This article was first published by The Independent. One of the good ideas in yesterday’s Autumn Statement was the scrapping … Continue reading “Autumn Statement: splashing central government money around is not ‘devolution’”

There have been four budget or budget-like statements in less than a year now. That’s four opportunities for the Chancellor … Continue reading “Damian McBride is right: George Osborne maintains broad spending aim, but increasingly resembles Brown”

For the third time in a year, tomorrow, George Osborne will take to the despatch box to deliver a budget … Continue reading “This Autumn Statement could significantly change the UK state”

This article is based on David B. Smith’s Politeia paper ‘The UK Government Spending Ratio: Back to the 1930s?’. Some … Continue reading “Government spending: ‘Back to the 30s’ claims are nonsense on stilts”

Fall-out from the Autumn Statement next week is likely to focus heavily on the slowdown in deficit reduction. Borrowing has … Continue reading “Ditch the structural deficit: Why Osborne has struggled to hit this moving target”

The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement certainly contained some good news – but not enough to justify the self-congratulation that we saw, … Continue reading “The Autumn Statement brought good news – but not enough for the self-congratulation we saw”

In a recent conference held at the IEA, there was much discussion of the Great Recession. How can we interpret … Continue reading “Ahead of the Autumn Statement George Osborne needs to understand the right type of heterodox economics”

Right from the start, the guiding question behind the coalition’s fiscal strategy has been ‘Which consolidation measures are least likely … Continue reading “Autumn Statement: the salami-slicing continues”

At the time of the last Autumn statement, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) was predicting growth of 0.7 per … Continue reading “The Chancellor is still gambling on strong medium-term growth”