Labour hits out at £2bn ‘bombshell’ council tax rise November 26, 2020 Labour has hit out at Rishi Sunak for hiking council tax in yesterday’s spending review, claiming it was hidden in the text. The chancellor’s spending review yesterday gave all local authorities the power to increase council tax bills by two per cent without holding a referendum. Local authorities that manage social care institutions are able [...]
Covid crisis could slash wages by ‘£1,200 a year’ by 2025 November 26, 2020 The coronavirus pandemic will prolong Britain’s 15-year squeeze on household incomes and cut pay by £1,200 a year by 2025, according to a major think tank. In a stark report released today, the Resolution Foundation warned that despite politicians proclaiming an end to austerity, “its legacy will continue for many public services” throughout the course [...]
BoE boss says Rishi Sunak right to spend big on Covid November 26, 2020 Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey backed chancellor Rishi Sunak’s approach to the public finances, saying he is right to throw the might of the state behind the coronavirus suppression effort. “It is absolutely sensible that public resources, resources of the state, are being used to cushion the huge impact of this absolutely unprecedented shock,” [...]
Saving the nation from a crisis November 26, 2020 In the late 1970s when I was taught economics as an undergraduate, we were told that savings equalled investment (S = I). Of course, there were caveats, mainly that we were dealing with a closed economic system without international trade and finance — in other words, not an economy which actually exists in the real [...]
Rishi Sunak admits current UK borrowing is “not sustainable” November 26, 2020 Rishi Sunak has conceded that the current projections for UK borrowing are “obviously not sustainable”, after the chancellor yesterday unveiled huge economic interventions as part of his winter Spending Review. Sunak yesterday lifted total government spending on the Covid response to £280bn, as he vouched his commitment to “jobs, businesses and public services”. The chancellor [...]
Charity begins at home — which makes foreign aid more important than ever November 26, 2020 No one can have envied Rishi Sunak yesterday, for it was the chancellor’s task to unveil the Spending Review to the House of Commons, facing (we were told by the Treasury) the worst economic landscape since the Great Frost of 1709. Sunak strove for sombre and minatory, but he has not yet gained enough political [...]
IFS says Sunak likely to end up spending more than planned November 25, 2020 Chancellor Rishi Sunak is likely to end up spending more than he said he plans to in his spending review today amid “lasting damage” to the economy, the leading Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank and other experts have said. Sunak today said he would ramp up public spending to tackle coronavirus next year [...]
Editorial: No-deal Brexit and London lockdown would compound economic catastrophe November 25, 2020 It is hard to shake the suspicion that Rishi Sunak’s spending review is a political response to an economic catastrophe. Cutting foreign aid because of these exceptional circumstances makes sense. Time to tighten the belts, as they say. But then taking the saving and putting it into a pork barrel levelling-up fund? Those are political [...]
Government backtracks on full-fibre broadband rollout pledge November 25, 2020 The government has backtracked on its pledge to bring full-fibre broadband to the whole of the UK by 2025. The promise to reach all premises across the country with gigabit-capable speeds was a key part of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s manifesto at the last election. But in its national infrastructure strategy published today, the government [...]
Sunak’s tough choices: a sobering assessment November 25, 2020 Rishi Sunak’s spending review was a sobering assessment of not only the challenges facing the UK economy, but also the enormous economic damage created by the pandemic and the numerous lockdowns around the country, with the budget deficit for 2020 expected to come in at £394bn. The Chancellor said that the UK economy was likely [...]