Monthly Archives: April 2009

Several people have reminded me that the government and Bank are going round in circles. They have sold £3.5 billion of 2015 stock, and bought back £3.5 billion of stock with maturities in the range 2014-18. They did the first to fully fund their spending. They did the second as part of their quantitative easing [...]

Yesterday I was asked to step in to speak to a lunch of Parliamentarians and business people in the House of Lords because the Governor of the Bank of England had cancelled. He was detained in the Bank, unable to get in and out easily owing to the protesters. I decided to develop two of [...]

You have to be power mad or government greedy to think the answer to our current economic problems is to tax lower tax countries more. Step forward Mr Sarkozy, threatening to wreck the summit if he doesn’t get his way. Step forward Mrs Merkel and the core EU to support him. You have to be [...]

Yesterday I tried to make it easy for the Chancellor. I asked him a question I have asked before, thinking this time he might have thought about it and have an answer to hand. I should have known better. I asked what limits he thought there needed to be to public borrowing in current conditions, [...]

Today’s gesture to cut back top civil service awards to just 1.5% will make practically no difference to the problem of controlling costs in the public sector, whilst annoying senior civil servants. I would think it fair if MPs had no pay rise this month, as long as pay rises were cancelled for anyone in [...]