Economy
What Miriam Cates gets right – and wrong – about declining fertility
Fulfil your civic duty. Get married. Have children. That was the message from Miriam Cates, the increasingly prominent Conservative backbencher, to guests…
The £5.4 billion government surplus masks a larger economic issue
There have been celebrations this morning about a government surplus of £5.4 billion last month, and people are even talking…
Government borrowing hits £27.4 billion
Rishi Sunak ruffled his own party’s feathers last week when – in reference to last autumn’s market turmoil – he…
The truth about corporate taxes
I’ve chosen to write about corporate tax rates this week not because they’re the sexiest subject available but because –…
Crisis
In his picture from 1932, ‘Derrière la gare Saint-Lazare’, Henri Cartier-Bresson caught the moment when a man in a hat…
After Trussonomics
What will the Halloween Budget bring?
Beyond Truss
Seldom has support for a government fallen so far, so fast. Polls show that 24 per cent of the public…
Truss is hurting the free-market cause
In theory, I should be delighted about the Liz Truss project. She is saying the things I’ve been arguing for…
Is Credit Suisse the tornado on the banking horizon?
Headlines about ‘alarm over CreditSuisse’ might be read as a sign of normality in financial news, rather than the reverse.…
Maybe Nanny does know best
Not least among the shivers down my spine as I listen to Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng pump up the…
City slickers’ reaction to Kwarteng’s unfunded plan is entirely rational
‘Fury at the City slickers betting against UK plc,’ shouted the Daily Mail on Tuesday, after Monday’s mayhem saw the…
No such luck
There was an article recently in the increasingly woke but still useful New Scientist which attempted to gauge the degree…
Portrait of the week
Home Kwasi Kwarteng, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, presented a far-reaching ‘fiscal event’ (ineligible to be called a Budget), said…
The audacity of Kwarteng’s tax cut for the rich
George Osborne dreamed about it and Rishi Sunak told friends that he’d like to do it if everything went well…
The painful road to lower inflation
In the end, it could have been worse. The Federal Reserve might have followed Sweden’s lead, with a whole one…
Never mind terrorising the Treasury, let’s see some energy-policy action
At His Majesty’s Treasury, it’s all looking a bit like Year Zero in revolutionary Cambodia. Kwasi Kwarteng’s first act was…
Full throttle
Can Liz Truss grow the economy?
A cocktail of misfortunes is hammering the pound
My predecessor Christopher Fildes looked at exchange rates through a cocktail glass: three negronis for the Italian lira equivalent of…
Are the markets scared of Liz Truss?
Look at the chart for interest rate expectations in isolation, and you might come to the conclusion that Rishi Sunak…
The three Trussketeers
Can a new economic plan get us through the winter?
Never mind the Bank’s mandate, clear out its board of directors
Liz Truss says she intends to review the Bank of England’s mandate, which has been fixed as a 2 per…
Money-saving tips to beat the gloomy GDP figures
We’ll find out shortly whether official statistics agree with economists surveyed by Bloomberg who say UK GDP probably shrank by…
An exercise in futility
It’s possible that I owe Joe Biden some sort of an apology, however mealy-mouthed it might be. Last week I…
Why Centrica is right to restore its dividend
‘What’s worse, they’re paying the profits to shareholders,’ said a grey-haired woman ahead of me in the Co-op queue. ‘Bloody…
The real difference between Sunak and Truss’s tax policies
The Tory leadership race is becoming a test of patience. Today Rishi Sunak has laid out his plan to slash…
