Uk politics

Friday

Isabel Hardman

‘Not misleading’ = ‘we’re right!’

Ed Balls didn’t have a good day yesterday with his poor Autumn Statement performance, but he’s had a slightly better day today, with an analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies that confirms families will be ‘substantially’ worse off in 2015/16 than they were in 2009/10. Balls wants to keep talking about the cost of living: now he’s got the IFS’ analysis on his side too. Except the IFS didn’t quite back him to the hilt. The analysis of the parties’ approaches to the living standards question concluded that while the measure Balls used to calculate that working people are £1,600 a year worse off under the Coalition was ‘incomplete’, it is

Matthew Sinclair

How corporation tax cuts are helping wages

Yesterday’s autumn statement included the results of the Treasury’s study of the dynamic impacts of the cuts to Corporation Tax, which George Osborne is down from 28 per cent to 20 per cent. This study used the new HMRC Computable General Equilibrium model – as Fraser reported on Wednesday – and the results are impressive. The cuts will increase investment by 2.5-4.5% (£3.6-£6.2 billion in today’s prices). They will increase GDP by 0.6-0.8% (equivalent to £9.6-£12.2 billion). Given the share that we can expect to go to labour, that equates to an increase in wages of £405-£515 a household. As a result of higher profits, wages and consumption, we can

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Boris’s stand on equality prepares him for leadership

Boris Johnson’s Margaret Thatcher Lecture to the Centre for Policy Studies attracted attention for its remarks about IQ, but the media ignored its central thesis. The speech is against equality, eloquently so. I date the mental collapse of the Conservatives from the moment in 1995 when Labour’s newish leader, Tony Blair, jumped up in Parliament and asked the Prime Minister, John Major, whether he accepted it ‘as a responsibility of government to reduce inequality’. Mr Major’s simple answer was ‘Yes’. It shut Mr Blair up that afternoon, but it gave him the advantage ever after. If both parties say government must create equality then the one which promotes more state

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Ed Balls, champion heckler, complains about heckling

Chris Leslie popped up on the Daily Politics today to complain about the way Ed Balls was received in the Chamber when he responded to the Autumn Statement. Asked why Balls made such a horlicks of yesterday’s performance, Leslie said: ‘Well, there are plenty of Conservatives who would like to say that, in fact there were 350 or so odd Conservative MPs barracking and jeering, and I defy anybody to try and get their voice heard in that environment.’ Andrew Neil then told Leslie that he had received three separate off-the-record briefings against Ed Balls from Labour aides, some of whom were close to Ed Miliband. The Shadow Chief Secretary

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Food banks and free school meals: how ministers missed an opportunity

The Trussell Trust, which runs the biggest network of food banks in the UK, has used today’s Autumn Statement to remind politicians that over 500,000 people have sought emergency food parcels since April. There is a particular poignance to this,as today was the day the Lib Dems were having a song and dance about their free school meals policy that they’re so proud of. But while that policy might be very pleasing to any parent of a child in infant school who doesn’t have to make sandwiches any more, is it really the best use of money when departments are being asked to find an extra £1bn of savings a

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Ed Balls: OBR forecasts show cost of living will continue to haunt Tories

Ed Balls has not had a good day. He has just given his post-autumn statement briefing, at which he argued that Labour had set the agenda for this statement with Ed Miliband’s energy price freeze pledge. He’s right, but as James explained in his blog, while Labour set the terms of debate for the autumn, the Tories have just set the agenda for the winter. The autumn was about the cost of living and energy prices, now the winter will be about credibility. This of course assumes that the Conservatives follow up a good day today with an aggressive campaign over the next few weeks. That has not always been

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Autumn Statement 2013: can Labour win with Ed Balls?

After an autumn in which Ed Miliband has made the political weather, the government desperately needed a competent autumn statement that would change the terms of political trade. Today, it looks like they got that. George Osborne avoided trying to be too clever by half on the cost of living and instead stuck to the big economic picture, the government’s strongest suit. He also avoided any give-aways that would have suggested the fiscsal job was finished and that we were back to politics as usual. That the pension age will rise still further and faster was a potent reminder of how much needs to be done before Britain has an

Sebastian Payne

Spectator podcast special: The View from 22 on today’s Autumn Statement

Following George Osborne’s 2013 Autumn Statement this morning, The Spectator’s Fraser Nelson, Isabel Hardman and James Forsyth discuss the Chancellor’s announcements, the reaction he received in the House of Commons, how Ed Balls responded to the statement, the winners and losers and what we can expect to see on tomorrow’s front pages. You can subscribe to the View from 22 through iTunes and have it delivered to your computer every week, or you can use the embedded player below: listen to ‘Spectator podcast special: The View from 22 on today’s Autumn Statement’ on Audioboo

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Autumn statement 2013: Ed Balls’ counterattack

Ed Balls knew that his response to George Osborne’s Autumn Statement today was going to be difficult. As I blogged this morning, the Shadow Chancellor didn’t really have anywhere to go other than complain about the cost of living. This was aggravated by the fact that any Shadow Chancellor’s response to any autumn statement is a tough gig as he has no more advance sight of the figures and announcements than anyone else (perhaps George Osborne was just trying to be kind this year by briefing so much out in advance). But Balls’ strategy seems to have been the following: 1. Draft some good jokes in advance The jokes were

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Gerry Adams: still a revolting man and still trying to steal Irish history.

I know this is not exactly breaking news but Gerry Adams is a vile man. Since no-one devotes much attention to Northern Ireland these days it is easy to forget this. Easy to file Adams and his Sinn Fein comrades into a musty drawer marked Ancient History. But the past is not another country. In Dublin this week the Smithwick Tribunal’s report into alleged Garda collusion with the IRA in the murders of RUC officers Harry Breen and Robert Buchanan in 1989 was finally published. The report confirmed long-held suspicions that the IRA had a mole or, less dramatically, a simple informant inside the Garda station in Dundalk, County Louth. The

The Spectator

Full text of George Osborne’s 2013 Autumn statement

listen to ‘George Osborne’s Autumn Statement’ on Audioboo Mr Speaker, Britain’s economic plan is working. But the job is not done. We need to secure the economy for the long term. And the biggest risk to that comes from those who would abandon the plan. We seek a responsible recovery. One where we don’t squander the gains we’ve made, but go on taking the difficult decisions. One where we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past, but this time spot the debt bubbles before they threaten financial stability. A responsible recovery, where we don’t pretend we can make this nation better off by writing cheques to ourselves, and instead make

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

George Osborne’s jubilant ‘yes, but’ Autumn Statement

Just because George Osborne had some very good figures indeed to read out at today’s Autumn Statement doesn’t mean that he had an easy job. There’s Labour’s campaign on the cost of living, which the Chancellor and his colleagues have given enough ground to that it has credence. Then there are the worries of his senior colleagues that Osborne might ‘bank’ the recovery too early. But Osborne did deliver a statement that addressed all these concerns. Threaded through it was a ‘look how wrong they were’ theme of the Chancellor outlining those predictions of doom from the Labour benches about the effects of the government’s economic policy, and contrasting them

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

George Osborne’s 2013 Autumn Statement in graphs

1. Growth has been re-forecast, again (above). This year and next, it’s a lot better than Osborne forecast last time (in the red). A little worse thereafter. 2. The projected deficit is, as a result, smaller than he forecast in March. But still way ahead of his original Plan A. 3.  Debt as a share of GDP, Osborne will still miss his target: to have the ratio falling by 2015/16. It’s worth remembering that he’s still going slower on debt that the Darling plan that he attacked in the last election. 4. Employment: the bright spot. Public sector workforce has fallen by 640,000 but George Osborne rightly points out this is more than offset by

The Spectator

Audio hub: 2013 Autumn Statement

Throughout the day, we’ll be posting audio highlights from the 2013 Autumn statement — including speeches from George Osborne and Ed Balls. George Osborne’s statement to the House of Commons: listen to ‘George Osborne’s Autumn Statement’ on Audioboo

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Autumn statement: Labour’s only safe attack line

George Osborne wants to use today’s Autumn Statement to focus on the good figures and his government’s responsible approach to the economy. This, Tory strategists hope, will leave Labour with nowhere to go: Ed Balls has been a prophet of doom whose predictions now look as useful as those offered by a chap with a sandwich board offering the definite date for the end of the world, and voters are still suspicious of Labour’s instincts when it comes to spending. Labour has obliged this morning by releasing the below poster, which shows its top dogs accept that for the time being the party has nowhere to go either, other than

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Mandarins routinely take Fridays off and sometimes can’t spell ministers’ names. Why does this go on? 

It’s a fact that most ministers are most scared, not of their political rivals but of their civil servants. Ministers know that if they cross civil servants, all of their foibles may soon end up in print. It’s one reason why politicians so often repeat the mantra ‘Our civil service is the best in the world,’ so as to keep on their good side. One man stands out: Francis Maude, Minister for the Civil Service, has spent most of his political life telling his party why it doesn’t work as a modern institution and now he’s taking on the civil service with equal frankness. This approach has not gone down

Wednesday

Alex Massie

A choice for Tories: Goldman Sachs or UKIP?

Hats-off to James Kirkup for noticing that Goldman Sachs have suggested they would “drastically” cut their UK workforce (and operations) should Britain decide to leave the European Union. That is the view of Michael Sherwood, the fellow responsible for running Goldman’s european operations. I am sure eurosceptics will dismiss this as the usual scaremongering just as Scottish nationalists dismiss warnings that some businesses (RBS?) might shift their operations south in the event Scotland votes for independence next year. This is but one of the many ways in which the european and Scottish questions overlap or dovetail with one another. Perhaps it is only scaremongering! But what if it isn’t? In any case, the Tory High Command

Alex Massie Alex Massie

London is different: the government will spend money there

The chart at the top of this post comes from the government’s National (sic) Infrastructure Plan 2013. (Sic because it is largely a plan for England.) You can find it on page 30. You may notice that one rather large part of England is not listed on this chart: London. Perhaps that is because the value of infrastructure spending in London comes in at a nifty £36 billion. Or, to put it another way, spending on infrastructure in London is equivalent to the total amount of infrastructure spending in every other part of England save the south-west. And the south-west’s figure is chiefly so high because of a single project:

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cameron focuses on long-term plan for Autumn Statement, not short-term goodies

Much of the meat of the Autumn Statement has already been briefed, which raises the question of what’s left to get excited about tomorrow. There will likely still be a number of crowd-pleasing announcements, but ministers are clearly keen to clear some space on the decks to focus on the figures that George Osborne will announce on the deficit and the updated growth forecasts. And a lightly-filled rather than overflowing goody bag from the Chancellor also gives him the opportunity to drive home his message about the ‘responsible recovery’ and a responsible government, rather than one that starts handing out prizes the moment the recovery appears on the horizon. David