Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
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The Keynes vs Hayek debate is at its sharpest on the issue of employment. Can government create jobs (as Balls says)? Or does large public sector employment simply displace economic activity that would happen elsewhere (as Osborne says)? A fascinating study has been released today by the Spatial Economics Research Centre at the LSE showing
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Will The Sun’s story about David Cameron leaving his daughter in a pub be politically damaging? Not in the least, I suspect. These stories only hurt if they seem to fit a trend of behaviour, or confirm what everyone suspects. But no one, even the prime minister’s harshest critic, could accuse him of neglecting his
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George Osborne writes in the Sunday Telegraph today that the British recovery ‘is being killed off by the crisis on our doorstep.’ This sounds uncannily like Gordon Brown’s ‘it started in America’ excuse, and it’s only mildly more convincing. While Osborne blames Europe, and Balls blames cuts, there is no doubt that the British economy
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I know it’s wrong to take John Prescott seriously, but his attack on the government’s work experience programme epitomises a sneering attitude that is quite widespread. It was most egregiously displayed by the BBC Today Programme in its flagship 8.10am report about those who volunteered to steward the Jubilee celebrations — except the BBC report
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Ed Miliband laid out his vision for Scotland today, which didn’t quite set the heather alight. But word reaches me about what David Cameron is planning. He has already said that if Scotland votes ‘No’ they’d get a special something as a thank-you. But he did not specify what that something was. A bluff, says
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To those of you who are discovering our new website: welcome. The aim is for it to be leaner and faster, but in the rejig we have had to drop some items that we’ll miss. One I will particularly miss is Night & Day, the Spectator Arts Blog, which was brilliantly run by Simon Mason
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Can George Osborne recover? Much depends on how the Chancellor confronts the twin crises he faces: the lack of economic growth (or any prospect of it) and his personal reputation for competence after his shambolic Budget. Today, we have alarming news. The Independent says that Osborne is offering ‘growth bonds’. These appear to be a
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‘Ten years ago, if you’d been asked what Gary Barlow would be running now, you’d have said a Little Chef off the A32.’ This, from Lee Mack, was one of the best gags of the night, which isn’t saying much. The music outstripped the comedy but Mack raises an important question: did Barlow get it
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The rain makes today’s Jubilee celebrations a truly British event. We didn’t want any of this continental sun, anyway. The flotilla is making its way through the drizzle, and as we have to celebrate indoors due to the weather then there’s the perfect accompaniment: the new Spectator double issue, out today, which is overflowing with
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This picture, to me, sums up today’s Jubilee flotilla: drenched Royal College of Music students cheerfully singing Land of Hope and Glory at the end of a spectacle attended by over a million people. The rain, far from ruining the event, made it even more memorable and didn’t seem to deter the crowds. As the
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Here’s a U-turn that we can all welcome: felling the wind farms. Matt Ridley described, in a Spectator cover story some while ago, how George Osborne has turned against them. Today, the Observer has more details, saying that Osborne is: As Ridley argued, wind farms are a ‘monument to the folly of mankind’, representing the
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A visibly relieved David Cameron gave a statement outside No. 10 earlier today about the successful rescue of four aid workers from a cave on the Afghan/Tajikistan border, including a Northern Irish aid worker, Helen Johnston. The Prime Minister said he had personally authorized the operation, which must have been some decision given the recent history
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We baristas at Coffee House tend not to write about each other, but today I’d like to make an exception and say a little about Pete Hoskin, who is going freelance after four years running this blog. Regular CoffeeHousers will know about his rare combination of insight, humour and his gentle writing style which only
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It’s tempting to see comedy in the government’s 30th U-Turn, but there’s a more serious side to this. It fits a pattern: act first, think later. The lack of special advisers in government is part of the problem. Even in the Labour days, I argued for more and better political appointees to help a reforming
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Further to Pete’s blog on the new rules about pasties and VAT, the below graphic from today’s City AM sums it up perfectly. It does, of course, make the case for tax simplification — which is what George Osborne was trying to do in the first place. Hat-tip: Juliet Samuel
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There are calls for Britain to pull out of the Eurovision Song Contest, after Engelbert Humperdinck finished second-last on Saturday, with Norway bottom. The Mayor of Leicester has today denounced Eurovision, saying: ‘The politics of Europe — which countries are friendly with which others — has a lot more to do with it than the
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How best to help British business? More debt, of course — varieties of this answer come time and time again from this government. This time it’s Lord Young proposing £2,500 loans for young people, copying a successful model of the Prince’s Trust. The latter point should give reassurance, as the Trust has quite a striking
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Heathrow Airport’s passport control already offers a notorious welcome to Britain, but Gatwick is now offering hot competition. Gatwick Express, the rail artery connecting the airport to London, installed new ticket gates at the airport a few months ago ending the old system where you could buy a ticket on the train. But they failed
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The Eurozone is a kind of lunacy if you look at it as an economic project. But this isn’t about economics, or rationality — it’s about emotion, as the leader in today’s Telegraph says. The Brits and Americans often fail to understand this fully because we judge a currency union in terms of its economic
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In my Telegraph column yesterday, I quoted a senior adviser to the Prime Minister saying that he ‘spends a crazy, scary amount of time playing Fruit Ninja’ on his iPad. It seems No.10 has been denying it — telling The Times (£) that ‘the real culprit’ is ‘his six-year-old son’. Now, all fathers will immediately