Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson

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

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson

Meet the minister for selling the unsellable

From our UK edition

Fraser Nelson warms to Jim Murphy, the Minister for Europe, who is steering the Lisbon Treaty through parliament — and now promises that he would help Blair become EU President Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first tip for stardom. Throughout his twenties, Jim Murphy suffered this affliction. Before Tony Blair led the Labour party he was starting a Blairite revolution in the National Union of Students. His slogan, ‘realism, not revolution’, made a cover story in the Sunday Times magazine. No list of young talent in the mid-1990s was complete without him. Yet only now, 11 years after his election to parliament, has he reappeared on the national radar.

Monday

Fraser Nelson

And the brass neck of the year award goes to… 

From our UK edition

If there is an award for a brass neck of 2008, George Osborne has just done enough to win in. First, he proposes a tax on the non-doms (which I critiqued at the time). Then, Darling nicks it in his infamous magpie budget. Then, it becomes clear this daft proposal will simply drive away the highly-mobile millionaires resulting in a net loss to the Exchequer. Today Osborne has written an “open letter” to Darling asking him to repeal this proposal for all the harm it will do. A proposal which he was complaining was nicked from him. Of course winning parties tend to have brass necks – and Osborne’s cheek is far preferable to the pusillanimous approach of previous Shadow Chancellors. But what a cheek it is.

Fraser Nelson

How to tax the rich?

From our UK edition

As if to prove he’s still a left-winger, Frank Field today gives a lecture calling for an extra 10% tax on earnings over £150k that could be completely offset by charitable donations. In other words, "if you don't give this to charity, we'll tax you" - Field believes people spend their own money more wisely than bureaucrats.  I agree in principle, but also believe that taxing high income removes the incentives to earn it and the net result is that less money is produced. (Darling’s disastrous tax on non-doms, for example, will result in a net loss to the Exchequer.) So why not adopt Field’s policy for a fifth on income tax already collected? That would help “roll forward society” as David Cameron puts it. One for the Tory policy board?

Fraser Nelson

Brown will not tread the road to Blairite reform

From our UK edition

Both Che Guevara and Thatcher declared they were for “reform”, so Brown saying it means nothing in itself. His definition of reform is “personalisation” which, as far as I can make out, is 180 degree opposite to Blair’s idea of reform. One of the best (and shortest) think tank pamphlets I’ve read in a while is “Who do they think we are” by the Centre for Policy Studies.  Jill Kirby argues that Brown’s “personalisation” means a mass computerisation of the state, making this behemoth survive into the 21st century by modernising Whitehall departments rather than dismantling them. When Brown talks about personalising the health and education experience, he wants to do via the state what Blair wanted to do via the market.

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

Wanted: Leadership

From our UK edition

A new motto - "uncertain times call for uncertain leadership" - could apply right now to the Church of England, the government and parliament. In my News of the World column today, I say that the Williams fiasco fits a depressing trend. 1. The Church of England is in crisis. Its own figures show a fall in attendance which, if left unabated, would leave it empty within about 25 years. Williams’s response to this seems to be embracing what he wrongly sees as modernity. 2. Governments weather global economic downturns with low debt, building up surpluses in the fat years. Brown already had an outrageous deficit and has stumbled into the Northern Rock fiasco which left another £100bn more on the nation's credit card. This is the equivalent of a month of black Wednesdays.

Saturday

Fraser Nelson

Clarke lashes out

From our UK edition

Charles Clarke throws the book at Brown today in an interview with the Daily Mail. A few choice quotes.   1) "You saw it with David Cameron over MPs' expenses when he was out, very fast, dealing with the situation. Gordon must stop being a ditherer. He lacks courage. He looks at his papers, dithers and isn't sure."   2) "Gordon can only make the Cabinet seem heavyweight by changing the people he puts in it."   3) "At first, I had thought it unlikely he would give me a Government job. But then, when he became Prime Minister, he said that he had nothing personal against me and he asked me to be a special envoy to him in certain roles.  I wrote to him about what such a role might entail and got no response. So, after about six weeks, I said 'no'.

Fraser Nelson

Trust in politics is dead: long live ‘wiki-politics’

From our UK edition

If a museum were built to honour the ancestral political class, it would not look much different from the House of Commons. Its corridors are lined with portraits of the political greats and its staircases are adorned with old Vanity Fair caricatures. ‘Honourable members’ are still treated as if they were just that, with the right to jump to the top of the queue at canteens, bars and the post office. In other words: they live in a bubble of delusion, comfortably but perilously insulated from the growing hostility of the outside world. If a museum were built to honour the ancestral political class, it would not look much different from the House of Commons.

Friday

Fraser Nelson

Damaged reputations

From our UK edition

Unkind souls joke that proof of Tony Blair's Catholicism came not on his conversion, but when he recommended Rowan Williams as the Archbishop of Canterbury. Under his tenure his church has seen schism (over gay clergy) whilst being overtaken by Catholicism in attendees for the first time since the Reformation. This Archbishop lost my confidence when he was the only person not to answer a Spectator survey asking people if they believe in the physical reality of the resurrection. Given his description of the Nativity as a "legend", I can understand why. If only he were as tight-lipped over Sharia Law.   Yet The Times has a scoop - moves are finally afoot to oust him. From Ruth Gledhill, perhaps the best religious affairs correspondent in Fleet St, so we can take this seriously.

Fraser Nelson

Clegg cosies up to the Tories?

From our UK edition

Nick Clegg is finally doing the clever thing and openly talking about backing the Tories in coalition. I'm in a BBC studio waiting to do News24 paper review, and just have the FT's front page. But it quotes him saying that he:  "...could back a minority Tory government if David Cameron proposes genuine 'liberal' reforms."  Now, I don't believe him for a minute but it gives him more leverage with Brown to flirt with Cameron.

Thursday

Fraser Nelson

Digby goes off message

From our UK edition

For some time I have been waiting for Digby Jones to return to his good old unpredictable self. It's happening in tomorrow's FT where Labour's trade minister says Darling's copycat clampdown on non doms will cost Britain.  Jones suggests that the non-dom rules have caused people to ask "does this mean you don't want us?"  He adds:  "I can give you five reasons to invest in Britain before you invest elsewhere in Europe. But maybe there were seven and now there are five" Who has turned seven into five? His boss, Gordon Brown.

Fraser Nelson

How much for a politician?

From our UK edition

I never nod in agreement more with any piece than with Charles Moore’s diary, and in today’s edition of the magazine he says Derek Conway: “...exclaims that ‘An MP is paid less than a sous-chef in the Commons’ as if  this were a self-evident absurdity… he wants what he sees as the befitting lifestyle and thinks the taxpayer should pay for it.” As Charles points out, Conway has at least been frank in saying an MP should get between £80k and £100k. The problem is that MPs’ mates in the City regard this as a reasonable fee. I have heard several MPs say the same – that they want a “proper” salary. What’s the going rate for a politician?

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson

McCain snubs Brown

From our UK edition

Gordon Brown will now be regretting briefing this morning that he was going to meet John McCain. The senator has pulled out (he could take the Vietcong, says Iain Martin, but not an hour with Brown). His (cancelled) destination was Germany but it does make you wonder how seriously John McCain takes the UK-US special relationship? Now that Giuliani is out, is there a single presidential contender that has mentioned Britain in speeches? France, yes, Germany, yes – but what about Britain? McCain’s focus is more on Brussels. This from his Foreign Affairs article: "Americans should welcome the rise of a strong, confident European Union.

Fraser Nelson

“Dithering” Brown stumbles on Cameron’s attacks

From our UK edition

When they didn’t mention MPs expenses last week, it was odd. This time it was downright embarrassing – and adds to the impression that they all have something to hide. Which, of course, they all do. First thing’s first: Ed Miliband seems to have a new job. He now sits next to Brown making theatrical grimaces and facial expressions of mock astonishment when Tories speak. Quite fun to watch. Oxford, LSE, Harvard – and he ends up as the highest-paid mime artist in Britain. Not Cameron’s most barnstorming performance, but I think one of his best – in that he improvised, and applied some forensic questioning to what Brown had just said rather than moving on to the next pre-prepared question. As he did so, Brown moved on to his pre-prepared answers.

Fraser Nelson

Different ways to cook the spending omelette

From our UK edition

The spending debate continues with Philip Hammond over at ConservativeHome defending his decision to sign up to Brown’s current spending plan. The 2% total ain’t that much, he says, slower than economic growth in fact. Therefore Brown is (magic phrase) “sharing the proceeds of growth” like he would.  He’s right, Brown’s spending is the tightest since 00. But within that round are strange priorities. Money is being forcefed to an NHS that shows itself incapable of digesting it. And after the dreadful PISA study showing English schools are going backwards in literacy and numeracy, I’d also question if it’s wise to keep giving the LEAs so much money to squander.

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson

Brown outbids Cameron on sleaze

From our UK edition

Cameron may have moved first, but Brown has now upped the ante, writing to the Speaker calling for a "root and branch overhaul of the current system". He has told "all Labour MPs" (not just frontbenchers like the Tories) thay must "abide, not by April but as soon as possible, with the Committee on Standards and Privileges' opinion that the employment of family members should be declared". Cameron, of course, set an April deadline.   But enough from me. Guido is on fire today on all this - go read him.

Fraser Nelson

Finding an alternative to Brownism

From our UK edition

Danny Finkelstein does me the honour of Fisking my post on Tories and spending. I’m being a little bit mischievous, he suggests, by claiming the Tories didn’t offer tax cuts in 01 and 05. And I link to media reports, he says, not original documents. This is a huge debate, as future policy is based on response to past mistakes and my “ham and eggs” analogy was used by Cameron in his leadership campaign to attack Davis’ plans for tax cuts. It comes from the theory, quite a popular (yet false) one, that electorate somehow rejected the offer of tax cuts in the last two elections. Some, like Maude, have even suggested that Thatcher never promised to cut taxes. Anyway, here is my defence in reverse chronological order..

Fraser Nelson

A shocking – but not surprising – dependency culture

From our UK edition

This time it’s Caroline Flint who has been wheeled out to get tough on welfare claimants. But this sentence in her interview in The Guardian jumped out at me. "She admitted she was surprised by figures showing that more than half of those of working age living in social housing are without paid work - twice the national average." Surprised? She shouldn’t be – this appalling fact lead Chapter Five of the DWP’s misnamed report “Ready for Work”. It was the single most appalling graph in (pdf, p46) Prof John Hills’ report on social housing (which the DWP helped to produce), which shows how much worse the situation has become since 1981.

Monday

Fraser Nelson

Break free from the spending shackles

From our UK edition

William Rees-Mogg yesterday added his voice to the many suggesting that, now the economic outlook has changed, so should the Tories’ daft proposal to match Gordon Brown’s spending pledges. Iain Martin, Iain Dale and my good self are just a few who argue that now Brown has been found out, the Tories should think twice about copying him. Cameron is doing nothing original in aping Brown’s spending plans. This pledge was made by Portillo in 2001 and Letwin in 2004. If the electorate didn't want it then, why should they this time? Or, to borrow a Cameroon analogy, if voters didnt want ham and cheese in the last two elections why would they go for more ham and more cheese now? A new approach is required.

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

Will the broken referendum promise break the Lib Dems?

From our UK edition

At last, some life in the Lisbon Treaty debate – and from the least likely party. All LibDem MPs stood on a manifesto pledge to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution and quite a few (perhaps as many as half) believe they should not break this trust with the voters as Labour has done. Ergo much unhappiness about Clegg’s decision to play follow-my-leader with Brown, without any proper consultation or debate. Clegg has already admitted his party is split on the issue, and yellow brickbats are flying in the blogosphere. But, Clegg can tell his nervous party, no one cares. It’ll never break out of Westminster.   He can think again.

Fraser Nelson

Permanent damage to the political classes

From our UK edition

What I love about the Derek Conway’s je ne regrette rien in the Mail on Sunday is the way he gives clues as to where the other bodies are buried. “I know many MPs with family members who have different names registered so that they are not so obviously spotted. Some spouses work under maiden names,” he coos. “We often came across people and we'd say, ‘I didn't realise they were related.” So why not more scandal? Without a good contact inside the Fees Office it’s hard for journalists to get the lowdown on all this. But there’s enough clues (phone directories, etc) to help expose what is a standard scam. As Conway says, most MPs think they should be on £80k, not £60k.