Monthly Archives: June 2010

Today at the European meeting David Cameron should allow France and Germany to impose new controls on the budgets and economic policies of Eurozone members – they need them. You can’t have an effective single currency without having a single economic government. The borrowings of one are the borrowings of all to some extent, so [...]

I am relieved there have been so few goals and exciting football in the World Cup, as I have been too busy to watch apart from the England match. Why don’t they abolish the offside rule so we could then tune in and see more action in a new tournament? Cricket had to invent 20/20 [...]

One cheer for the decision to get rid of the FSA. Another cheer for putting all regulation of the banks together at the Bank of England. These are both things I have argued for ever since Gordon Brown foolishly split banking regulation in 1997. We warned that Brown’s bodged regulatory structure was likely to be [...]

The oil spill in the Gulf makes both the US and the UK poorer. The Gulf states lose oil, tourism and fishing business. They are seeking the $20 billion from BP for starters to make up for some of their losses. They are taking it from a global company which generates a lot of its [...]

Last night in the Commons the new government brought forward proposals to create a better and stronger Parliament. There will be a September sitting, so the government does not go from July to October without Parliament to ask awkward questions. The Commons will have a backbench Business Committee with time to allocate as we see [...]

The Office for Budget Responsibility produced a new and much lower forecast for growth. Out has gone the old government’s heady and unrealistic trend rate of growth of 2.75%. In has come the new age of austerity 2.1% long term rate. The OBR does think the next three years will see a trend of 2.25% [...]

We now know what Labour thought the answer was to this problem. Over the thirteen years of left of centre government the maximum tax take was in 2007-8, when taxes took 36.4% of all our incomes or GDP. This compared with the Conservative high of 38.2% in 1982-3 when the then Conservative government was tackling [...]

Alan Budd’s job at the Office of Budget Responsibility is to inject realism into the inherited forecasts from Mr Darling’s Treasury. He inherits some racy forecasts for economic growth. The last government thought the UK economy would sprint to growth of 3-3.5% next year, and stay above 3% for the following two years. The average [...]

Yesterday I was asked to speak to a ruling group of Councillors – not in Wokingham. They wanted my advice on how to cut their budget more. I asked if they had imposed a staff freeze to take advantage of natural wastage. They said they had, but then confessed that in the case of the [...]

I have been sifting through CVs and application letters. Many of the applicants have come from the 20 something generation. Many of these young people have never held a full time job paying a sensible rate of pay. They have moved from temporary post to Job experience, from volunteer to Intern. They have found the [...]