The new season of Industry, the HBO City of London drama, offers a reminder of what happens when Budgets go wrong. “He didn’t even run it past the cabinet!” one character exclaims of Kwasi Kwarteng as the pound plummets.  Liz Truss’s 2022 mini-Budget proved politically ruinous for the Conservatives. But its spectre also haunts Labour. It was a reminder of a lesson that the party has been forced to learn in office before: there are hard limits to how much the state can spend and borrow.  This helps explain why Rachel Reeves’ Budget – “Fixing the foundations to deliver change” as it will be known – has been one of the most trailed in history. The Chancellor is seeking to borrow more ...

Consider two stories that do not, on the face of it, have much to do with one another but which I, in the manner of an Adam Curtis documentary, intend to demonstrate are actually about the same thing after all. Firstly, figures published recently revealed that, between 2010 and 2022, the UK’s fertility rate had fallen by nearly 19 per cent, faster than in any other G7 country. The final year of that period saw the number of births in England and Wales drop to its lowest level in 20 years. You don’t have to be a pro-natalist to worry this might have some negative effects, for example setting the country up for a demographic time bomb as the number of ...

For all Alex Salmond’s many flaws, he understood the business world. Liked it, even. Liked its leaders and was relaxed in their company. He understood the necessary role the private sector played in wealth creation, which could then be used to fund public services. His successor Nicola Sturgeon was never comfortable in this environment. I’ve lost count of the number of businesspeople who have told me of attending meetings and dinners with Sturgeon and being discomfited by her seeming lack of interest in the conversation and the issues being discussed. Sturgeon was a social justice politician, happier among pressure groups, third-sector types and charities. No surprise – she once told me Michael Foot was her favourite Labour leader. The widely recognised consequence ...

This was it. The one and only event for the two finalists in the Conservative leadership contest, Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch, played out on GB News in front of a live audience in Westminster. “Some of you at home will have your pens hovering over the ballot paper,” teased host Chris Hope at the start: with ballots sent to members this week, this was the last real chance either candidate had to change minds before voting begins. So what did we learn? This wasn’t a head-to-head between the candidates: instead, they took turns to make opening statements before taking questions from Hope and the audience, then a quickfire round from viewers at home. First up was Jenrick. The polls and ...

Who is the world’s most famous news and current affairs interviewer? Christiane Amanpour? Katie Couric? Anderson Cooper? Piers Morgan? Let me suggest another contender for the title: Stephen Sackur, the gangly, deep-voiced host of the BBC’s television and radio programme HARDtalk, which the BBC announced it was axing this week. He is hardly a household name in Britain, where HARDtalk is screened only in the small hours of the morning, but he certainly is across the rest of the planet. “If you went abroad with Stephen he’d be stopped everywhere,” said Carey Clark, a former HARDtalk editor. “It didn’t matter where you went, he’d be mobbed.” His thrice-weekly interviews with world leaders and power-brokers are broadcast three times a day, five days ...

David Lammy’s trip to China this week is a defining moment in the short history of this government. Since 2022, the UK has had just one leader or foreign minister visit the country – James Cleverly last year. This compares with eight for the US, six for France, four for Germany, three for Japan and two for Canada. That’s indicative of what the government believes is a failure of diplomacy. Under Rishi Sunak, Labour argues, Britain’s policy towards China became erratic and inconsistent. Moments of engagement such as Cleverly’s visit were juxtaposed with increasingly hawkish rhetoric (Sunak regularly labelled China a “threat”).  But while the Conservatives were charged with needlessly alienating China, Labour stands accused of appeasing it. The Foreign Office asked ...

This was Rishi Sunak’s penultimate PMQs against Keir Starmer – his last will be the warm-up act just before the Budget next week. Then days later the Conservative Party will announce its new leader on 2 November. So perhaps it was understandable it had a valedictory feel. This was another week full of open goals for the Conservatives: the continued row over a police escort for Taylor Swift in August (proving my rule that any chance to put Taylor Swift in a headline will be seized upon until all the sense is wrung out it), the embarrassment of No 10 slapping down the transport secretary for her attack on P&O just before the government’s big investment summit, and of course the ...

The Budget is a process, not an event. That has rarely been clearer than now. There is still a fortnight to go until Rachel Reeves addresses the House of Commons, but we already know her two defining judgements.  First, she will revise her fiscal rules to allow more borrowing for investment (a decision heavily trailed to prepare the markets). Second, she will raise taxes in order to better fund public services.  The identity of those taxes is also becoming clearer. By refusing to rule out a rise in employers’ National Insurance, the government has effectively confirmed it (as Reeves first did in her interview with Andrew).  That has prompted a furious debate over whether Labour is set to break its manifesto pledge. Not only ...