Chancellor Angela Merkel with David Cameron. Photograph: Michel Euler/AP As Noël Coward didn't quite sing, do let's be beastly to the Germans. This bitter tune is heard not just in Greece, but also in the corridors of Number 10, the Elysée Palace and the White House. Casting around for someone to blame for the crisis, the fingers of accusation point at Germany and its chancellor, Angela Merkel.The jabbing fingers are furiously angry ones on the streets of Athens where German flags are burnt and the newspapers dress Ms Merkel in Nazi uniform. The jabbing continues in editorials in the American press, which charges Berlin with being single-handedly responsible for taking the world economy to the brink of the abyss. The jabbing is dressed in the ... Continue reading →

Ed Miliband: needs to find a way of bringing voters back to mainstream politics Photograph: David Jones/PA At lunchtime yesterday in London, the sun was shining, which made a pleasant change. The shops were open. So were the pubs. There were lawns to be mowed, cars to be washed, books to be read, museums, art galleries and parks to be visited. If you preferred to slump on the sofa in front of the telly, ITV was offering Carry On Cruising and the BBC the qualifying laps for the Spanish Grand Prix. You were therefore the member of a highly peculiar minority, a most eccentric sect, if you instead chose to spend your Saturday lunchtime listening to a speech by a politician about why no one ... Continue reading →

Posh boys: David Cameron and George Osborne Photograph: Petar Kujundzic/AP It is not your opponents you most have to fear in politics, it is your colleagues. The reputation-poisoning suggestion that there was "something of the night" about Michael Howard, a label that haunted him ever after, was coined by his fellow Tory, Ann Widdecombe. And it is again a female Tory – they have a way of doing this to their leaders, these Conservative women – who has produced the most potentially lethal way of describing David Cameron and George Osborne. In her latest outburst against the prime minister and the chancellor, Nadine Dorries brands them as "two arrogant posh boys who don't know the price of milk… two arrogant posh boys who show no ... Continue reading →

Will Labour leader Ed Miliband be smiling on 3 May? Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA Omnishambles. It is a great word to encapsulate the government's serial misjudgments and misadventures, from granny taxes and petrol panics to the boomeranging budget and Theresa May's lost day. So I am not surprised that Ed Miliband chucked it at David Cameron in the hope that it will lodge in the public mind as the definitive, damning description of the coalition. The word does not, though, help us all that much with the large, long-term question raised by the most torrid period for the coalition since its inception. Does this mark a significant turning point or is it merely a passing blip?It doesn't look like a blip – certainly not a fleeting ... Continue reading →

A gap is appearing between David Cameron and George Osborne. Photograph: Marco Secchi/Getty Images A wise man once observed that the relationship between the prime minister and the chancellor is the San Andreas Fault running through British government. When the two great plates start to grind against each other, there are first tremors that make Whitehall tremble and then there are earthquakes that can bring governments crashing down.They may not start off as foes. The neighbours of Downing Street usually start life together as friends and allies or at least as respectful colleagues. But more often than not they turn into bitter enemies. Every recent prime minister has ended up at war with a chancellor and the consequences have been ineluctably bad for the government. ... Continue reading →

Respect candidate George Galloway. Photograph: CHRISTOPHER THOMOND / The Guardiam With that blushing modesty which makes him such an appealing character, George Galloway celebrated his triumph in the Bradford West byelection by tweeting that he had won "the most sensational victory in British political history", relegating as also-rans the Liberal landslide of 1906, the Labour landslide of 1945 as well as the general election hat-tricks won by Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.More grotesquely, ungorgeous George proclaims himself to be the herald of a "Bradford Spring". It is a very advanced form of narcissism to view a byelection upset in a parliamentary democracy as the equivalent of the moral courage displayed by those who have risked their lives in uprisings against entrenched tyrannies. This bilge is ... Continue reading →

Chancellor George Osborne with his red despatch box, ready to deliver his 2012 budget. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA Credit where it is due. The budget has provoked screamingly negative headlines in newspapers of both left and right, but George Osborne has pulled off an unusual feat. In a stroke, the chancellor has simultaneously cheered up millionaires and the Labour party. There are two strata of society who think they stand to benefit richly from the reduction in the top rate of tax. One group is those earning more than £150,000 a year. The other sits in the shadow cabinet.The polling in advance of the budget indicated that roughly two thirds of voters were opposed to a tax break for the top tier of earners. So despite ... Continue reading →