Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
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Last Friday, I was invited on the radio to have a go at Kelvin MacKenzie who attacked Scotland’s welfare dependency on Question Time. I had to drop the bombshell: I broadly agreed with him. When I was political editor of The Scotsman, I was regularly amazed at the picture told by the reports I was
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Brown better today, but that’s not saying much. The Labour benches were obviously under instructions to cheer, but they still look on without expression with only a handful (Jack Straw especially) nodding to Brown’s points. But he still stammers and allows himself to be shouted down by the Tories. His new line (mentioned five times)
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I regard Nick Clegg as much of a certainty to replace Ming as Blair was to succeed John Smith in 1994. Some Coffee Housers have taken me to task for saying that this is bad for Cameron and good for Brown. What has Clegg ever done, they ask. Well not much, I admit, but from
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So whodunit? That’s the question in the bars at Westminster, where an excited Commons has just finished voting. Fingers are being pointed at the impatient Chris Huhne, with co-conspirators in the Lords. Lib Dem MPs seem genuinely stunned. The most popular theory (in Strangers’ Bar at least) is that Ming realised he was done for
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At last, a statement from Sir Menzies… “It has become clear that following the prime minister’s decision not to hold an election, questions about the leadership are getting in the way of further progress by the party. Accordingly, I now submit my resignation as leader with immediate effect”. Hilarious. Has all the authenticity of a
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I have to say, these Lib Dems are getting good at it. It took the Tories about a decade before they could get their leadership coups down to the 48 hour wonder we have just seen here. The brutality is breathtaking. Where is Ming? Gagged and bound somewhere? Can Coffee House readers remember that last
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Brown has just been on the BBC (“speaking from a school gymnasium”) defending himself. People, he says, will judge him on what he did on terrorism, foot and mouth and the Northern Rock crisis. And PS, it took “tough decisions” to produce the economic growth of the last decade. Let us set aside the fact
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Ladbrokes today updates its odds for the inevitable Lib Dem leadership race, and – irritatingly for the Tories – Nick Clegg is the clear frontrunner. Some odds: Nick Clegg 4/5 Chris Huhne 3/1 David Laws 8/1 Ed Davey 10/1 Simon Hughes 12/1 Charles Kennedy 16/1 Alistair Carmichael 16/1 Vincent Cable 16/1 Lembit Opik 16/1 Paddy
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Today’s newspapers are another treat for Conservatives with a taste for schadenfreude. Blair has, overnight, denied that he’s authorising briefings against Brown. But he doesn’t need to. They’ve been at it for days, not just old Blairites but non-aligned backbenchers. Brown is a dud, they proclaim, with no vision. Cameron is a hero, the polls
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Loyalty only lasts as long as your opinion poll lead. Mutinous Labour voices liven up the Sunday press and an ICM poll for the Sunday Telegraph gives the Tories a seven point lead at 43 per cent to 36. Expect a return of the Blairites. Like Blake’s Seven, the leader may have gone but it
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For a man whose economic policies had once again been stolen by the government, George Osborne looked unusually cheery as he delivered the opposition response to the pre-Budget report on Tuesday. Alistair Darling had brazenly claimed as his own the Tories’ new ideas: raising the inheritance tax threshold, an airline levy and taxing foreign financiers.
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The drama of the last week in politics defies analogy – but one celluloid parallel has stuck in my mind. As it is Friday, I thought I’d share. This clip from the Wizard of Oz encapsulates for me the psychological change in the Tory party. The pilgrims (Tories), having reached the Emerald City (the election), are
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If I were Barroso, I would pick a huge, fake fight with Gordon Brown before the EU constitution, sorry, treaty is signed. His plea today that Britain should not be “closed to Europe” is what the PM needs. The two have to pretend to be at loggerheads, let the press write up a split, then
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Anyone who missed Sky News’ Adam Boulton giving Jacqui Smith a kicking over the election last Sunday can now see it again on their excellent revamped website Boulton & Co. I can also recommend the Harman head shake – brilliant.
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I was too harsh on the Treasury. I derided their inheritance tax con, saying it may fool TV news but would be shredded by the press. This was not the case. Most newspapers, having two hours to digest the whole budget, jumped the wrong way on IHT, reporting that the threshold was doubled to £600,000.
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Cameron is at his derisive, aggressive best. Everything Brown says is being greeted with hoots of derision. Brown’s “I will take no lectures” was weak to the point of being helpless. It looks, feels and sounds like he is taking a spanking. Labour faces are ashen, as Brown attempts to defend himself by reeling off
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Real first-day-back-at-school atmosphere in the Commons, in a good way. Andy Coulson has taken a perch in the press gallery, Alex Salmond is making a rare appearance but there is only one Brown aide here. The Tories are already making far more noise. Great “bottle bank” opening gag, suspect there will be more to come.
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I now have the costings. This is indeed a tax raising budget. By 2010-11 they plan to net £1.4 billion extra in tax. Highlights are: £440m a year by “state second pension white paper reforms”…. Sounds dodgy…. Raise £500m from non doms, lose £1.4 billion on inheritance tax (nb Tory proposal would have cost £3.5bn)
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This is a posthumous Brown budget. Let’s not forget he finished the Spending Review last year, but held it over to now updating it now and again. So you may see Darling’s lips move, but we will be hearing Brown’s voice. We will be blogging live on this, but we’re aware of the pit-falls. Here
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I hear on the grapevine that Darling will tomorrow announce a “review” of inheritance tax. If so, Brown again risks derision about his claim to be a “conviction politician”. In the long run, it’s worse to be seen as a flip flopper than a tax grabber.