On Friday, I spoke against monetary activism once again, complaining about the use of expectation management and new monetary instruments in an attempt to defibrillate the economy. It’s a mistake, not least because a failure to contain inflationary expectations could be catastrophic, as I set out last year. Mark Carney […]
Read MoreThe following was provided by the Conservative Party in summary of the Budget 2013. In a tough economic situation, the British people know there are no easy answers or short cuts. But we are succeeding, slowly but surely, in fixing those problems. We’ve now cut Labour’s record deficit by not […]
Read MoreAhead of the budget, the TaxPayers’ Alliance reports, More Britons believe the moon landings were faked than think that taxes are too low. Headlines include: People underestimate the real rate of tax on their income. Fewer than one in seven people realise the Government plans to increase the debt, not […]
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Today, we’ll be debating an Opposition Day motion on fuel duty, which I want cut. It’s shocking that 60% of the pump price of petrol is tax. Nevertheless I won’t be supporting Labour. It’s one thing to be supported by Labour on a important constitutional point — Parliament’s control over […]
Read MoreVia It’s austerity all right – but not of the kind we actually need, City A.M.’s Allister Heath makes his case: It has long been a theme of this column that the government and its critics alike have exaggerated the extent of the government’s belt-tightening. The coalition is doing this […]
Read MoreLast night in the Budget debate, I set out how “monetary activism”, which is one of the pillars of the Government’s strategy, could go wrong: This is a Budget of fiscal conservatism and monetary activism. It is a Budget, above all, of economic expectations, setting out to people that we […]
Read MoreToday, the Chancellor unveiled a Budget widely trailed in the press. We’ll all be pouring over the documents in the next few days and I plan to speak on Monday. In the meantime, I thought this chart from the Budget Red Book was particularly revealing about our country’s position: It […]
Read MoreVia Time for the Lib Dems to blow the final whistle on national wage settlements: Unsurprisingly, recruitment and retention rates in the most deprived parts of the country are well below those of the more affluent. Under normal market conditions, this would be reflected in the pay and conditions: tougher […]
Read MoreAccording to a CEBR Report for the Fair Fuel UK campaign: Our findings suggest that a 2.5 pence reduction in fuel duty would result in the creation of 175 thousand jobs within a year and 180 thousand jobs within five years of such a reduction. Such a reduction, we estimate, would […]
Read MoreVia the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement (PDF), the revised trajectory of public sector net debt: City AM reported back in July on a poll that, asked whether the coalition would be keeping the national debt the same over the next four years, increasing it by £350bn or cutting it by £350bn. […]
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