Tax
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…
Only one tax cut can save Rishi Sunak now
Rishi Sunak’s promises on tax are lacklustre. He’s announced a fiddly one-off tax break on energy that will last for just a…
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…
Barometer
Off duty How many non-doms are there in the UK? – In the year ending 2020, 75,700 people filled in…
The war on workers
It is been a familiar story in recent years: a Budget that sounded reasonably good when delivered, but that unravels…
The price of youth
In evolutionary terms, it is obvious why we get more conservative with age. Two strong forces, acting in the same…
Is Biden trying to crash the economy?
A war is raging in Ukraine. Inflation has risen to a 30-year high and may have started to spiral out…
Sunak’s choice
The Office for Budget Responsibility was designed to protect the Chancellor from accusations that he is cooking the books. If…
Sunak’s salami slice
Next month, Rishi Sunak will break a Tory manifesto pledge by increasing National Insurance as the tax burden heads to…
Guess who set the most dangerous precedent for windfall taxes?
Annual profits of £9.5 billion at BP this week followed a £20 billion jackpot at Shell last week, thanks to…
Waiting game
Who really controls the NHS?
After Omicron
Covid-19 is in decline in Britain, with Omicron cases now falling as fast as they rose. The booster programme —…
Get ready to start paying the cost of Covid
Forget the desirability (or lack thereof) of tax hikes: can Britain survive them? That’s the economic question that kicked off…
Does Boris believe in Brexit?
For once, yesterday’s Downing Street press conference included a worthwhile question, and not of the ‘why aren’t you locking us…
A global corporation tax is a terrible mistake
International cooperation is alive and well – at least when it comes to raising taxes. One hundred and thirty six…
Could the squeeze on living standards bring down Boris?
There is about to be a two-phase onslaught on the living standards of those on low-to-middling incomes. On 1 October…
Portrait of the week
Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, announced a new tax in the Commons branded a ‘health and social care levy’.…
The assetocracy
Why politicians are competing to bribe the affluent
Boris is in dangerous territory
The announcement of a tax increase for both workers and employers to fund more spending on health and social care…
Barometer
Floating vote Voters in St Petersburg were presented with three candidates all calling themselves Boris Vishnevsky, with two believed to…
Why didn’t Tory MPs oppose Boris’s tax hike?
Boris Johnson has just announced his plans to increase National Insurance by 1.25 per cent for both workers and employers…
Why Johnson’s tax gamble will pay off
Boris Johnson’s announcement today, promising he will fix the £15 billion hole in health and social care, may well be…
Hitting homes
The government’s social care reform plans are all wrong
The tax-and-spend Tories
When you ask a government minister why something hasn’t happened, you get a one-word answer: ‘Covid’. It has become the…
How do the Tories stop the rise of an ever-bigger state?
When Gordon Brown raised National Insurance in 2002 to put more money into the health service, it was seen as…
