Fraser Nelson

Those of a nervous disposition should not click beyond the link. What follows are a few graphs that sum up what's very hard to spin out of: the extent to which our economic situation has worsened, and how bleak the future looks.  The Chancellor started by saying he'd cut the deficit by a third, not a quarter. That's one way of putting it. Another way is to say that debt is up 38 per cent under the coalition so far, and is set to double: George Osborne's targets involve ratios, not absolute levels of debt. Here is how the outlook on his debt/gdp ratio has changed since his first budget:         And that's the optimistic view. Citi doesn't think (pdf) the ratio will fall at all.

After due consideration, we at The Spectator have decided our response to the proposed Royal Charter system of press regulation. Our answer is given on the cover of the new magazine (above). We fully supported David Cameron’s response to the Leveson Report and agreed with him that the press regulation needs a major overhaul.  But, he said, this ought not to be done by politicians. The press was willing to implement the regulatory changes that Lord Justice Leveson wanted: up-front apologies, £1m damages, everything. Statute would not be necessary. The press would do it themselves, and did not need to be suborned by the politicians. Our ancient press freedom would be protected.

It is to David Lammy’s credit that he hasn’t deleted what my Spectator colleague, Hugo Rifkind, describes as his new all-time favourite tweet. For those who haven’t come across it yet, this is how the Tottenham MP responded to the BBC’s coverage of the papal election where it mentioned "white smoke": This tweet from the BBC is crass and unnecessary. Do we really need silly innuendo about the race of the next Pope? twitter.com/DavidLammy/sta… — David Lammy (@DavidLammy) March 12, 2013 There were more solid grounds for criticising the BBC that day: the corporation again showed its problems understanding religion. It managed to find a translator for the Vatican election who didn’t know the Lord’s Prayer.

I've just returned from a dinner given by the TaxPayers' Alliance for Nigel Lawson to celebrate the silver anniversary his 1988 Budget, a great event with an all-star cast. Two of George Osborne's ministers — Sajid Javid and David Gauke — were there at the Carlton Club alongside several of the brightest stars of the Tory backbenches*. The 1988 Budget is remembered as the high water mark of Tory radicalism: Lawson's speech was stopped twice by protests in the Commons as the implications of his reforms sunk in to his opponents. History was being made, and they were on the wrong side of it.

It’s been a day of competing economic prescriptions from two doctors: Vince Cable  (‘debt’s so cheap it’d be rude not to borrow more!’) and today Liam Fox, who has delivered a speech to the Institute of Economic Affairs. Here are Dr Fox's main points. His main proposal is a freeze on state spending, so it would not rise with inflation (right now, it's rising by just under 1pc less than inflation each year). This would set Britain on a far faster path of fiscal consolidation: the high road, if you like, versus the current low road where there is no longer a published plan to balance the books. It’d mean the government spending about £90bn less.

The idea of an ‘empty budget’ later this month is disappointing those who backed George Osborne in the hope of his fixing the problems he so eloquently outlined in opposition. If Brown proposed cutting the deficit by 33 per cent over two years, newspapers who criticised him at the time for lacking ambition — as Osborne did — can hardly be expected to applaud the Chancellor for cutting it by just 25 per cent over three years. Faster progress is needed: on the deficit, and on economic growth. There are many tools that can be used and the Sunday Telegraph describes a few of them today in its leading article. It’s an important contribution to the debate. Here are its main points, and my take: 1. Cut taxes, especially corporation tax.

At the Conservative Home Victory 2015 conference today, a panel was asked: how can the Tories avoid being seen as a party of the posh? 'Well, a lot of you are pretty posh,' replied the journalist Anne McElvoy. 'Open a cupboard in No10 and an Old Etonian falls out.' The success of Boris, of course, shows that class isn't necessarily a handicap. The issue is whether voters believe that a party, or its leadership, shares their values. So what to do? The conference held a session on this theme later chaired by Peter Hoskin, late of this parish. Here's a summary. Philip Davies, MP for Shipley and a former Spectator backbencher of the year, read a quote from Lord Ashcroft's research.

The success of Britain’s coalition government over the last two years has been extraordinary. That two parties could come together, in Westminster’s adversarial system, was itself unusual. That they could agree a radical programme of government: school reform and welfare reform, was exceptional. But in my Telegraph column today, I say suggest that the battles over the spending review suggest that this spirit of co-operation is ending – and that the condition might be terminal. Here are my main points: 1. The constructive phase of coalition. When I served a tour of duty in the Scottish Parliament, I was struck by how the LibDems profited from coalition with Labour. They had control of departments: justice and rural affairs.

Before every Budget, George Osborne always seeks the advice of various MPs. He usually doesn’t heed it but it’s a good way, he thinks, to keep the troops happy. As the economic headwinds have strengthened, this advice has tended to be increasingly radical and in a recent meeting with the Free Enterprise Group of Tory MPs, the Chancellor made clear he was in no mood for it. ‘Look,’ he told them, ‘I tried radicalism in last year’s Budget, and I had blowback for it. So I’d take quite some persuading to do something radical this time.’ The MPs left with the clear impression that he is now preparing what will be, in effect, an empty Budget. If Osborne were planning to change course before the next election, he’d have to do it now.

The Prime Minister's article in today's Sunday Telegraph is, like all of his major speeches, an uplifting read. It references Sir Keith Joseph, a giant of Conservative thought. Three years ago, I had the honour of delivering the Centre for Policy Studies annual Keith Joseph lecture, as did Cameron three years before that. Here is what Cameron has to say about Sir Keith in his piece today: 'But the battle for Britain’s future will not be won in lurching to the Right, nor by some cynical attempt to calculate the middle distance between your political opponents and then planting yourself somewhere between them. That is lowest common denominator politics – and it gets you nowhere.

Nick Clegg has come back from Spain to admit that he did know about the allegations about Lord Rennard's behaviour towards women - and, for good measure, has told us all that so did Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. In a statement, he has this to say: 'I am angry and outraged at the suggestion that I would not have acted if these allegations had been put to me. Indeed, when indirect and non-specific concerns about Chris Rennard's conduct reached my office in 2008, we acted to deal with them. My chief of staff at the time, Danny Alexander, put these concerns to Chris Rennard and warned him that any such behaviour was wholly unacceptable. Chris Rennard categorically denied that he had behaved inappropriately and he continues to do so.

As George Osborne digests the news of the Moody's downgrade, he can thank his lucky stars for Ed Balls. The Shadow Chancellor's statement, just released, neatly illustrates why he is the single biggest obstacle to Labour's regaining economic credibility:- "George Osborne said keeping the credit rating was the key goal of his economic policy. As his economic plan has floundered, it has been the last thing he has clung on to. And bizarrely his response tonight suggests he is not reflecting on why things have gone so badly wrong, but using this downgrade as one more reason to plough on with his failing plan - regardless of the damaging impact on struggling families and businesses. Bizarre?