By Matthew BarrettFollow Matthew on Twitter. The Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, Andrew Tyrie, appeared on Radio 4 today, discussing the possibility of the Bank of England receiving greater financial decision-making powers. Mr Tyrie advocated making Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England and Chairman of the Monetary Policy Committee, more accountable. Mr Tyrie […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter According to the Daily Mail George Osborne "has decided to break the historic link between welfare payments and inflation". That overstates the reality. People on benefits will still get a larger increase in their weekly incomes than those in work. Pay for large numbers of public sector workers has been […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter The Treasury has just announced the sale of Northern Rock to a consortium led by Richard Branson's Virgin Money. "The Government," states the press announcement, "will receive £747 million in cash on closing of the sale, with the potential in the future to receive over one billion pounds in total." […]
By Matthew BarrettFollow Matthew on Twitter. A new plank of the Coalition's growth strategy, a £500m growth fund, has been announced today. The Growing Places Fund, to be operational early next year, is primarily aimed at developing infrastructure projects, and getting currently-stalled projects up and running. The Fund is to be used by the government's […]
By Matthew BarrettFollow Matthew on Twitter. The Office for National Statistics has just released the GDP figures for the last quarter: 0.5% growth. "Some growth but not very strong growth", says the ONS' chief statistician, Joe Grice. It's better than the 0.1% growth of the previous quarter, and better than the 0.3% or 0.4% that City analysts […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter. The splash in this morning's Mail on Sunday is the news that the Treasury hopes to raise £500 million every year by enforcing the imposition of VAT on all non-therapeutic forms of cosmetic surgery. The move, says the newspaper, could add £1,000 to the cost of an average breast […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter. Speech preparation: A rare photograph of key members of Cameron’s inner team. From left to right: Craig Oliver, Gabby Bertin, Ed Llewellyn, Clare Foges, Ameet Gill, David Cameron, William Hague, Kate Fall. Photograph by Andrew Parsons. It's going to be hard but we can do it. That will be […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter The Daily Mail and The Times lead with George Osborne's declaration today that the Government will make more than £800million available to help local authorities avoid council tax rises. The Mail says: The freeze will save the average family £72 next year, on top of another £72 saved from […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter Poorer people should be the priority for any tax cuts the Coalition Government makes, Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said yesterday evening. He also indicated that Britain could seek a retrospective treaty change in the battle over European Commission demands over foreign benefit claimants. Speaking at […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter Conservative activists have failed to rally behind the deficit reduction strategy of George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as they gather for their annual conference in Manchester. A poll of almost 1400 members for ConservativeHome found that over 50 per cent believe that his spending scaleback should be […]
By Matthew BarrettFollow Matthew on Twitter In a second pre-conference interview in this morning's papers (the first is covered here), the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne told the Sun about measures he will take to "strike back" against the unions – which the paper says Mr Osborne will fight "head-on". Osborne's proposed measures aren't […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter. As you'll see from this morning's newslinks it's Tory Time in every newspaper. Cameron and IDS in the Mail. Osborne in The Telegraph. Hammond in The Times. Gove in The Guardian. Fox in the FT. Mitchell in the Independent. The main message that the leading government ministers want the […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter. The view in Downing Street is that Ed Miliband is unelectable. The YouGov survey in this morning's Sun will encourage Cameron's advisers in that view. Just 4% think the Labour leader would be good in a crisis. Just 5% see him as a natural leader. Only 6% regard Ed […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter There is no point in complaining about Vince Cable's annual left-leaning speech to the Liberal Democrat conference – the crude jokes about bankers, the re-plugging of his beloved mansions tax, the way in which support for deficit reduction is wrapped up in the garnish of social democracy, with Bevin, […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter Now I know that the party conference season has begun, and that one must therefore be even more suspicious of being spun than usual, but two stories in this morning's papers are a reminder that the great tax debate is very live. Vince Cable has given an interview to […]