Don’t blame austerity for the crumbling concrete, Osborne salvaged Britain’s deficit
If only the Conservatives had loosened the purse strings on public spending in the 2010s, the story now goes, all the decrepit buildings could have been fixed. “Austerity” has, of course, become the catch-all word describing the David Cameron and George Osborne policy of restrictions on public spending to control Britain’s financial deficit. This misperception […]
Corbyn is completely out of touch with the real debate about UK austerity
Following the Brexit vote, normal service seems to have resumed. A key question in economic policy since the General Election of 2010 has moved centre stage once again: should the government abandon austerity? At one level, the question has an easy answer. Interest rates are now so low that the UK government can borrow for 30 […]
Why austerity must be the order of the day for May’s chancellor
On the face of it, the Brexiteers have a bit of explaining to do. A week before the vote, Boris Johnson dismissed fears about the value of sterling, and accused the governor of the Bank of England of “talking the economy down”. Yet the economy does seem to have stalled, property funds have had to […]
No more whingeing, please. The recovery is solid.
Last month saw some very positive economic news. The US Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time in over seven years. The Bank of England reported on the major stress test of UK banks which it launched in March 2015. It concluded that “the banking system is capitalised to support the real economy […]
Psychology, not hard line maths, tells us why Osborne’s strategy is working
So, International Monetary Fund, wrong again! At the end of last week, the IMF abandoned its criticism of the UK government’s economic strategy. Christine Lagarde, the IMF chief, said her organisation had ‘underestimated’ the strength of the recovery in Britain. The IMF now believes that the UK will be the fastest growing of any major […]
Our economic recovery is real, but what we can still learn from the US?
Some people are never satisfied. The evidence is mounting that the UK economy is now on the path to recovery. But to those who denied the possibility of any economic revival at all under the policies of “austerity”, this is simply not good enough. It is the wrong kind of recovery, they say. Fuelled by […]
Tax cuts, public spending and morality
Kier Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, has vowed to ‘ramp up’ prosecutions against individuals for tax evasion five-fold in two years. He has made clear his plan to target middle-class earners, citing as examples ‘lawyers, tax consultants and plumbers’, an intriguing perspective on the British class system, or perhaps we are all middle-class now. […]
