Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
In his Budget speech today, George Osborne made out as if the Office for Budget Responsibility was worried about Britain leaving the EU and quoted it saying “a vote to leave in the forthcoming referendum could usher in an extended period of uncertainty”. Listening, I was amazed: how could he enlist the independent OBR on either
[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
NOTE: Applications are now closed. Summer’s coming, and we’re looking for interns to spend a week or two with us here at The Spectator. We’re looking for people who love good journalism and understand how digital media works. The position will be paid (but not very much). We don’t mind where or whether you have gone to university; Frank
The toughest causes to campaign for are those which are not fashionable. To fight racism in the 1950s or stand up for gay rights in the 1980s took guts – and the progress made today is largely down to those who took up the cause before it became a form of virtue signalling. International Women’s Day should be a chance to
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
On Tuesday, I wrote a short blog about Sadiq Khan’s threats to crack down on Uber. For the rest of the day, my Twitter timeline was filled by obloquy from made-up accounts from black cab drivers. No more than a dozen of them, but using similar themes: showing pictures of immigrant Uber drivers, claiming that they went on bizarre routes
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:
For years, now, the Sutton Trust has been releasing research showing how many doctors, judges, journalists etc were privately educated and conclude that it’s all a posh boys’ stitch-up. The British press loves banging this old drum, but in doing so they drown out a new tune. Today, there is more academic excellence in the state sector than
The Spectator is run with Prussian efficiency by a dozen editorial staff at 22 Old Queen St. We don’t have very many technical gurus, and pretty much rely on our users to let us know when things go wrong. So I’d like to ask how you’re finding the website, our login system, our Apps and
Something very strange is happening in London: its state schools are going through a huge renaissance – while attainment in many northern English schools is going into reverse. The chief of Ofsted, Sir Micahel Wilshaw, laid the problem bare in a speech to the IPPR today:- Three in ten secondary schools in Manchester and four in ten in
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
The Mayor has not even filed his Daily Telegraph column yet, but Ladbrokes has announced that he is now the favourite to succeed David Cameron. As the above graph shows, his chances have been steadily increasing as George Osborne overplayed his hand: first, by posing as the heir assumptive, and then by various missteps (like praising Google’s tax deal).
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
Our newsagents are about to get a little duller: the Independent is no more – at least, not the print edition. I know that, in this brave new digital world of ours, we’re not supposed to equate the end of print with the death of a title. But it’s certainly the end of an era.
Events in Europe are unfolding rapidly, and we at The Spectator are looking for writers living abroad who would be interested in contributing occasionally to the magazine and our website. So we’re setting up a writing competition: the Timothy Garton Ash prize for European writing. It will go to the best original essay from any country in Europe,
The magazine industry publishes its sales figures today, and we at The Spectator are delighted to announce the largest figure in our 188-year history. And not just because digital sales are doing well: it’s growth on every front. Sales of the print edition of The Spectator are growing at their fastest rate for 15 years. Subscriptions, perhaps our single most important indicator, are
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
