Tag Archives: economy

Nick T

LibLink: David Laws – George Osborne must stick to austerity Plan A

By Nick T | Tue 29th November 2011 - 9:57 am

Over at the London Evening Standard, Lib Dem MP for Yeovil and former Treasury chief secretary, David Laws, has a piece urging the chancellor to maintain the coalition’s deficit reduction plan to avoid importing the debt-driven eurozone crisis to Britain.

Here’s a sample:

Before the general election, many people said that a coalition would be weak and unstable. They don’t say that any more. By comparison with the eurozone and the US, our Government looks strong, stable and united. It is set to stay that way.

The Chancellor will be able to report that borrowing has been falling as planned. Borrowing from April

…

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged , and | 7 Comments
Mark Pack

Thinking long-term: the government’s alternative to PFI

By Mark Pack | Mon 28th November 2011 - 10:01 pm

Back in February I wrote about the government’s aim to think long-term and the problems with turning that rhetoric into action:

“We must think long term” is a common cry in politics and government. Far easier said than done, but whether it is investing in early years education, making decisions over building new physical infrastructure such as railways, setting rules for pensions or a myriad of other decisions, government repeatedly makes decisions which only work well if they are stuck to for a long period of time and whose positive impact may not be directly felt for many years. For

…

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Posted in News | 5 Comments
Tony Dolphin

The Independent View: 10 ways to promote growth

By Tony Dolphin | Fri 25th November 2011 - 3:48 pm

Ahead of every recent budget and autumn statement, the right-of-centre think tanks have come out with a set of recommendations that support the broad thrust of government policy and argue for more of the same. True to form, earlier this week Reform made the case for sticking to Plan A on deficit reduction, abolishing the 50p tax rate and cutting workers’ employment rights.

But, with the economy having grown by just 0.5 per cent over the last year, and the Prime Minister hinting in a recent speech to the CBI that the government’s deficit reduction plan is being blown off course, …

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Also tagged | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

Three cheers for inflation?

By Mark Pack | Fri 25th November 2011 - 10:45 am

Economist and economic historian Nicholas Crafts is back in the public eye with a new pamphlet for CentreForum. Those with long memories of his previous controversial stances won’t be surprised to know this pamphlet does not take a mainstream approach to economic history or economic policy, instead praising part of the 1930s and calling for more inflation.

The two are linked because he splits Britain’s economic record in the 1930s in two, arguing that in the second half of the 1930s higher prices helped fuel a strong economic recovery:

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 8 Comments
Ed Maxfield

Opinion: Will Hutton and his killer fact – the questions that need an answer

By Ed Maxfield | Tue 8th November 2011 - 10:20 am

We are all experts when we blog. So, let me break with convention and start by admitting I am no economist. What’s more, I really hope I am wrong.

If you read the discussion in the Observer on the future of the economy you might have been struck, like me, by what seemed to be a killer point from Will Hutton. Challenging the notion that government borrowing is unsustainable he pointed out that when he was a child in the 1950s the level of borrowing was even higher as a proportion of national income than it is now. Doesn’t that …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 30 Comments
The Voice

10 Lib Dems call for emergency recovery programme

By The Voice | Tue 1st November 2011 - 12:19 pm

From today’s Guardian:

We write to express broad support for the Compass Plan B proposals reported in the Observer (30 October). We are Liberal Democrat members who have campaigned hard for decades in national and local elections. We have also engaged in our party’s policymaking. For both reasons, we take seriously the policies on which we fought the last general election, in particular the belief that the Conservatives’ economic proposals would have dire consequences.

In May 2010, our party signed up, through the coalition agreement, to a series of policies against which it had recently campaigned. But out of responsibility to the …

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , , , , , and | 53 Comments
David Thorpe

Opinion: How the latest economic data vindicates the Coalition’s strategy

By David Thorpe | Fri 28th October 2011 - 11:55 am

Two pieces of economic data have emerged on the British economy over the past week, and while they paint a somewhat contrasting picture of the economic climate, the main picture which emerges is that the Coalition’s strategy is broadly correct.

The latest inflation statistics show that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is now about 5%, significantly higher than the Bank of England’s target of 2%. It seems to me that the Coalition’s single greatest error on the economy since coming to power has been to underestimate the rate of inflation.

But in this they have not been alone. The received wisdom …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 13 Comments
Paul Walter

PMQs: Nadine Dorries asks question. No-one dies.

By Paul Walter | Wed 26th October 2011 - 6:54 pm

Today was the fiftieth anniversary of Prime Minister’s Questions. And it was a fairly typical session. As always, it was in two parts.

Part one: Lots of jeering, cheering, knockabout, winding-up and prepared lines exchanged between the PM and opposition leader.

Part Two: Generally hum-drum but important questions from various back-benchers, largely heard in earnest silence.

The bit that most people will see will be the short bit on the telly, which will be a few seconds of ya-boo politics. In itself, that is a good piece of democracy in that it highlights the weaknesses of the government and the opposition. The longer …

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Posted in Europe / International and PMQs | Also tagged , , , , and | 5 Comments
Paul Walter

PMQs: Ed Miliband just about hits the barn door

By Paul Walter | Wed 12th October 2011 - 1:53 pm

From memory, this was the first time the Cameron/Miliband exchange centred wholly on the economy.

There was plenty of ammo for Miliband to fire at Cameron. Unemployment up to its highest for 15 years. Women’s unemployment at its highest since 1988. Youth unemployment at its highest since 1992. He started with a quote from David Cameron himself saying that “Unemployment will fall this year, next year and the year after”. (Bit of daft hostage to fortune that was.)

Cameron was well armed with all the programmes the government is starting: Welfare to Work programme, Welfare reform, Apprenticeships etc etc. And we have …

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Posted in News, Parliament and PMQs | Also tagged , and | 14 Comments
Nick Clegg MP

Nick Clegg’s speech on the economy – text in full

By Nick Clegg MP | Wed 14th September 2011 - 1:23 pm

DPM-LSE-14Sept11_8846

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg delivered a speech on the economy at the LSE this morning. Here’s the full text:

Good morning. Today I’m going to talk about the economy. I’m certainly in the right place. For more than a century LSE scholars have been at the forefront of every major economic debate asking – and answering – the most pressing questions of the day.

Today, the big question facing governments is this: Given the unprecedented pressures in the global economy, what can we do to restore stability and encourage growth?

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Posted in Speeches | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , and | 9 Comments
The Voice

Vince: This isn’t a banking crisis, this is a debt crisis

By The Voice | Sat 6th August 2011 - 1:45 pm

Lib Dem business secretary Vince Cable has sought to reassure the British public that the financial crisis currently destabilising the markets is substantially different to the 2008 crash which sparked the ‘credit crunch’ and recession.

While the Lehmans-triggered crash left the British economy reeling because of the knock-on effect on our banking-reliant financial services sector, notes Vince, this current crisis is the result of the markets’ failure to be convinced by the US and Eurozone efforts to curb sovereign debt — whereas the Coalition’s austerity measures to cut the deficit have the confidence of the markets.

Here is Vince speaking on the BBC today:

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 2 Comments
Nick T

“From hero to zero and back again” – Vince Cable profiled in the Independent on Sunday

By Nick T | Mon 1st August 2011 - 10:27 am

Yesterday’s Independent on Sunday featured a profile of business secretary Vince Cable. Vince’s stock certainly appears to risen in recent weeks, his reputation for prescience partially restored by the woes of the Murdoch empire.

But it is his real passion – economics – on which the piece focuses. With the spending review and tuition fees out of the way, what can Vince and his department do to improve the lackluster growth figures?

Well, George Osborne has his Plan A, but Vince has his Plan A+:

“Plan A+ is about really mobilising growth, thinking outside the box, not breaking your fiscal rules –

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 8 Comments
Stephen Tall

Forget about abolishing Labour’s shadow cabinet elections, Ed. That’s not the battle you need to win.

By Stephen Tall | Sat 25th June 2011 - 5:45 pm

It’s been a tough few weeks for Labour leader Ed Miliband, with increasing mutterings internally and in the media with his performance, culminating in this week’s ICM poll showing him to be less popular than Nick Clegg.

On the upside, he’s starting to score points off David Cameron at PMQs, a crucible of irrelevance to actual politics but crucial in shaping personality-obsessed journos’ perceptions. And, with today’s interview in the Guardian, he’s proposed a ‘reform agenda’ to open up the Labour party — in his words, “in order to have a good conversation at party conference, you’ve …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 7 Comments
Stephen Tall

Does Labour have a ‘Plan B’ for the economy at the next election?

By Stephen Tall | Sun 19th June 2011 - 9:15 am

The question is repeatedly asked of the Coalition and its economic policy of deficit reduction: do you have a Plan B? (It is, by the way, a ludicrous question to ask — Steve Richards, the left-leaning Independent commentator, has acknowledged as much: ‘The debate is silly because no Chancellor can acknowledge an alternative route in advance.’)

But if the question’s going to continue to be asked, let’s at least do it the justice of turning it round: does Labour have a Plan B? The thought was in particular prompted by this excellent post — unambiguously titled, Labour must stop …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 8 Comments
David Thorpe

Opinion: The best way to get banks to lend more is to reduce the deficit

By David Thorpe | Mon 25th April 2011 - 1:58 pm

From among the blizzard of economic forecast, commentary and political point scoring which presently dominates the airwaves, there is very little consensus but the need to get the banks to lend more is something which brings all sides of the debate together.

The dividing line appears to be on how best to achieve this.

Those who subscribe broadly to the neo-classical or neo-liberal economic world view believe that banks will start wanting to lend as the economy recovers and businesses become more viable. This ‘leave it to the market’ approach is something which Lib Dems should (and do) reject, not just on …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 4 Comments
Iain Roberts

Economy shrinks by 0.5%

By Iain Roberts | Tue 25th January 2011 - 12:08 pm

Initial economic figures for the UK surprised economists with the news that the economy shrank by 0.5% in the fourth quarter of 2010, and would have been “flattish” without the impact December’s bad weather.  This follows four quarters of growth and will raise concerns over whether the figures mark a short term blip or a worrying longer trend.

As the BBC reports, a surprise 3.3% contraction in the construction industry has worried analysts, whilst the strongest growth came from manufacturing.

Posted in News | 67 Comments
Iain Roberts

The Lib Dems need to complete their economic story

By Iain Roberts | Fri 14th January 2011 - 10:05 am

All parties strive to have a narrative that makes sense to the voters and gets across the key messages the party wants the voters to hear.

The Lib Dems have a narrative – a story – about the economy, but it’s not being heard by enough of the people the party needs to win back. One reason is that the story has a beginning and a middle but lacks a proper ending.

The three main parties all have their economic stories for voters.

The beginning of each is a tale of financial woe. In Labour’s version (at least until …

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Posted in Op-eds | 69 Comments
David Thorpe

Opinion: Coalition must resist the easy option of raising interest rates

By David Thorpe | Sat 1st January 2011 - 1:20 pm

When historians looking back on Gordon Brown’s career are searching for an epitah, they may well settle on the former Chancellor’s claim to have “abolished boom and bust”.

Questionable at the time it was uttered, the crash of 2008 rendered it a nonsense, but there are lessons to be learned for the coalition as they try to unravel the mess left by the Labour Government. The comment mentioned above is an example of a Chancellor falling victim to hubris, and the Coalition must be careful to not to be afflicted by the same condition.

Inflation and how best to prevent it wrecking …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 22 Comments
Mark Pack

The Liberal Democrat challenges for 2011: the economy

By Mark Pack | Mon 20th December 2010 - 11:25 am

This is the first in a series of posts on the main Liberal Democrat challenges for 2011 we’re running over the festive season. You can find all the posts as they appear here.

The state of the economy is central to the fate of the Liberal Democrats, both because it is so important in shaping people’s perceptions of the government and also because the better the economy does the more scope there is to get public interest in Liberal Democrat achievements in other areas. No matter how wonderful the government’s green achievements, for example, they would get very little attention …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 23 Comments
George Kendall

Opinion: why I still support the Lib Dems

By George Kendall | Tue 14th December 2010 - 12:38 pm

This has been a hard few months, and there’s been a lot of discussion about why some people no longer support the Lib Dems. But there’s a lot of us who still do. I thought readers of LibDemVoice might be interested in a thread where a few of us explain the reasons why we are still enthusiastic supporters of the party.

Here’s why I am:

Many leftwing commentators write as if there weren’t a £150bn deficit. If the coalition give this as an excuse for the severe cuts, some sigh in frustration, as if this were a tired excuse.

But the …

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 80 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDV survey: What Lib Dem members think of the Coalition’s economic policies, housing benefit, and the CSR

By Stephen Tall | Fri 12th November 2010 - 2:28 pm

Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of the contest for the party presidency, the Comprehensive Spending Review, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Almost 600 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results over the next few days.

What Lib Dem members think of the Coalition’s economic policies

Which of these statements comes closest to your opinion about how the Coalition should go about reducing the deficit?

    45% – It is important to cut spending quickly even if this means immediate job losses, because it will be better

…

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged , and | 36 Comments
Geoff Crocker

Opinion: Martians report humans are mad (particularly Brits) – they are cutting their own economy

By Geoff Crocker | Thu 4th November 2010 - 10:55 am

Some time ago a TV ad reported the bemusement amongst Martians at human behaviour with mashed potato. They fell over themselves laughing at how we humans grow potatoes in the ground, collect them, peel them, boil them in water, cut them up and then smash them to pieces before eating them. Very bizarre behaviour! Martians began to worry whether humans were sane or not.

Now the Martian press is equally dumbfounded at reports coming from planet Earth that humans are cutting their own production economies because they say they don’t have enough money.

Martians always thought that humans made this …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 23 Comments
John Roffey

Opinon: the unchallenged global free market

By John Roffey | Mon 18th October 2010 - 1:55 pm

Although the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, which completed the UK’s political union with the EU, is a change which significantly disenfranchised the electorate our surrender to the global free market and all that it entails occurred far less obviously and has had a much greater obvious impact.

The promise of this free market is that the whole of the world’s population can share in the affluence which has been, until now, the prerogative of the West. I pointed out in my article concerning the minimum wage that the seeking out of the cheapest labour by the global corporations …

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Posted in Op-eds | 33 Comments
Geoff Crocker

Opinion: revisit economic theory before cutting the real economy

By Geoff Crocker | Sun 17th October 2010 - 4:31 pm

The UK is now in a great rush to reduce GDP in order to reduce the financial deficit. But before we frame economic policy, we need to revisit  economic theory, in particular the theory of money and macroeconomic demand theory.

On the theory of money

Money is an artefact, not a real physical commodity. It does not obey the laws of thermodynamics – it can be created and destroyed. The idea that macroeconomic budgets have to be balanced is a category error. It takes a microeconomic simplicity, that individuals or firms have to balance their budgets, and falsely transfers this to macroeconomics. …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 43 Comments
George Kendall

Opinion: so you want to be Chancellor?

By George Kendall | Fri 3rd September 2010 - 11:57 am

This thread is for you to say what you think should be done about the deficit.

  1. How much do we need to cut the deficit by?
  2. When should we start cutting?
  3. Over how many years should we cut it?

Let’s leave the detail of what taxes to raise, what services to cut, and what the ratio should be between tax rises and spending cuts. There are other threads to discuss those issues.

Let’s also leave the partisan politics to one side. These are difficult questions, no one really knows the right answer. And the answers aren’t necessarily leftwing or rightwing. So …

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Posted in Op-eds | 17 Comments
Stephen Tall

Tax cuts vs Public spending: Danny Alexander’s comments flag up the Coalition arguments to come

By Stephen Tall | Sun 29th August 2010 - 4:37 pm

I’ve been critical these past few weeks of the news media’s obsessional search to put a cigarette paper between Coalition politicians: mostly these have been the product of journalists’ desperation to fill space.

But today’s interview in the Observer with Lib Dem chief secretary to the treasury Danny Alexander is, I think, significant for the future of the Lib/Con partnership.

… Alexander makes clear that total tax revenue will have to remain at least at current levels throughout the parliament to put the nation’s finances back in order.

“I think the tax burden is necessary as a significant contribution to

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 21 Comments
Stephen Tall

100 Days: the Coalition is still enjoying a honeymoon

By Stephen Tall | Wed 18th August 2010 - 2:15 pm

Last month, YouGov’s Peter Kellner penned a rather premature post, which stated categorically: The honeymoon is over. I took him to task at the time, and stand by my view that the Coalition is still regarded generally favourably by a plurality of the public.

It’s been interesting, then, to read some of the barrage of opinion polling which has greeted the Coalition’s first 100 days. Perhaps most significant is this article in The Guardian – Coalition winning argument on economy – detailing ICM polling which shows 44% believe the coalition is doing a good job in securing economic …

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Posted in Op-eds and Polls | Also tagged and | 13 Comments
Alex Marsh

Opinion: there’s no pleasure in saying ‘I told you so’ – but does it need saying?

By Alex Marsh | Thu 12th August 2010 - 1:22 pm

Clarity of purpose is a virtue. But stubbornness doesn’t necessarily win any plaudits when more flexibility is appropriate. The shock tactics of Osbornomics have now been fully embraced. The message is clear: this Coalition is not for turning.

In the run up to the Election the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats adopted distinctive positions on the best approach to cutting the fiscal deficit. Despite Nick Clegg’s apparent secret conversion to the Conservative position of early and deep cuts, the LibDem manifesto commitments were directed at cutting in 2011/12 and after, and the rhetoric around budget reductions was to proceed at a …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 58 Comments
David Thorpe

Opinion: Economic data a vindication of Coalition strategy on the economy

By David Thorpe | Wed 28th July 2010 - 2:40 pm

Amid the gloom of cuts, the opinion polls and the encroachment of dull weather this week it’s easy to grasp at any positive straw one can find to cheer us up.

But the recent economic growth figures which were announced really are a positive on several levels and a vindication of the strategy which the coalition is pursuing.

The principal criticisms of the coalition plans have been that withdrawing support from the economy too early could lead to a double dip recession, the latest growth figures indicate that the economy is entering a period of more robust growth, and with …

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Posted in Op-eds | 77 Comments
Stephen Tall

Should this poll result worry us?

By Stephen Tall | Fri 26th March 2010 - 6:45 pm

Today’s BBC Daily Politics / ComRes poll asking which of the three major parties’ leadership teams is more trusted to steer the economy through the current downturn has caused a bit of a stir – it shows Labour’s duumvirate of Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling out ahead of the Tories, an about-turn on three months ago.

Here are the results:

    Putting your party allegiance aside, who do you trust most to steer Britain’s economy through the current downturn?
    Gordon Brown & Alistair Darling 33% (+7% on Dec 2009)
    David Cameron & George Osborne 27% (-6%)
    Nick Clegg & Vince Cable 13% (-6%)
    Don’t know

…

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Posted in Polls | Also tagged , and | 11 Comments
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