Andy Burnham’s much-promised strong and decisive leadership has been long on vibes, short on action during his first 100 days. With one telling exception. He has stuck to his guns about what the nation should call white bread rolls. Namely, ‘barm cakes’, as they do in his new constituency of Makerfield. In doing so, he’s […]
Andy Burnham is set to make the same mistake that led to the ruin of Keir Starmer: lack of a domestic agenda, other than pushing the proverbial peas around the plate on energy bills, bus fares and the like, paired – like a bottle of plonk – with ambiguous statements on the big public issues. […]
The problem with being a political golden boy like Labour pensions minister Torsten Bell is that it paints a target on your back, putting you firmly in the crosshairs of rivals and commentators in your own party and the opposition every time you do or say anything at all. Kudos, then, to the man widely […]
I’ll declare an interest. I sit on Reform UK’s Board and I’ve known Nigel Farage for a quarter of a century. So when Kemi Badenoch tells the country that Reform are ‘another left-wing party’, that we and Labour are arguing for ‘the same things, nationalisation, the two-child benefit cap’, that Farage is Jeremy Corbyn wrapped […]
The Commonwealth is an anachronism in the 21st century – an imperial hangover that shows no signs of abatement but is instead getting worse. As King Charles addressed his subjects in Antigua and Barbuda ahead of this week’s Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM), our Prime Minister was throwing out statements about possible apologies and […]
Emma Reynolds, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, is one of the more sensible Labour MPs. She resigned as a front bencher when Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader and is firmly in the moderate wing of the Labour Party. Which is why her comment yesterday that ‘I don’t think employers are working people’ is all […]
Britain needs new talent and ideas in its politics. The old factions of Westminster have proven themselves incapable or unwilling to take the radical action required to fix the country. They push our best abroad, ignore new ideas (or claim they are ‘not serious’ or ‘sensible’), abandon their principles and kick difficult decisions down the […]
John Healey’s debut Budget was a coward’s charter. Despite there being a record 98 measures in the Chancellor’s announcement, all the major decisions have been kicked into the long grass. Despite having resigned as Defence Secretary over funding concerns under Keir Starmer, Healey delayed detailing how the Government would fund raising defence spending to 3.5% […]
Wednesday’s Budget was a depressing fiscal exercise in entrenching stagnation, protection of vested interests, and the discouragement of enterprise (on one count, it left 25% of our small businesses substantially worse off). But if you thought that was all, take a look at some modest proposals for labour law quietly slipped out at much the […]
Yesterday, the Chancellor had the chance to confront a runaway benefits bill and a tax burden strangling growth. He bottled both, and instead billed the banks and workers. John Healey stood up yesterday afternoon and told the Commons that fiscal discipline was his first commitment. He then announced that Britain will borrow more in every […]
There are many phrases of Adam Smith that are well worth echoing today, and one of the most significant is this: ‘The end of all production is consumption.’ It is not to create jobs. The people who talk of new industries creating many new jobs are putting the cart before the horse. The aim of […]
This week, Nimby Watch is in Cardiff Bay, at the site of the Welsh Senedd Oooh…Wales. Why are we here? Surely you’re not about to kvetch about the Senedd building. They finished it 20 years ago! I’ll admit it’s not my favourite building from the outside – very generic glass-and-steel – but the inside is […]
Making sure it always pays to work is political motherhood and apple pie: something so obvious it’s barely worth saying. Odd, then, that last week when Kemi Badenoch suggested changing childcare rules which leave successful parents facing crazy 100%-plus tax rates if they earn more than £100,000, she faced a barrage of criticism. The critics […]
Imagine borrowing £10,000 from the bank, lending it to a friend, then telling everyone the debt’s gone – because your friend owes you the money. That’s obviously nonsensical – you still owe the same £10,000 to the bank, regardless of what you did with the money. But that’s Labour’s approach to our public finances. Let […]
As an Anglo-Scot, I had a dog in the fight that was the Scottish independence referendum 12 years ago. I was a visceral opponent of the dismemberment of the United Kingdom, which, I believed, would damage everyone in the British and Irish Isles. As the UK’s ambassador to the UN in 2014 put it, ‘it […]
A quick show of hands. How many of you have a working torch in the kitchen drawer, and not just on your phone? Candles, matches or a working pack of AA batteries? What about a week’s worth of tinned food, a camping stove, a full jerry can? A generator? Most readers will have answered no […]
The Government has finally bowed to common sense and given the green light to the Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea. It’s the sensible move and a good start, although a decision on Rosebank is not yet forthcoming. Given the resistance both projects have faced, it’s worth setting out why Jackdaw’s approval is good […]
When John Healey sits down next Wednesday, the press gallery will focus hard on his headroom against the fiscal rules. In March the OBR put this at £23.6 billion against the main rule, which requires day-to-day spending to be covered by revenue by 2029/30. A recent Reuters poll of economists suggests it has since shrunk […]
The lifeblood of the economy. The backbone of Britain. When it comes to small businesses, it’s easy to lapse into cliché. But that’s because they really, really matter. The overwhelming majority of businesses in Britain are small businesses. They employ more than 13 million people. And it’s almost impossible to exaggerate how tough things are […]
Let’s go fly a kite? There has been rather less briefing about proposals to be announced in next week’s Budget than in recent years. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Healey, has been far less forthcoming than his predecessors, Rachel Reeves and Jeremy Hunt, whose plans were dribbled out weeks in advance. Some have suggested […]
Britain was the cradle of the Industrial Revolution – where cheap, abundant coal fuelled the inventions that built the modern world. Those breakthroughs – railways, modern medicine and electricity – transformed humanity. But we often forget that it was energy, our ability to produce it and (crucially) to store it, that made all of this […]
Today the Tax Foundation updates its annual International Tax Competitiveness Index. It’s not great reading for the UK, which comes 30th out of 38 countries. This is one place better than last year but two places worse than 2014, the first year of the Index. The Index aims to measure how well a tax system […]
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