A tough issue for him, and I'll see if I can do any better as I travel with him on the train to Crewe. He also said he suspects Nicholas Boles (who dropped his own mayoral campaign after being diagnosed with cancer, from which he has now recovered) will keep working for Boris. Bruce Anderson asked yesterday who will play Jeeves to Wooster. Kinder souls may ask who will play Leo McGarry to his Bartlett. Whichever way you out it, I suspect we have just had our answer. Boles has a good seat lined up, but Boris could not have a better "deputy mayor".

Monday

Fraser Nelson

Who’s next?

Ladbrokes has just updated its odds for the next Labour leader. Which of the below names would have the ability to unite Labour against Brown, successfully trigger a leadership challenge, secure union support to depose him, and then volunteer to lead the party into what will probably be an election defeat? And if you were David Miliband’s best mate, what would your advice to him be? David Miliband 5/2 – too young to ruin his career now Alan Johnson 6/1 – likeable, but no ambition to be no1. Ed Balls 6/1 – the PLP would lynch him sooner than Brown. Jack Straw 7/1 – if Straw is the answer, what is the question? James Purnell 8/1 – too soon. Will have his eye on 2015. John Denham 10/1 – least ridiculous suggestion, but still daft.

Fraser Nelson

Will Brown go?

“They say that Gladstone was at the Treasury from 1860 to 1930. I intend to be Minister of Labour from 1940 to 1990”- Ernest Bevin The five scariest words you will read in the press today are in The Sun, where Trevor Kavanagh says “I give him six months”. Brown, like Bevin, will have factored in far greater longevity – and I have been relying on him sending at least two more sets of No10 Christmas cards. I’m not saying he deserves to stay (though the longer he does, the longer the next period of Conservative government will be). But how can he go? Here’s my thinking – I’d be interested to know CoffeeHousers' takes. Only Blairism brings in ex-Thatcher voters to Labour.

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

Outfoxing Brown

Brown’s breathtakingly bad performance on Marr risks overlooking Liam Fox’s brilliant one. As Andrew Porter has said, word perfect. We see too little of Fox for my liking. Like David Davis, he has an instinctive grasp of low-tax economics and has a wonderful emperor’s-got-no-clothes contempt for Brown’s economic record. “Labour are still caught in this mental rut that Gordon Brown was a great Chancellor, they've got economic stability, and if they say it often enough people will believe it,” he said. Quite so. As Allister Heath wrote in The Spectator three years ago, “It seems likely that in due course Brown will be marked down not as one of the greatest but instead as one of the most destructive chancellors in British history.

Fraser Nelson

Brown fails to relaunch

A friend of mine, a BBC producer, sends this text message: “I’m watching the PM ‘relaunch’ from behind the sofa. The slow public death of Mr Brown continues. Painful to watch.” Difficult to disagree too much. My thoughts:- 1)      “It’s been a bad night” he started – woops! Wrong soundbite. That one was for use on Friday morning. He tries again. “It’s not been the best weekend, let’s say” – cue flash of weird smile. 2)      “I think it’s true I’m a more private person in a public arena” – yip, an introvert in an extrovert’s job.

Fraser Nelson

Was this actually Labour’s worst result since World War One?

I would like to call on the collective wisdom of CoffeeHousers. I have read everywhere that Thursday was Labour’s worst result for 40 years, whereas it looks to me as if it is the worst since World War One. Here’s why. As far as I can determine, the source for this “40 years” was Tony Travers from LSE. We walked out of the BBC studio in City Hall together on election night, and Tony showed me his book of wisdom – the year 1968 was a freak bad year for Labour in London as it had 28% of the vote (as I blogged earlier). Tony made this point in the studio – referring to London only - and it seems it has been repeated ever since. But now the GLA votes are all counted, Labour is on 27.1% of the vote.

Saturday

Fraser Nelson

Labour politicians are already preparing for opposition. The race to succeed Gordon is on

Over lunch about a year ago, I tried to tease out the intentions of someone tipped as a possible successor to Gordon Brown. He was feigning optimism and loyalty to the anointed leader-in-waiting, so I advanced some hypothetical scenarios involving various MPs being run over by buses. So would he maybe... ‘Me? God, no,’ he replied, cutting me off. ‘Forget it. As soon as this party gets into opposition then — boof.’ He mimed an explosion with his hands. ‘Trust me. The queue to be Labour’s William Hague will not be a long one.’ Here were two striking assumptions: that Mr Brown was certain to lose, and that the Labour coalition would fast unravel. This, it must be said, is the minority view.

Friday

Fraser Nelson

Boris’s secret weapon: driving the left crazy

The conventional wisdom is to regard Mayor Boris as a loose cannon and, ergo, a liability to Cameron. But he may help oust Brown by another skill that has only become apparent in recent weeks: he drives the left mad. By mad, I mean he drives them to inverted snobbery and making personal and ludicrous attacks which strike the onlooker as hysterical. His education and background just seem to flick a switch in a certain sort of Labour supporter – leading to behaviour that even that even their peers find distasteful. Just look at the comments to this Toynbee piece where she called Boris a “sociopath” or the language in this Labour attack video.   The problem the left face is a misreading of this country.

Fraser Nelson

The wait goes on

"Boris is the Mayor" proclaims the Evening Standard. News to the rest of us, anxiously waiting. The poor souls must have held back the edition for a 5pm result, and decided to take a punt. "After a nail biting count, Mr Johnson was so far ahead on first preference votes he could not be caught, even after second preferences were taken into account" it says. He has "pulled off one of the most spectacular transformations of modern history". If by some freak Ken edges it, this newspaper will be a collectors’ item. I saw a chap from Mori on TV earlier, looking worried. So he should be. Their polls were off. YouGov has yet again been proved the most accurate pollster here, getting the national vote share right.

Fraser Nelson

When will we get a result?

Dire rumours flying about the Mayoral count, hopefully all untrue. The worst is that we may not have a winner by midnight. Adam Boulton at Sky News confident of getting one tonight - but perhaps not until 10.30pm. One Tory Shadow Cabinet member says he has been told there's 1% in it, so they will have to do a recount anyway - this conflicts with numerous reports that Boris is comfortably ahead. Even Brian Paddick has called it for Boris. But we were supposed to get the first vote at 3pm and the final result at 5pm. It's now 6pm and most votes remain uncounted. The high turnout has overwhelmed the system, I'm told. What strikes me is not just the scale of the results - although Labour's loss of 295 seats and Tory gains of almost 400 is certainly an unalloyed disaster.

Fraser Nelson

It just keeps getting worse for Gordon Brown

“So fair and foul a day I have not seen” – Macbeth Act 1, Scene 3   Can this beautiful May afternoon get any worse for McBrown? Em, yes. Stuart Wheeler has been granted permission to hold a High Court hearing over the Government's refusal to hold a referendum on the renamed EU Constitution. Even Open Europe didn’t expect him to get a full hearing on this – but he hired a top QC and at the High Court Mr Justice Owen has said Wheeler has an “arguable case.” The hearing is due on the 9th and 10th June – which raises questions as to whether the issue is now sub judice. CoffeeHousers may think “this is mad, Wheeler has a snowball’s chance in hell.