Brown shaves £3bn off budget deficit October 21, 2005 Chancellor Gordon Brown got off lightly yesterday when the public sector finance figures released by the Treasury looked much healthier than expected. However, analysts suspect some sleight of hand in the way the figure has been calculated. The budget deficit narrowed to £14.6bn for the first six months of fiscal year 2005-2006, down from £17.6bn [...]
FTSE falls to lowest level since July October 20, 2005 The FTSE fell to its lowest level since July as fears about rising interest rates wiped out value on stock exchanges across Europe. It emerged yesterday that the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted unanimously to keep British interest rates at 4.5 per cent. Analysts said that this signalled a rate cut to coincide with November’s [...]
US suffers shock inflation increase October 19, 2005 Inflation trends differed markedly on either side of the Atlantic yesterday, with the American producer prices (PPI) confounding analysts with their biggest gain in 15 years, but Britain got off lightly with a consumer price index (CPI) level of just 2.5 per cent. The American PPI shot up by 1.9 per cent on last month, [...]
Hawkish deputy governor quits October 18, 2005 Bank of England deputy governor Sir Andrew Large has resigned. He will be replaced by career civil servant Sir John Gieve. Large, who is leaving for the private sector, is commonly regarded as one of the more hawkish members of the all important Monetary Policy Committee. He voted against August’s 25 basis points rate cut [...]
New storm fears stoke up oil prices October 18, 2005 Oil prices leapt by more than $1 a barrel as tropical storm Wilma threatened to move into the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico by the end of the week. American crude was up by $1.27 to $64.05 by late afternoon yesterday. The storm has winds of 45 mph and s forecast to strengthen in the next [...]
Brown’s luck has ‘run out’ October 17, 2005 Gordon Brown cannot hide behind high oil prices, according to Ernst & Young’s influential ITEM Club. The group — which uses the same economic modelling system as the Treasury — said that the chancellor’s luck has run out and that the poor shape of the British economy is solely down to domestic failings. Chief economic [...]
BCC slams Brown’s ‘alarming’ trade figures October 14, 2005 The British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) piled the pressure on Chancellor Gordon Brown yesterday, calling Britain’s manufacturing figures “alarming”. Even worse, the struggling manufacturing sector missed out on a much-needed boost from Britain’s bigger service sector, which simply failed to materialise. Manufacturing’s domestic balance fell from 19 per cent in the second quarter to 3 [...]
OECD gloomy over 2005 growth October 13, 2005 The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) sided with hawks in the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee yesterday, saying there was no need for an interest rate cut despite a flagging economy. It also cut its 2005 forecast for British economic growth from 2.4 to 1.7 per cent in a report released yesterday. [...]