OBR growth forecast ‘will be halved’ March 21, 2025 Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ hopes for growth are set to be shattered as another forecaster looks to downgrade expectations. The Bank of England halved its growth forecasts from 1.5 per cent to 0.75 per cent in February while the OECD recently dropped predictions the UK would expand by 1.7 per cent. Now The Telegraph is reporting [...]
Walls close in for Rachel Reeves as borrowing shoots up March 21, 2025 Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s headroom is shrinking as government borrowing in February exceeded the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) prediction, new data showed. Reeves has insisted that financial prudence is key to the government’s economic agenda. But the latest data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggests she has less headroom than expected. The [...]
Inheritance tax receipts reach record high March 21, 2025 Inheritance tax receipts totalled £7.6bn in the last 11 months, a record high and surpassing last year’s full-year total of £7.5bn. Data from HMRC revealed today that the amount paid in tax was an 11.8 per cent increase from the same period last year. “It may only affect a small percentage of estates, but that [...]
UK ambassadors to have growth ‘KPIs’, foreign secretary tells trade summit March 21, 2025 The UK’s ambassadors will have “KPIs that contribute to our economic growth” as diplomats shift to a more economic mindset, the foreign secretary has said. David Lammy told an audience of businesses that he wants the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to become the “international delivery arm of the government’s missions, the first of [...]
Ukraine peacekeeping talks reaching ‘military plan’ stage, says Starmer March 20, 2025 Talks on the Ukraine peacekeeping force are reaching the stage of a “military plan” aimed at “keeping the skies safe”, Sir Keir Starmer has said. The Prime Minister has said the “timetable now is coming into focus”, and that if a deal comes to fruition, the so-called ‘coalition of the willing’ needs to be ready [...]
Week in Business: Is Keir Starmer leading the UK into recession? March 20, 2025 Following the PM's punchy op-ed in City AM, Editor Christian May gives his reaction to Starmer's article and puts the Prime Minister's prose in context.
Voters will punish Labour if rhetoric on welfare doesn’t match reality March 20, 2025 Much like the previous Tory administration, this Labour government’s political downfall risks being driven by a vast gap between its promises and actual delivery, says Matthew Lesh The government has announced reforms aimed at getting the rising number of post-Covid jobless into the workforce and reducing the welfare bill. The Prime Minister presents the initiative [...]
Defence: Building submarines is ‘blueprint’ for UK growth, Starmer says March 20, 2025 Building new submarines in Barrow-in-Furness is a “blueprint” for how increasing defence spending can boost prosperity across the UK, the Prime Minister has said. Sir Keir Starmer made the comments ahead of a visit to the town at the heart of Britain’s submarine-building industry. Sir Keir is expected to lay the keel for the next [...]
Jeremy Hunt: OBR ‘overly exaggerated’ Brexit impact March 19, 2025 Former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has criticised the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) for making “overly exaggerated” claims about Brexit’s impact on the economy. The OBR released a series of gloomy predictions in recent years claiming that Brexit had stifled growth and wrecked trade. But Hunt has claimed that leaving the European Union has in fact [...]
More than half of Brits are ‘reliant on the state’, think tank says March 19, 2025 More than half of the UK population are reliant on the state for income, a leading think tank has said. Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall on Tuesday announced a string of welfare reforms aimed at getting Brits back into the workforce. But the Adam Smith Institute (ASI) has suggested that the number of those [...]