Monthly Archives: June 2011

              Yesterday’s papers were alight with jeremiah comments saying the economic strategy could not work and we need a Plan B. The headlines and quotes often said the Chancellor needed to slow the pace of the spending cuts, yet the truth kept popping out of the analysis. Both the Observer and Guardian allowed statements that [...]

                 The government has three main arguments for supporting Euroland countries with bail out money. The first is the EU market and banking systems are important to UK prosperity. The second is the UK does not have to put up new cash, as the IMF, the European Financial Mechanism and the European Central Bank [...]

                   This week’s commuters’ survey should not have come as a huge surprise. There have been many studies of transport patterns before, and all have shown that outside London most people travel by car. Bus and train take less than 10% of the average market unless you are talking about rush hour travellers into [...]

  For most of the last year I have been explaining that the public sector squeeze much commented on and debated has hardly started, whilst the private sector squeeze thanks to inflation and tax rises is tough. The latest figures support those forecasts. Over the last year public spending rose more than 5% in cash [...]

  Many people in the EU think EU countries should be able to carry on with state spending at ever higher levels. They also seem to go along with a political class which by and large stands behind banks whatever balance sheet horrors they throw up, probably because the banks also lend lots of money [...]

  The last government made much of the supposed independence of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. The present government  places similar emphasis on the independence of the Office of Budget Responsibility. Both bodies find forecasting their main targets difficult. The Bank of England has regularly had to revise its forecasts for [...]