Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
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Aside from the Chinese Red Army and Indian Post Office, the NHS is the world’s largest employer with 1.3m staff. Government attempts to trim this unwieldy, inefficient behemoth are pathetic. We today learn that the NHS total staff fell by under one percent over the last year. The Tories are up in arms. “The Government
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The urgency behind the “family friendly” agenda – which is to be the theme of the Tories’ spring conference in Gateshead – can be traced to an internal opinion poll presentation delivered by Lord Ashcroft a few weeks ago. Mothers were going off David Cameron, apparently – which panicked the Cameroons not a little, as
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The Sun’s Budget coverage today spells out the real-life impact of yesterday’s tax increases. Darling’s booze taxes grow with time and by the 2012 Olympics a pint will cost £6.47. Its case studies “Why you benefit if you’re on benefits” has a brilliant example of a £14k-a-year call centre worker who, outrageously, is £266 a
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Aside from British budget madness, as Labour and the Tories argue about how much they’d push state spending up, the rest of the world talks about getting spending down. Yesterday, the Swedish press celebrated the fact that their “expenditure reform” (why don’t we hear that phrase here?) is working so well that they have lost
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At 7.10am this morning, there was a prime example of why Brown may get away with posing as the champion of welfare reform. Kim Catcheside, the BBC’s social affairs correspondent, was explaining Alistair Darling’s new plans to test everyone on incapacity benefit to see what work they could do (ie, the Tory plan). Catcheside said
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Did any Coffee Housers catch what Ed Balls said? David Cameron mentioned the huge tax burden during his budget response and Balls shouted “so what?”. Or that’s Cameron’s version. The Secretary of State for Schools and Children now claims he said “so weak” and was referring to Cameron overall. But look at the spiralling debt, and “so
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The below table shows how we will be paying the costs of Brown’s profligacy for years. In the space of a year, the picture has markedly worsened. This is gross government debt, in the Maastricht definition which ministers can’t tweak. UK Government gross debt, tables C4 and C5 from Budget 07 & 08 Debt, £billion
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If you’re sitting down, have a look at this government debt projection. One of my favourite parts of the Budget is the Maastricht Treaty debt, calculated under a definition the Treasury cannot wangle. Have a look at this and remember – you’re paying for it. Debt, £billion 2006-07 574 2007-08 616 2008-09 679 2009-10
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The biggest story in today’s Budget – ie, what will hit the public immediately – is the booze hikes. From 6pm tonight, they take effect. An extra 4p on a pint of beer, 3p on a glass of wine (touchingly, the Red Book says 175ml is typical – has anyone from the Treasury ordered a
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The Red Book has arrived – and with it the magical Table 1.2, proof this is a tax-raising budget. We’ll all collectively pay the government £140m less in the next financial year 2008-09 but £790m more in 2009-10 and £1.86bn more in 2010-11. This is net increases. Here are the biggest tax rises (in the
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Darling says government will be borrowing £14bn for the four years to 2010/11 – this is £20bn more than forecast at the Pre-Budget Report in October.
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As I suspect we’ll hear the claim today that the UK is somehow holding up well in the face of the global slowdown, here is a handy table showing why we the precise opposite is true and we are literally hit harder than any other OECD country. Real GDP growth 2007 Real GDP
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Pictures have just landed of Darling holding aloft the old Gladstone budget box – ditching the new one Brown’s constituents made for him in 1997. First time we’ve seen this since Ken Clarke’s 1997 budget. Darling will want this to be symbolic of a new era – no Brown-style deceptive budgets, no tricks this time,
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The Prime Minister’s Spokesman has just given the lobby a briefing – and repeating what Darling briefed the Cabinet. I hope Chancellor started his presentation with the words “once upon a time” because what followed was demonstrable fiction. Here are the main points:- 1) All the countries in the world are facing problems 2) Britain
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Is this an omen? Those who were watching the live Sky News at 8.50am may have heard scaffolding coming crashing down above the entrance of 12 Downing Street. Needless to say, its causing much meriment in Conservative HQ. “As we have said repeatedly: Gordon Brown didn’t fix the roof while the sun was shining” says
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A friend is on the board of an independent school, and has been attending more than the usual amount of meetings recently. They are discussing whether the burden of government interference has become so great that they should become a profit-seeking organisation. This would be financed by stopping taking in new pupils from poor areas
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Philip Hammond, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, has just finished a pre-Budget lobby briefing, which I suspect will end in some troublesome headlines for him tomorrow for two reasons. First, non doms. Hammond asks us to believe that the Tory non-dom tax would scare away fewer millionaires than Labour’s policy. But the Tory figures claim
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I was right – Clegg’s speech was better with the volume down. He wasn’t just copying Cameron’s walkabout speech tactics but also his “broken politics” analysis (itself inspired by Obama). Given his role in last week’s vote on the EU referendum, it was the height of hypocrisy. He led his party to abstain, thus denying
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Well, David Cameron has changed politics in this regard: no party leader can give a speech without walking around the stage – at least for a bit. Over at the Lib Dem Spring Conference, Clegg is hamming it up a bit too much – flapping his hands like he’s trying to take off. I’ll watching
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The Peev v Carlson clash (watch it here) is fast mutating into a debate between the merits of UK and US journalism. And another issue – who gave who a kicking? Most US bloggers see this as a clear victory for Tucker who put the Brits in his place with his cutting put-down. It must