Tag Archives: chris giles

Nick T

Labour’s VAT cut: bad economics and disingenuous politics

By Nick T | Thu 2nd May 2013 - 8:23 am

In the run-up to today’s county council elections, Ed Miliband has been taking to a wooden pallet in towns and villages around the UK, telling anybody who would listen about Labour’s plan to rescue the British economy by temporarily reversing the 2.5 percentage point increase in the rate of VAT.

Desperate, though, to avoid admitting this would involve a significant increase in borrowing, he’s been telling us that this would actually be a free tax cut because the economic growth that resulted from it would increase revenues by more than the upfront cost.

That unlikely-sounding claim was given short shrift by …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 32 Comments
Nick T

Welfare: right policy, wrong reasons?

By Nick T | Thu 10th January 2013 - 10:34 am

Many column inches have been filled with comment over the government’s decision to restrict a number of benefits and tax credits to increases of 1% over the next couple of years.

This piece (£), however, by the FT’s economics editor, Chris Giles, warrants a special mention, not least because it is makes some interesting points that nobody else seems to have done.

Here’s a (fairly lengthy) extract:

In any case, good evidence exists on living standards to assess the merits of restricting benefit uprating. According to the most recent year of data, 2010-11, the crisis has caused real household net incomes around the

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged | 16 Comments
Nick T

The Weekend Debate: Bank of England independence – an economic success story or a well-intentioned failure?

By Nick T | Sat 12th May 2012 - 12:27 pm

Here’s your starter for ten in our weekend slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…

The Liberal Democrat 1997 manifesto said the following:

We will turn the Bank of England into a UK Reserve Bank, free from political interference. We will charge the Bank with keeping inflation low and make it accountable to Parliament for achieving this goal.

Of course after Labour’s landslide victory in that election, one of Gordon Brown’s first decisions as chancellor was to borrow this Lib Dem policy and essentially transfer responsibility for monetary policy to the Bank of England.

Most Labour politicians look back on …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged and | 12 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Nonconformistradical
    @David Raw "A few facts before the few remaining nonconformist radical little blue ribbon temperance Liberals decide to leave this party. I, for one, dislike h...
  • paul barker
    The Green Party motion was a great example of the dishonesty that puts a lot of people off Politics. At no point does it actually call for the Dissolution of I...
  • David Warren
    The Green Party has been captured by similar forces to those that did the same thing to Labour during the Corbyn era. The problem they will have in the future i...
  • David Warren
    As the successor party to the one that raised taxes on the wealthy to fund the introduction of old age pensions I don't see why Liberals are now looking at taki...
  • David Allen
    Expats, I agree with you. The first sentence of Jana's post, with which I completely agree, didn't explicitly contain the word "Zionism", but that's what she w...