I’ve had an unusual and vaguely discomfiting experience. I found myself largely in agreement with a leader in the Economist. I may need a lie down. I can console myself with the thought that what the Economist is saying – that the Conservatives’ fiscal plans for the next […]
I have to admit I found the whole situation rather discomfiting. Yesterday I found myself agreeing with George Osborne. Of course, as David Gillon (@WTBDavidG) pointed out on Twitter, we can all join George Osborne in agreeing that Iain Duncan-Smith is not perhaps the sharpest knife in the […]
Much of the media reporting of today’s IPPR briefing note on the economic recovery focused on the alarm it sounds about the rapid increase in household debt – in particular the risk that Help to Buy II will further increase house prices. The economy may give the appearance […]
Yesterday felt like a day of unanticipated juxtapositions. The major domestic political event was the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement. This has now morphed into a mini-budget so it will take a while to fully unpack precisely what Osbo’s proposed changes add up to. But he no doubt anticipated that […]
The Commentariat might, for once, be pretty much unanimous. The run up to General Election 2015 is going to be vicious. The focus isn’t going to be measured debate on the pressing issues of the day – when was the last time that happened? – but mud slinging […]
The more I think about economic policy the more I think that there isn’t a big enough dose of interpretivism applied to it. This thought recurred yesterday reading George Osborne’s set piece speech in which he, as Isabel Hardman of the Spectator put it, “trashed” Plan B. I […]
We’ve now had three years of the blue-tinged contingent of the Coalition perpetrating a sustained attack on social security recipients – those slugabed skivers – in the name of curbing the deficit. Yesterday’s post at the Guardian again maps the profoundly negative tone of the language that has […]
The objections to George Osborne’s latest wheeze to assist the housing market are hardly worth discussing. They are almost too obvious. And they have been rehearsed at length in relation to similar, smaller scale initiatives that have already been tried. The new “Help to Buy” scheme, announced in […]
The agenda for this year’s Liberal Democrat Spring Conference carries the strapline Stronger economy, Fairer society. Given the parlous state of UK plc, and the deeply inequitable impacts of the Coalition austerity policy, the strapline touches on two of the biggest issues of the day. So the unwary […]
Since they entered office the blue-tinged contingent of the Coalition has been engaged in a systematic process of stigmatising those in receipt of social security benefits. Great emphasis has been placed upon the undeserving and the fraudulent. There is support for the hard working strivers, but condemnation for […]
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