Benedict Brogan (Free subscription) | 5 hours ago
As is well known, George Osborne gets regular advice sessions from past Chancellors. There’s a lot of collected Treasury wisdom on the Tory side for him to call on, in the shape of Lords Howe, Lawson and Lamont, Kenneth Clarke, and even Sir John Major. He gathers them for occasional private consultations, which is one [...]
John Rentoul (Free subscription) | 4 hours ago
Interesting interview with Nigel Lawson in the Telegraph today. Benedict Brogan draws attention to the former chancellor's disagreement with George Osborne, his would-be successor, over Labour's 50p income tax rate, which comes into effect on income over £150,000 a year in April: What about the new higher rate income tax of 50 per cent, would he keep that for a while, as Mr Osborne intends to?...
Paul Owen (Free subscription) | 19 hours ago
Modern politicians are often, and quite justifiably, criticised for going straight into the Westminster bubble without first having done a proper job. Indeed Labour earlier this year seriously tried to do this for a girl in her twenties who has only recently graduated. Perhaps they were concerned about the levels of her student debt. But at least when the likes of the little Milly brothers and George...
ConservativeHome's ToryDiary (Free subscription) | yesterday
Michael Portillo is usually to be found sitting alongside Andrew Neil on the This Week sofa, but this weekend the former Cabinet Minister-turned-broadcaster is interviewed by him for the BBC's HardStraight Talk programme. He expresses surprise - "I'm absolutely astonished" - at how much policy detail has already been announced, by George Osborne in his conference speech, for example. But...
Labourlist (Free subscription) | yesterday
By Paul Burgin I think it's best if I start with a minor confession. Those who read my blog on a regular basis know this, but I think it's right to state areas where you are weak on a subject which you are about to pontificate on. It's simply that I dislike George Osborne. He strikes me as not just an incompetent Shadow Chancellor, but an unpleasant, smug, self-satisfied, school sneak of a Shadow...
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 19/11/2009
Richard Lambert says even the Conservatives are not ambitious enough about cutting the Britain's deficit Richard Lambert can see for himself the hole into which public money is being poured. Outside the CBI's offices in London's Centre Point, excavation work is under way on the £16bn Crossrail project to link Heathrow to the City and Canary Wharf. The leader of Britain's premier employers' organisation...
Unreality TV (Free subscription) | 19/11/2009
Gordon Brown has made an attempt to retract his derogatory comments made about X Factor’s John and Edward Grimes last week. In a radio interview, Brown branded the boys as ‘not very good’, Labour then followed up by producing a mocked-up poster of David Cameron and George Osborne as the Irish teenagers under the [...]
Tory Troll (Free subscription) | 19/11/2009
Opposition groups on the London Assembly have long been suspicious of the 'cosy' relationship between Boris Johnson and his new GLA Chief Executive Leo Boland. Boland was brought in at great expense from Barnet Council and now earns £15,000 more than George Osborne's "public servant fat cat" limit. Incidentally, he also earns over £20,000 more than the Chief Executive received...
OberonHouston (Free subscription) | 19/11/2009
The combination of an unrelenting desire for power and little regard as how to keep it has found Labour constructing a Queen's Speech which most have agreed had little to do with the good of the country and a lot to do with silly tactics. Sir Christopher Kelly has said that he was 'surprised' that there were no announcements regarding the MPs expenses saga, which Brown cannot stop lurching from one...
Boulton (Free subscription) | 18/11/2009
It took Her Majesty less than six minutes to outline a super-thin programme for the Government in the six months remaining before the General Election. Preoccupying Gordon Brown - who put the words in the Queen’s mouth - was not so much complex legislation to change the way the nation works, but rather headline grabbing statements of principle which he hopes will form the dividing lines on which...
The Independent (Free subscription) | 18/11/2009
George Osborne has vowed to slim down the Treasury should the Tories win power, breaking up the empire built by Gordon Brown during his time as chancellor.
Musings from Medway (Free subscription) | 17/11/2009
A warning shot across the bow of Dan Hannan and the uber Thatcherite caucus in the Tory party, from the economic heart of London today. Comments which show the major concern in the financial world with the policy position of the hard right wing of the Tory Party. In a thinly-veiled attack on David Cameron's new EU policy and an open attack on Dan Hannan, the newly elected Lord Mayor of London Nick...
Left Foot Forward (Free subscription) | 17/11/2009
In this week's New Statesman, Keynes biographer and crossbench peer, Lord Robert Skidelsky says: "Someone like George Osborne gets away with leaving out assumptions behind his arguments because he's not confronted with them. He's interviewed a lot, but people haven't really nailed him. There hasn't been enough debate about the stimulus ...
nigel hastilow (Free subscription) | 16/11/2009
Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has promised tax breaks for new businesses and a simpler tax system to end the need for elaborate avoidance schemes. Mr Osborne and David Willetts, the Shadow Higher Education Secretary, were speaking to business leaders and students at Birmingham Metropolitan College. This is some of what they said: George Osborne Government has to face the fact that the economy is...
Labourlist (Free subscription) | 16/11/2009
The Duncan Weldon Economics Matters Column In the early 1990s, Clinton advisor James Carville said: “I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the President or the Pope or a .400 baseball hitter. But now I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.” Was Carville right? Is the bond market, the market through which the government funds...
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