Fraser Nelson

‘That sounded so much better in my head,’ said Rachel from Friends in Series 2. I suspect Jeremy Hunt is now thinking the same. He meant to say that British workers need to improve their productivity, and be weaned off work subsidies. But instead, it came out like: ‘We have to proceed with these tax

Andrew Adonis has not defected to the Conservatives but, as he’ll know, it will look an awful lot like he has. As tomorrow’s newspapers reveal, Lord Adonis is to give up the Labour whip to become a crossbench peer in order to chair a new National Infrastructure Commission. To allow this announcement to be made

Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party conference speech started pretty well, with him poking fun at the newspapers’ more apocalyptic predictions of what would happen should he become Prime Minister. He teased the Daily Mail for a story saying that he once welcomed the prospect of an asteroid hitting the earth.* And then, a wee joke. ‘It’s not the kind of policy

The new shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, told us to expect him to sound like a mild bank manager when he gave his speech today. He ended up sounding like he was auditioning for the remake of Citizen Smith. How many bank managers end their speech by actually scripting a Wolfie-style yawp of ‘Solidarity!’? Perhaps this

A new leader with little credibility asks famous economists to ‘advise’ him on economic policy. It’s an old trick. News that Jeremy Corbyn is seeking the counsel of Thomas Piketty and Joe Stiglitz is not surprising – both are in the business of selling books suggesting the world is becoming more unequal than ever, and

Not often that I’d be inclined to agree with Syriza, but Yanis Varoufakis had a point last night when he questioned the degree of austerity that has happened in Britain. The Conservatives talk a good game, he said, but George Osborne’s cuts pretty much stopped after year one. I’m going to give a compliment to

Any British Prime Minister who meets the Dalai Lama knows it will upset the Chinese government — but for decades, no British Prime Minister has much cared. John Major met him in 10 Downing Street, as did Tony Blair. These were small but important nods to Britain’s longstanding status as a friend of Tibet. Of

The Dalai Lama was in London on Monday and met his old friend (and Spectator contributor) Jonathan Mirsky. Time was when he could expect to see the British Prime Minister too – but Beijing was furious that David Cameron met him three years ago and outrageously demanded that the Prime Minister apologise for it. Cameron

A year ago today, Britain woke up to find the union saved – but only just. In 10 Downing St, the 45 per cent voting ‘yes’ looked like a victory, and the whole issue closed. I was in my hometown of Nairn that day, in the Highlands, where things looked rather different: after visiting pupils in

Given that Jeremy Corbyn is a Hamas sympathiser with an IRA sympathiser as his Shadow Chancellor, I imagine he didn’t think too much about promoting a little-known Scot named Mike Watson. He is a Labour peer, who now takes a place in Corbyn’s frontbench as education spokesman. He is also a convicted arsonist, who quit the Scottish Parliament in

Another disclosure from Anthony Seldon’s upcoming biography of David Cameron: he reveals that George Osborne tried to stop the referendum European Union membership. The below is from the Mail on Sunday’s serialisation of Seldon’s book: Both men are profoundly irritated by their Eurosceptic MPs, but Osborne is even more pragmatic than Cameron. The Chancellor’s view is that it is