By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter I concluded our The Wrong Right series this morning with Why does so much of the Right treat cutting spending as light entertainment? To follow it up, a series of posts will go up today showing how, despite suggestions from some on the right to the contrary, departmental budgets […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter The Mail on Sunday claimed yesterday that George Osborne and Nick Clegg are drawing up "secret plans" for new council tax bands on homes worth more than £1 million. I should add at the start that senior Treasury sources told me yesterday that the story is wrong – though it's […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter One of the most intriguing stories in today’s papers comes courtesy of the Mail on Sunday. George Osborne, it tells us, has drawn up a plan with Nick Clegg: in return for Lib Dem support for a benefits freeze, there could be new council tax bands imposed on homes worth […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter In the end, last night’s vote on fuel duty did not yield the scare it might have: Tory backbenchers voted overwhelmingly in support of the government, and against Labour’s motion to postpone the 3p rise in duty that is currently planned for January next year. The government’s majority was 48. […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter The Times has an important report (£) this morning suggesting that Iain Duncan Smith and George Osborne are close to a deal that will make a significant contribution to the £10 billion of further savings from the welfare budget that the Chancellor wants to achieve by 2017. Many benefits […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter While editing ConservativeHome recently, I noticed an intriguing difference in the same story. The Daily Mail reported that the Government wants to pay workless families child benefit for their first two children only: the Independent said that the plan would apply to all families. On the one hand, most […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter Do you know what Ed Miliband's idea of "predistribution" means in plain English? It means employers paying workers higher wages rather than the taxpayer paying them more subsidies – usually in the form of the cats-cradle of tax credits that his former boss, Gordon Brown created. The Living Wage […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter Yesterday we published members' answers to questions about how they would meet George Osborne's deficit reduction challenge if they were in his shoes. Members wanted less spending on the EU, aid and welfare. All fairly predictable perhaps. The one surprising response was the support for higher council tax bands […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter In the latest monthly survey of members we asked respondents to describe certain revenue-raising measures as acceptable or unacceptable. I've already reported the verdict on higher council tax bands and a mansion tax but here is the full set of results: Deficit reduction measure: % saying acceptable / % […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter 1.15pm update: Dom Raab MP has made it clear that the report referred to below does not represent his view, even though he is a member of the Free Enterprise Group. He commented: "It is vital we hit the Coalition's existing debt target, but any shortfall should be made […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter We shouldn't get over-excited but the latest YouGov poll has the Labour lead down to 7%. At this stage in the first Thatcher parliament Michael Foot (yes, Michael Foot) enjoyed leads two or three times bigger than that being built up by Ed Miliband. According to James Forsyth in […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter These better-than-expected figures will be a huge relief to the Government. If we had had another quarter of negative numbers the Government would have become under huge political pressure. People would have begun to wonder if the real pain that they had been suffering was all for nought. The […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter If the quarterly growth numbers are poor tomorrow then at least three months of misery await the Coalition. Its central project is economic renewal and another bad set of numbers will intensify concern at the Chancellor's policies. The expectation of the markets is, however, that the numbers will be […]
By Matthew BarrettFollow Matthew on Twitter. David Cameron put in a good show on the Andrew Marr programme this morning, in his big pre-conference interview. The main takeaways from the Prime Minister's interview were: a determination to fight for strivers, including an unapologetic defence of cutting the top rate of tax a "new settlement" for […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter It is a real honour to be a columnist for The Times and it was an extra honour yesterday to be chosen as Political Columnist of the Year by Editorial Intelligence. I greatly enjoy being able to get up each and every day and pontificate on this blog, in […]