Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
The national debt figures are out – £1.2 trillion and rising – and although I hate to say it, the Labour Party has a valid point to make. If you don’t adjust for inflation, Osborne has borrowed more in under four years than the Labour Party borrowed over 13 years. It’s unusual for Ed Balls
It’s tempting to see Nick Clegg as a champion of lower taxes. He’s nudged the tax threshold up over this parliament and in a letter sent out to Liberal Democrat members (while David Cameron is out of the country) he suggests the state should only start to confiscate earnings from people when they hit £10,500
Yet another survey suggests that Britain is booming – this time, it’s from the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee. They’re the guys who kept interest rates too low for too long – creating the last boom. It sees another boom now.”For the first time in a long time you don’t have to be an
Last night, The Spectator won the top gong from last night’s British Society of Magazine Editors awards. It’s a thrill for us here at 22 Old Queen Street – ours was the last of 24 awards and each of them showed the incredible vitality of the British magazine industry. To win the final gong, in
Gordon Brown used to joke that there are only two types of Chancellors: ‘those who fail and those who get out in time.’ Inside this joke lay his strategy: he was stoking a debt-fuelled bubble that was going to burst, but he hoped it would do so after the election or on someone else’s watch.
The autobiography of the Pakistani schoolgirl shot by the Taliban, Malala Yousafzai, has been banned by Pakistan’s private school association. No small matter given that Pakistan’s hugely popular independent schools teach half of its pupils.Today’s Independent on Sunday reports it saying that I am Malala would have a “negative” effect on its pupils due to the
The Norwegian students’ group which last year came out with the brilliant ‘Africa for Norway’ spoof video has again released a hilarious film lampooning the aid industry for the stereotypes they perpetuate. The video makes a serious point. That the aid industry uses pictures of starving babies to trigger donations, even if it means spinning
The (other) big awards ceremony yesterday was that held by the Centre for Social Justice. CoffeeHousers will be familiar with the problem: if you want to donate to a charity, which ones are actually helping society rather and which wasting their money on tedious political campaigns? Name recognition tends to drive donations, and the CSJ
We’ve now finished the Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year awards, and have moved up to the bar. There were two big surprises this afternoon. The first was the quality of Theresa May’s jokes (below). listen to ‘Theresa May cracking jokes at The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year Awards’ on Audioboo
Twenty-one years ago this week a sitcom arrived on British television involving three characters so improbable that they held the nation in thrall. It had started as a French and Saunders comedy sketch about a hedonistic ‘modern’ mother (Eddy) and her appalled, straight-laced daughter (Saffy). To spin this out into a series, Jennifer Saunders added
Things are lining up nicely for George Osborne’s Autumn Statement next month (and fairly badly for Ed Miliband, who’s making his economic speech today). For the first time since he became Chancellor, he will be able to report forecasts better, not worse, than his previous suggestions. The European Commission has just upped its UK growth
For some time now, we at Coffee House have been running an Evening Blend email which sums up the day’s goings-on in Westminster. It has proven so popular that we’re launching a lunchtime version today. Every day at 1pm, the Lunchtime Espresso briefing will bring you you up to date with what’s been happening in
When George Osborne first announced his plans for high speed rail, I was all for it. I’ve spent too much of my life on broken-down trains between Inverkeithing and London – and, like many Scots, resented the way that most transport money seemed to be spent in the imperial capital. As I say in my
The foxes have voted, and after careful deliberation concluded that they should be in charge of the chicken coop. No one should be surprised by the outcome of tonight’s Privy Council meeting: a group of politicians, masquerading as the voice of crown, has just approved a Royal Charter which gives them power to set the terms
For months, the Unite trade union has been calling the bluff of Grangemouth’s management. Ineos has said the plant is losing £10 million a month and it has offered to invest £300 million upgrading it – but they wanted workforce reforms, including a two-year pay freeze and the end of final-salary pension schemes (ie, pretty
The Department for Education has just released a statement about free schools, which can be translated as saying: Oi Clegg! Free schools: clue’s in the name. They don’t have to listen to what you or any other politician thinks about the curriculum and they’re as free as private schools to take on staff who have
Nick Clegg’s aides have been briefing the Sunday newspapers saying (in effect) that he that he’s had enough of this school freedom malarkey. Certain head teachers are using their new liberties in ways of which he disapproves. So if he’s in government after the next election, he’ll curtail these freedoms somehow. He’s chosen to enter
It’s a red-letter day here at The Spectator: figures in this morning show that we are now read by more than a million people a month. The popularity of the magazine’s digital edition is surging. Since its relaunch last year, our visitors (or, in the digi-lingo, ‘unique users’) have trebled. Now, as the chart below shows, we are
Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian, has been busy tweeting comments from Jill Abramson, the new executive editor of the New York Times, basically in support of his newspaper’s Snowden disclosures. For some reason, he does not seem as interested in her comments about press freedom given on Newsnight last night. Perhaps this is
In his five years as Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer has shown a striking appetite for (self-) publicity and given the job a higher profile than ever. He’s just informed the world, from Andrew Marr’s sofa, that he’s opposed to plans by the Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, to tear up the egregious Human Rights Act
