Do read Edmund Conway in today’s Telegraph for an admirably evenhanded analysis of Brown and Darling’s Keynesian rescue plan for the economy. It might work, he says, but the potential’s there for catastrophe. Here’s the worst-case scenario: “Keynes’s argument was not only that governments should borrow when times are tough, but that they should pay
Here’s another entry for the list of blots on Brown’s horizon: a series of strikes involving hundreds of thousands of civil servants. The Public and Commercial Services union has scheduled them to begin on 10 November, and they’ll continue intermittently for at least three months after that date. The root cause is anger over below-inflation pay increases
Sky News have the full story.
A few weeks ago, Lord Mandy hinted that he may not have been the only one dripping poison about his colleagues in Corfu – that George Osborne may have indulged in some less-than-kind comments about his fellow Tories. Well, according to the Standard’s Paul Waugh, it’s emerged that David Davis was one of those privately criticised
This seems like some kind of credit crunch milestone: a minister admitting that no-one, not even the government, can completely escape blame for the current financial crisis. In doing so, the City minister Paul Myners has departed from the line we’ve been hearing from No.10 so far – that, in the Age of Irresponsibility, the irresponsibility
Much hoo-hah – and rightly so – over the crime statistics that the Home Office have published today. The issue is with the “Most serious violent offences” figure, which has risen by 22 percent since last year – an increase that Jacqui Smith attributes to previous inconsistencies in how the police totted up the “GBH with intent” numbers
Recession. Glenrothes. Unimpressive poll gains. Whilst Gordon Brown may be enjoying the recent, Mandelson-orchesrated hijinks, there are certainly plenty of potential blots on his horizon. Martin Bright adds a relatively undernoticed – but oh-so-significant – one to the list, in his latest blog post: “The polling remains dismal for Labour, though. The government’s electoral recovery is slipping despite admiration for
It’s been a poll-a-ramic few days, with the overall picture still being that Labour have enjoyed some post-bailout gains – particularly on economic competence – but remain trailing the Tories by some margin. Today’s Ipsos MORI poll is a case in point. It has the Tories down 5 on last month, and Labour up 7;
Here – courtesy of the indispensable Politics Home – is footage of the Brown and Cameron exchanges in PMQs. To read Coffee House’s live blog of PMQs, click here.
According to today’s Standard, George Osborne and Andrew Feldman have ruled out court action to clear their names over the Rothschild allegations. Rightly or wrongly, this development could encourage the view that the Tory pair have something to hide.
The throng saying we’re entering a recession has been joined by its most significant member so far. Mervyn King deployed the R-word in a speech to Leeds businessmen last night, and the markets have reacted accordingly. Sterling collapsed against the dollar – hitting a five-year low of $1.6203 earlier. Whilst the FTSE share index has looked wobbly since opening.
George Osborne’s hanging on – for now. The chronology the Tories released seems convincing, and he has the backing of David Cameron. But the forces against him are ranking up. Yesterday evening, Nat Rothschild unveiled a witness to back up his allegations – one New York fund manager, James Goodwin. The basic position, though, remains the same – it’s
Courtesy of Ladbrokes, the odds for the next permanent leader of the Tory Party: William Hague — 2/1 Boris Johnson — 5/1 George Osborne — 5/1 Liam Fox — 16/1 Chris Grayling — 20/1 David Davis — 25/1 Michael Gove — 25/1 Dominic Grieve — 33/1 Justine Greening — 50/1 Zac Goldsmith — 50/1 John Redwood
Well done Brooks Newmark, who’s taking on Gordon Brown over his fiddled debt statistics. The Tory MP, and member of the Treasury Select Committee, releases a report today which builds on Coffee House’s work by adding together some of the more recent off-balance sheet debts and liabilities that Brown has swept under the fiscal carpet. The grand debt total? Some £1,854 billion –
A friend of Coffee House has flagged up the episode of the Tonight programme screening on ITV at 8pm this evening. Here’s the premise of it, taken from the show’s website: “New Labour has gone back on its promise to hold a referendum on a new European constitution – despite most people wanting one. Tonight
Today’s YouGov poll for the Mirror tells a similar story to those released at the weekend – i.e. fairly unimpressive Labour gains, given the wall-to-wall coverage Brown’s enjoyed recently. But there’s a chapter to that story that I didn’t pick up on in my post of a couple of days ago – and that’s just how poor the
According to today’s Daily Record, Sarah Brown is set to “spearhead” the Labour campaign in Glenrothes. It’s hardly suprising news – talk of her involvement has been doing the Westminster rounds since her much-vaunted cameo at last month’s Labour party conference. But it shouldn’t be forgotten that this is far from normal practice. As the Record points out, “It’s believed Sarah
Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which – provided your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency – you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no
Although it comes as little surprise, the warning from the Ernst & Young Item Club that the UK is already in recession is the most significant confirmation that we’ve had so far about the poor state of our economy. Using the same forecasting model as the Treasury, they also predict that inflation is set to fall
Just as with Phil Woolas’s immigration claim, there are a whole load of question marks hovering around Alistair Darling’s revelation that the Government will boost public spending to help support the economy. The biggest of them is simply: will it work? And, to be honest, there’s no set answer to that. Only time will tell.
