Fraser Nelson

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/spectatorpolitics/georgeosbornesbudget-2016/media.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson, Isabel Hardman and James Forsyth discuss today’s Budget”] Listen [/audioplayer]Alex Salmond had planned 24 March 2016 as his independence day and the budget he published during the Scottish independence referendum envisaged it having up to £7.5 billion of oil to spend. Today’s Budget shows that the figure will, instead be zero: precisely 100 per

It’s the Ides of March today, and there are pitifully few signs of a Labour plot. I was on ITV’s The Agenda last night with Chuka Umunna, one of the putative successors to Jeremy Corbyn, who was teased by Tom Bradby about his ambitions. He came out with the usual hedged denials (“there’s not a vacancy.,,

Angela Merkel continues to reap the whirlwind. In this weekend’s elections Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has emerged as the fastest-growing political insurgent party since 1945. It has managed to enter all three state parliaments – with over 10pc of the vote in Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and almost a quarter of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt, more than double the centre-left

The Chancellor has today declared a ceasefire on Middle Britain: he will not go ahead with his planned pensions raid, where he was intending to erode the relief due to upper-rate taxpayers. The Times splashes on the news, and says that “pressing ahead with the plans may well have dented his popularity within the party

The worldwide Uber debate is quite helpful in that it forces politicians to answer a simple question: are you for the people, or the vested interests? Sadiq Khan, the Labour candidate for Mayor, declared his hand today in an LBC phone-in. Challenged by a (Scottish) black cab driver about his views on Uber, he said:

If Boris Johnson had behaved and backed David Cameron’s ‘in’ campaign, he would have been foreign secretary by the summer. Instead, he chose to join Michael Gove in the ‘out’ campaign – informing the Prime Minister by text message at 4.40pm shortly before informing the reporters who gathered around his house shortly afterwards. So what does

As ministers roll into No10 in front of the cameras, reporters have noticed the absence of one Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. It turns out that the Prime Minister has convened a meeting of the normal Cabinet, rather than a ‘political Cabinet.’ A minor distinction, but it does mean no Boris Johnson – who is a

The Chancellor certainly will have plenty to boast about in his next Budget. Today’s figures show an employment rate of 74.1pc, the highest ever recorded in Britain – better than Nigel Lawson’s record, better than anyone’s. Tax cuts and welfare reform have proved a potent combination. This makes it harder for Osborne to sustain his narrative about a scary

A few weeks ago, James Forsyth revealed David Cameron’s strategy for fighting the EU referendum: to campaign on the theme on security, rather than an economic argument. This is already backfiring badly. Britain’s security does not depend upon the EU, and the Prime Minister’s attempts to suggest otherwise are inflicting grave damage to his chances of