The House of Commons Library has just produced a briefing note, “Government borrowing, debt and debt interest: historical statistics and forecasts”. It shows historical statistics for Public sector net borrowing (PSNB) – current account borrowing; Public sector net debt (PSND) – government debt…Read more…
What happened and why?
These are some brief initial observations on the outcome of the General Election. Understanding exactly what happened in the General Election will take some time. It makes no sense to draw hasty conclusions on what is a complicated outcome in which a number of different trends appear to have…Read more…
Fantasy Island
Fantasy Island George Osborne’s Budget speech reminded me of the old saying, an empty vessel makes the most noise. He was talking about a fantasy island of his own imagining far removed from the real country in which all the victims of his austerity programme live. True, as journalist Paul…Read more…
Breaking the link between funding and social needs – local government finance
The funding of local government has been notoriously complicated, subject as it has been to constant changes by governments in the methods of funding. However, since 1929 “it has been used to some degree to promote equalisation – that is, to ensure that the funding available to local authorities…Read more…
Osborne’s “pointless machismo”
With the Chancellor’s autumn statement due next week, advance notice has been given of yet another political trick designed to put Labour on the spot. Osborne is proposing to introduce a law which will make it an obligation of the next government to end the ‘structural deficit’ by…Read more…
The FT throws a grenade at Osborne (and Balls)
Yesterday’s lead article on the front page of the Financial Times was positively incendiary (“Osborne faces doubling austerity cuts to £48 billion a year to hit targets“). David Cameron wrote last month that most of the cuts in the austerity programme had been achieved, with…Read more…
Government ‘economic fairytale’ unravels
In the first 6 months of the financial year, from April 2014, government borrowing was £58 billion. In September alone it was £11.8 billion. Total government debt in September was £100 billion higher than a year earlier, at £1.45 trillion. By the standard of its own aims this shows the failure of…Read more…