Gordon brown

The Ed Balls approach to fiscal management

Considering the fiscal crisis we face, this revelation in Andrew Rawnsley’s column is particularly dispiriting: “[Gordon Brown] has been egged on by Ed Balls [to make more spending promises], partly because the schools secretary is also obsessed with that old dividing line, partly because he wanted to be able to boast that he had won more money for his department. I am reliably told that the wrangling between the schools secretary and the chancellor went on into the early hours of the morning on the day of the PBR itself. The result was that some of the extra spending beaten out of Mr Darling by Mr Balls did not get

Has Mandelson given up on Brown?

For any Kremlinologists among us, Peter Oborne’s latest column in the Mail sure is a juicy read.  It claims that Mandelson and Brown are “at war again” – only, this time, insiders say the damage to their relationship is “irreparable”.  The Business Secretary is said to be “bitterly unhappy” with Labour’s class war strategy, and with Brown’s reluctance to deal with the fiscal crisis.  And – as Martin highlighted the other day – he wants out. None of this is too surprising.  Indeed, Mandelson has been conspicuous by his absence from the government’s PBR media drive, fuelling more than a few Westminster mumblings about his commitment to the Brownite cause. 

Why class wars don’t work

Well, it seems like Paul Richards – a former aide to Hazel Blears – wants to corner the market in quietly persuasive demolitions of his own party’s strategy.  If you remember, he wrote a perceptive piece on Labour’s shortcomings in the aftermath of the Norwich North by-election, which we highlighted here on Coffee House.  And, today, he’s at it again, with a very readable article in PR Week on why the class war won’t work.  His three reasons why are worth noting down: “First, it is hypocritical. The Labour Party has a disproportionately far higher number of former public schoolboys and schoolgirls in parliament and in the government than a

The unravelling continues apace

Has Brown got away with his horror Budget?  Reading the Populus poll in this morning’s Times, you might be tempted to say he has.  Sure, there’s some bad news in there for the government: trust in Dave ‘n’ George’s ability to manage the economy has hit an all-time high, and only 12 percent of respondents think that the measures outlined in the PBR will be sufficient to deal with our country’s fiscal woes.  But Labour types will also seize on those numbers which show quite high levels of support for the individual proposals annouced on Wednesday.  78 percent back the bonus tax.  61 percent back the capping of public sector

The PBR Suggests that Labour Thinks It’s All Over but Peter Mandelson Knows It Is

Labour’s Pre-Budget Report has been interpreted as a cynical electioneering exercise, a last-ditch attempt to to open up clear blue water between Labour and the Conservatives. Perhaps paradoxically, I thought it was a sign that the Government knows the game is up. Of course the Labour Party has to fight the election – it can’t simply not turn up. But it strikes me that using the UK economy quite so blatantly for party political advantage when it was already so fragile, was a strategic error. I am sure Alistair Darling believed he was doing the right thing. He is a man of principle. But it felt very much like a last

Gordon Brown’s one and only legacy

I will sign off tonight with this sickening graph from the earlier IFS presentation – showing the extent to which Gordon Brown’s economic incompetence has transformed the public finances for a generation. Servicing this debt will absorb money that would otherwise be spent creating jobs, lifting people out of poverty, advancing education, promoting prosperity. The leading article in the magazine this week finishes with these words, which came to mind when I saw the above graph: “It will be no surprise if UK public debt has been downgraded by the election; if so, a gilt buyers’ strike will become more than a theoretical possibility. The new government will face a

At least Gordo and Sarko are still friends…

If you’re looking for some sort of light relief after yesterday’s horror-PBR, then can I recommend the joint article by Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy in today’s Wall Street Journal.  Yep, the two men have put their recent spat behind them, and have cemented their relationship by huddling over a typewriter and bashing out just under 900 words on global financial regulation.  The Entente Cordiale never looked so strong.    Beyond the display of unity, it seems the article’s purpose is to convince the City that the EU’s French finance commissioner won’t blunt our competitive edge.  Hence lines like this: “We recognize the importance to Europe of ensuring that we

Behind the expenses curve

And so the expenses scandal rumbles inevitably on.  If you want the latest on all the dubious claims our, erm, honourable representatives made in 2008-09, then I’d recommend Andrew Sparrow’s live blog over at the Guardian – and Guido’s got a good round-up here.  But, behind all that, there’s a u-turn which is almost as embarrassing for the government as all those dodgy, dodgy receipts. Remember when Gordon Brown neglected to mention MP’s expenses, or the Kelly reforms, as part of his legislative agenda in the Queen’s Speech?  The decision was immediately launched on by Sir Christopher Kelly himself, and set up some juicy attacks for the Tories.  Well, as

Last orders in the last chance saloon?

It’s the set of headlines which Labour must have dreaded after their recent progress in the polls.  The Times: “The axeman dithereth … but the taxman cometh”.  The Guardian: “Darling soaks the rich … and the rest of us too”.  The Mail: “The Buck Passer’s Budget”.  And so on and so on.  It doesn’t look too good inside the papers either.  The FT rails against a  “lack of clarity on public spending plans”, while the Independent says that “rarely has a pre-Budget report promised so much and delivered so little”.  The Sun’s opposition may not be too surprising, but it’s there in bucketfuls: “Britain is staring into the abyss. After

In his comfort zone

Today we saw just how tricky the game can be for opposition leaders. The government sets the parliamentary agenda and holds the keys to the war-chest. Cameron’s attempts to upset the PM looked diffuse and repetitive. On Afghanistan he offered support. On Kelly he flannelled about some footling detail of parliamentary timing. And on ministerial pay he drew attention to his gravest difficulty, namely that the pre-budget report was coming up next. Brown never looked in difficulty and he cruised easily towards his Six O’Clock sound-bite. ‘The opposition leader has lost the art of communication but not alas the gift of speech.’ A poor day for Dave. Nick Clegg did

One thing to remember today

As you can probably imagine, plenty of Labour folk are getting excited about the PBR today.  They regard it as a chance for their party to harden their rise in the polls, and hasten the Tories’ descent.  But Danny Finkelstein strikes a necessary note of calm over at Comment Central.  As he puts it, a Budget in which the government has to ‘fess up to the horrible state of the public finances is hardly going to do much good for them.   To Danny’s analysis I’d add one supporting fact: that rarely, if ever, in recent times, has the government received a significant poll bounce on the back of a

James Forsyth

Brown’s bonus smokescreen

If today ends up with the government in a row with the City over plans to tax bank bonus pots with bankers threatening to take the government to court, then it will be mission accomplished for the Labour party. The same goes if we end up in a debate over the merits of a Tobin-style tax. For obvious reasons, Labour would rather talk about anything other than the state of the public finances so anything that distracts attention from that central question is, to use the word of the morning, a bonus for Brown. The Tories know this and will try and turn the debate back to the public finances

Fraser Nelson

Your guide to the PBR Brownies<br />

How can you tell if you’re being lied to on budget day? Normally its easy: Gordon Brown’s lips move. But, today, there’s a handy guide. You can compare Darling’s fiction with the independent average calculated by HM Treasury. I have pulled out the relevant tables:

Tackling the deficit

Reform’s report, The Front Line, focused on the how of the public finance question – how to get the deficit down in practice.  We pointed out that since the public sector workforce accounts for around a third of the total government deficit, it should contribute a third of the reduction in the structural deficit.  That would mean reducing the costs of the public sector workforce by £30 billion, equivalent to a reduction of one million of the six million public sector jobs in the UK.  That would take public sector employment back to the levels of 1999 when the recent period of major spending increases began.  It means reducing the

James Forsyth

Tomorrow could be a turning point for the Tories

The number of polls showing the Tories below forty percent are causing some heartburn for the Tory leadership. When the first poll came out showing the Tory lead down, there was a feeling that this wasn’t all bad, that it would help remind the party that the election isn’t in the bag. But there is now mounting concern at Tory slippage, this is being reinforced by the fact that the party’s own research shows the same trends. Today’s leader in The Times, a paper which is normally editorially supportive of the leadership, was another unhelpful development. Newspaper editorials don’t move popular opinion but they do still influence the prism through

Ever the optimist

It seems absurd to describe our dour and jowly Prime Minister as an eternal optimist, but he is. Rachel Sylvester’s column contains this delicious snippet of gossip: ‘When Mr Darling said that Britain was facing the worst recession for 60 years, Mr Brown telephoned him to tell him the downturn would be over in six months.’ Prudent foresight, there’s nothing like it.

Darling contra Brown, Part 573

Ok, so tomorrow’s Pre-Budget Report is shaping up to be a horrendously political affair.  But, rest assured, it could have been so much worse.  In what is, by now, a familiar Budget-time story, Alistair Darling is fighting the good fight against some of Brown’s most inharmonious fiscal brainwaves.  According to Rachel Sylvester’s column today, here are just some of the measures that the Chancellor has resisted: — A long-term windfall tax on bankers’ bonuses (Darling favours a temporary, one-year tax). — A call to lower the 50p tax threshold from £150,000 to £100,000. — A reversal of the plan to make it easier for couples to pool their inheritance tax

An efficient response 

Both parties want to be seen as the party of public sector efficiency. The Tories want to be able to show that they can do more with less and that cuts therefore need not mean worse services. While Labour wants to contrast their supposedly ‘smart cuts’ with the Tories’ ‘hatchet approach.’   So, this morning we had Gordon Brown delivering a speech outlining how the government would save £12 billion over the next three years; many of the policies he proposed were rather familiar to those of us who have been listening to the Tories on this subject.  The Tories then tried to trump Brown’s speech by announcing the formation

This week’s PBR looks set to be Brown’s most political Budget yet

Ok, so all Brown Budgets are political – but signs are that this week’s PBR could be his most blatantly partisan yet.  I mean, just look at his speech this morning on improving efficiency in the public sector.  Some of its measures are welcome – for instance, pledging to cut the pay of senior servants, and the general idea of using technology more effectively in government.  But, as other folk have pointed out (see Guido and Iain Dale), the measures are insufficient to the scale of the debt crisis, and many are old news.  All in all, the signs are as we expected: Brown is paying only lip service to