Fraser Nelson

Meet Maurice Mcleod. He's a proper leftie, who has lived in council accommodation all his life. He pays rent for it — about £480 a month for his rather down-at-heel one-bedroom flat in Tooting. Yet due to the London property bubble it is now valued at £150,000 and if he wants to buy it he can claim a £75,000 discount thanks to George Osborne's enhanced right-to-buy. On a bad month, Maurice says his net assets dip below £750, so he could be worth £75,000 overnight - just by taking Osborne's (borrowed) shilling. He has written about his dilemma in the new Spectator, out today.

Is Britain addicted to immigration? I argued so in my Telegraph column yesterday and Radio 4’s Today programme held a discussion about it this morning and asked me on (22 mins in, here). You can say that that immigration has worked wonders for the economy – without it, we’d have a pathetic 2 per cent more people in work than in 1997. As things stand, our workforce has expanded by 11 per cent. We’d actually notice the number British people emigrating (the exodus has doubled to 400 a day under Cameron) so the ever-growing growing debt pile would be shouldered by a shrinking workforce. David Cameron would have no jobs rise to boast about: three-quarters of the rise in employment under the coalition has been due to immigration.

The business case for HS2 is falling apart, and with it the political consensus. Vince Cable has today become the latest one to say that the case is not made. Wednesday's Newsnight put together transport experts who suggested that the taxpayer would get 50p or 60p of benefit for every £1 spent. (HS2 started by claiming a £2.60/£1 ratio). The ex-Transport Secretary, Philip Hammond, said that £1.50 would be his breaking point). Inside government, jokes are made about how David Cameron and (to a greater extent than you'd think) George Osborne are in denial about the implosion of this grand project. Labour had been supportive (thanks to the continuing evangelism of Andrew Adonis) but today's FT has Ed Balls saying there will be "no blank cheque" for HS2.

Libya is a success from which David Cameron might not recover. This, at any rate, seems to be the fear of Sir David Richards who has marked his exit as head of the military with a Daily Telegraph interview. He appears to reinforcing a point David Cameron once made: 'I am not,' he once said, 'a naive neo-con who thinks you can drop democracy out of an aeroplane at 40,000 feet.'  The Prime Minister was proved right in Libya: the Tomahawk missiles he fired at Libya cruised at just 400 feet before sinking into their targets which (in Gaddafi’s case) was enough to restrain the tyrant and introduce democracy. Bur Sir David is saying this is not an option in Syria: if you want to topple Assad you’d have to send in the Army.

As the House of Lords prepares to vote on gay marriage, a YouGov poll shows that the opinion of people who regard themselves as 'religious' is 48pc against and 44pc in favour of gay marriage. Given the margin of error, this can be seen as an even split. So why the acrimony? The answer, in my opinion, is the way that David Cameron has gone about this. He ought to have said something like: 'I'm in favour of religious freedom, and think it should be absolute. It's come to our attention that some liberal strands of Judaism and Unitarian churches want to conduct same-sex marriage ceremonies but are banned from doing so by the government. The state ought to have no role in religious affairs, so I'm lifting the ban.

A Scot has ended Britain's 77 years of hurt: it's a glorious day, and Andy Murray's was a glorious victory. Anticipating this, there were three party leaders watching. From the moment Alex Salmond settled down in Centre Court, you knew what he was up to: he'd have packed a Saltire in his lunchbox and would wave it when the cameras were on him. He was planning to photobomb. Why? Because, to the SNP, sport is more political than politics: their world is all about what flags you wave, which sportsmen you cheer - and which you don't. The First Minister even tried to hawk the idea of 'Scolympians' last year, trying to divide the British Olympic team between Scots and non-Scots. It was a ludicrous notion, as Sir Chris Hoy said later.

There is a strange disconnect between George Osborne's enthusiasm that young people should buy homes, and the reluctance of young people to do so. The Telegraph has reported that fewer young people own homes than ever - and it fears, perhaps as the Chancellor does, that this has political implications because owners tend to vote Tory and renters Labour. The Chancellor stands in the tradition of a long line of conservatives being enthusiastic about promoting home-ownership in hope of turning people into right-wingers.  In her seminal book The Anatomy of Thatcherism, Shirley Letwin famously argued that home ownership released the 'vigorous virtues' and made someone more inclined to see the world from a Conservative point of view.

Many Prime Ministers go native when they head to Brussels. But David Cameron's hostility to the whole racket is hardening with every trip. At his post-summit press conference today, he was remarkably frank about what had just happened. "I have defeated this latest attempt to cut the rebate," he said. “I am frustrated I have to go through that battle all over again. But in this town you have to be ready for an ambush at any time, and that means lock and load and have one up the spout, and be ready for it. And that is exactly what I did... It is, and I won’t lie, it is immensely frustrating sometimes, the way this organisation works . . . I think this is no way for an organisation to conduct itself.