What has the horror at Grenfell Tower to do with economists? And what have the lives lost at Grenfell Tower to do with the government’s budget deficit? A great deal, I will argue here. When on Twitter a few days ago I raised the issue of the shared responsibility that economists have for this ghastly […]
Posts Tagged ‘George Osborne’
The Audacity of Osborne
Mar 20th, 2017 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.I hear tell of George Osborne applying for the Evening Standard vacancy only after other people came to him for advice on their applications. What a charmer. Still, his landing the editorship of London’s biggest free sheet is as shocking as it is audacious. How is it someone barely able to string a sentence together, […]
Share:
Rotten Tory ideology is laid bare by crisis in steel
Mar 31st, 2016 by Michael Burke.In order to defeat Osbornomics it is necessary to understand it. A central tenet is that the private sector is the key to prosperity and that therefore everything possible should be done to promote and encourage it. The state should shrink in order to release the inherent dynamism of the private sector. The argument runs […]
Share:
Is George Osborne finished?
Mar 23rd, 2016 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.They seek him here, they seek him there. Those lobby hacks seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven or is he in hell? That damned elusive … Chancellor of the Exchequer. Okay, so my reworked rhyme lifted from the Scarlet Pimpernel doesn’t work. But neither do Osborne’s sums, so all is balanced in the world. […]
Share:
Mr Osborne’s untruth: the chart that shames the Treasury
Mar 19th, 2016 by Jeremy Smith.There was much to disagree with in George Osborne’s Budget announced on Wednesday, in particular the increasingly foolish and damaging target to achieve an overall budget surplus of over £10 billion in 2019/20 and 2020/21 via further spending cuts. But one specific claim made by the Chancellor in his speech to the House of Commons […]
Share:
The crisis remains an investment crisis
Mar 8th, 2016 by Michael Burke.Prior to the recent G20 meeting leading international economic bodies such as the IMF and the OECD made tentative calls for increased investment, although this was often confused with increased spending. This is a belated or partial recognition of the real source of the crisis in the advanced industrialised countries. In terms of actual changes […]
Share:
No hiding place for Osborne
Jan 30th, 2016 by Matt Willgress.As George Osborne gets his excuses in early for the troubles to come, now is the time to expose the failures of ideologically driven austerity, writes Matt Willgress of the Labour Assembly Against Austerity The British mainstream media is now so clearly biased in favour of the ruling party it can sometimes seem as if […]
Share:
Alternative Autumn statements: continued Tory failure versus Corbynomics
Nov 25th, 2015 by Michael Burke.Having spectacularly failed in his stated goal of eliminating the deficit in the last parliament, George Osborne is repeating his experiment in this one. Both the June 2010 and 2015 Budgets proposed ‘fiscal tightening’ of £37 billion. In the first of these Budgets the main method was cuts in public spending. In the second it […]
Share:
Only Corbynomics can reverse the economic slowdown
Oct 30th, 2015 by Michael Burke.The British economy is slowing down. In the 3rd quarter of 2015 the economy had expanded by just 2.3% from the same period in 2014. This measure removes the volatility of erratic quarter to quarter movements in GDP. The most rapid pace of growth in this recovery has been the 3.1% recorded in the 2nd […]
Share:
The Tories’ tax credit cut will cause problems for them in 2020
Oct 21st, 2015 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.It’s proven to be the closest shave of Dave’s second term and would have thrown the government into chaos had the ayes won it. Tonight’s vote in the Commons, brought before the House by Labour, saw the noes (i.e. keep the cuts to working tax credits) win by 317 to 295 – a tiny sliver […]
