Economy

Sunday

David Blackburn

Shapps sharpens the Right to Buy

It’s a day for growth initiatives. In addition to those described earlier, George Osborne has announced that Whitehall’s annual underspend will be reinvested into capital spending projects. The emphasis on infrastructure echoes Danny Alexander’s statements during the Lib Dem conference, when the Treasury secretary disclosed that existing programmes would be brought forward and funded by recalibrating budgets. So there seems to be agreement between the two parties about bolstering the coalition’s growth strategy in a certain way, which may explain why the Tories are so determined to resist pressure to introduce politically awkward tax cuts. Grant Shapps has also been elaborating on the changes to the Right to Buy. He

David Blackburn

Hague: No deficit funded tax cuts

William Hague’s just been on Dermot Murnaghan’s Sky show. They shot the breeze for a bit, gabbing about foreign affairs and the recent targeted assassinations on Taliban and al Qaeda leaders, then the conversation moved on to tax cuts as an economic stimulus. Hague laughed off the suggestion, saying that the US is in its current crisis because for years it has concentrated on offering tax cuts rather than controlling its deficits. Britain will not make that mistake, he said. ‘No deficit funded tax cuts’ was a line first pursued by David Cameron ten days ago in a speech to the Canadian parliament (although, as Fraser has noted, it has

David Blackburn

Gabbing about growth

Growth is the word on Tory lips at present. David Cameron responded to Andrew Tyrie’s criticism when he arrived in Manchester yesterday evening, saying that the government has “an incredibly active growth strategy”. And there has been some ‘action on growth’ in the last 24 hours. The right-to-buy is being resuscitated. And the coalition has announced that it will release thousands of acres of publicly owned land to build 100,000 houses and support 200,000 jobs by 2015. The plan will be paid for by selling houses later down the line; the government hopes that the taxpayer will make a profit under this scheme. This reform might stoke the already over-heated

Saturday

Jonathan Jones

Briefing: QE2

Get ready for more Quantitative Easing. This week, Reuters found that economists think there’s a 40 per cent chance the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will announce another round when they meet on Thursday. And even if they hold off now, it’s unlikely to be for long. Weak growth and the worsening outlook for the economy seem to have changed minds. The Treasury has surveyed growth predictions from independent forecasters. Back in January, the average prediction was for 2 per cent growth in 2011. It has since fallen steadily to just 1.2 per cent. Similarly, expectations for 2012 have also been downgraded, from the 2.1 per cent growth

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Osborne and tax cuts

“Top Conservative despairs of Cameron growth plan,” says The Times’ front page today. While The Daily Telegraph’s reads: “No tax cuts before the next election, says Osborne”. The two stories are related. British economic growth is evaporating, and more than a few Tory MPs are worried that the Chancellor doesn’t have a coherent growth strategy and that he doesn’t seem to care. Osborne’s cheery interview with Robert Winnett and Ben Brogan will do nothing to allay such fears. He repeats his position on tax cuts: that, while desirable, they are likedessert once the nation has eaten its main course of cuts and tax rises. He appears to rule out using tax cuts

David Blackburn

Tyrie’s blast spices up pre-conference

Treasury Committee Chairman, Andrew Tyrie, has shaken the nascent Tory conference with a coruscating statement about the government’s growth plan and general legislative programme. He writes, in a detailed policy document for the Centre for Policy Studies that is political in its emphasis as much as it is economic: ‘There is much to do, and it is not just a question of gaps in policy. A coherent and credible plan for the long-term economic growth rate of the UK economy is needed. The Big Society; localism; the green strategy — whether right or wrong; these and other initiatives have seemed at best irrelevant to the task in hand, if not

James Plunkett

A reform the Tories should shout about

As of today, you can’t fire someone just for turning 65. The government has delivered its promise to scrap the Default Retirement Age (DRA), introduced by Labour in 2006 as a caveat to otherwise laudable equality legislation. This ends the practice of forced retirement regardless of someone’s ability to work. Killing it is one of the best things the coalition has done and the Tories should be making more of as they gather in Manchester. Of course, there will be some transition difficulties from scrapping (DRA), but they’re likely to be minor. Claims that older workers sticking around in their jobs will squeeze out the young are too simplistic –

Friday

David Blackburn

Osborne mulling child benefit u-turn

Eric Pickles makes no bones that his bin policy is aimed at Middle Britain, and the Tories may soon announce more measures to butter up that vital electoral constituency. The Times reports (£) that Cameron and Osborne are seriously considering a u-turn on their controversial cut to child benefits over families in which parent earns more than £42,475, which is due to be introduced in January 2013. George Osborne apparently never does anything unless it yields a political dividend and this is an intriguing development, if it materialises. It reiterates that the Tories know they have a woman problem; identified by Melanie McDonagh in a magazine cover piece earlier this

Thursday

David Blackburn

The guilty men’s misplaced loyalties

Here’s Peter Oborne in mid-season form on Newsnight last night, drawing on the book he previewed in his essential cover piece in last week’s issue of the Spectator, The Guilty Men. The spokesman from the European Commission makes a statement that exposes Brussels’ current helplessness, but his comment about the post-war era reveals what many pro-Europeans on the continent feel: the EU’s greatest achievement is to have secured peace and prosperity across a continent that had been at war for most of the previous 1,000 years; wars that obviously assumed terrible dimensions in the 20th Century. The spokesman also refers to the EU’s perceived second greatest achievement: the most complete welfare settlement in

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Miliband’s three mistakes

Three things puzzled me about Ed Miliband’s conference speech yesterday. First, I didn’t understand why Miliband did not attack Cameron for having talked about the need for ‘moral capitalism’ and then have not delivered it. It would have been far harder for Miliband’s speech to be caricatured as left wing if he had pointed out that Cameron had promised ‘to place the market within a moral framework – even if that means standing up to companies who make life harder for parents and families’ – and then not delivered on that pledge. The second thing was the absence of any policy at all. Any shadow minister sent out to defend the

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson

Miliband VS Predator

You can see what Ed Miliband was trying to do. As his party isn’t trusted on the economy (his number one problem) he had to say how much he admires business. But, then again, his party is bankrolled by unions who dislike capitalists. So, Ed Miliband draws a dividing line: the ‘predator’ companies (bad) and companies like Rolls Royce, for example, and presumably small businesses (good). Here is the new narrative of his leadership: Miliband vs Predator, coming to a cinema near you. But just like Cameron’s ‘runaway dads’, the concept of a predator company is easier to talk about in the abstract than in real life. Just what is a bad company? Asset

Clarissa Tan

Russia’s Kudrin quits – but how will he return?

The dramatic – some would say theatrical – exit of Alexei Kudrin as Russia’s finance minister couldn’t have come at a worst time. The world economy is incredibly fragile and oil prices are in flux. But is Kudrin, highly respected for his fiscal policies and a member of Putin’s inner circle, merely pushing for promotion? With the ruble slumping to a 28-month low yesterday, there are signs the market is worried over the loss of a finance minister who prudently curbed Russia’s budgetary excesses and far-sightedly built up its oil wealth funds. “Kudrin’s resignation will be a big blow for the Russian economy – experts are already forecasting a new wave

Jonathan Jones

How’s Miliband doing?

In a word: badly. Ed Miliband has now led Labour for a full year, but has made no progress with regards to its standings in the polls. When he took over, the Labour party was at 37 per cent in the polls, according to Ipsos MORI. Considering that 60 per cent give the Coalition government the thumbs down, he’s had ample opportunity to improve this figure. And yet he’s failed. In their latest poll, MORI again have Labour on 37 per cent.   When it comes to his own personal ratings, the picture is even worse. As Miliband has become more well-known and more people have formed an opinion of

Monday

Jonathan Jones

Balls’ Brownies

In his speech today, Ed Balls proved himself worthy of the “Son of Brown” tag, slipping in more than a few “Brownies”. I thought CoffeeHousers would be interested in some of the figures behind his claims… Balls claimed that “we went into the crisis with lower national debt than we inherited in 1997”. That is flatly untrue. Public sector net debt when Labour took over was £350 billion. In 2006-07 it was £500 billion. Even adjusting for inflation, Brown and Balls had added £62.8 billion in today’s money to the national debt they “inherited” by the time the crisis started: Balls’ defenders will say that he meant “debt ratio” – and, to

David Blackburn

The green threat to growth

Luciana Berger is a frequent speaker at this year’s conference and her creed is simple: tax energy use to tackle climate change. But, journey along the Mersey, from the glamorous fringe events held on Liverpool’s well rejuvenated quays to the post-industrial wasteland that lies beyond and you discover a different breed of Labour MP. ‘Is the green economy a threat to growth?’ asked Ellesmere MP, Andrew Miller at a seminar earlier this afternoon. Along with his panel – comprised of representatives from the chemical industry, the unions and of Michael Connarty, the MP for East Falkirk and a long-term advocate of the chemical industry – he reached the following conclusion: the current incarnation

Clarissa Tan

Euro-zonked

Well, so much for that. The FTSE 100 fell as much as 1.7 per cent this morning, while overnight the euro and Asian stock markets tumbled, after Europe’s leaders announced their grand 2-trillion-euro plan over the weekend to drag the Eurozone out of the mire. It appears the markets are well past the point of believing that political leaders can get us out of this mess. The consensus is that the plan is not concrete enough. Of course, equities may recover a bit later, as they have been prone to do in past days. But the whipsawing itself is the worst sign of all; stock investors and retail-end funds are

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

New Balls?

Given that Ed Balls’ strategy has backfired on his party so far, with Labour ten points behind the Tories on economic credibility, something has to change. Either the policies, or the shadow chancellor. Read between the lines of Balls’ speech today, and you can see a man backtracking – and trying to hold on to his job. Even when Balls tells porkies, he does so with imagination and élan. He is always worth listening to. He had the 8.10am slot on Today this morning. Here’s what jumped out at me: 1) Mea Culpa, kinda. The other day in the Commons, Balls said sorry – you could tell then that it’s

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

Miliband: cuts are okay now

I’ve just caught up with Ed Miliband on Marr this morning (transcript here) and his aim seemed to be burying Ed Balls’ complaint about cuts being too fast and too deep. In its place, he called for more growth. Here’s my take on his interview: 1) He doesn’t complain about cuts.  “The basic message is this: we’ve got to cut the deficit, but the best and most important way of doing that is to grow our economy… A year ago there was a contested argument whether the government strategy should work. It’s not working.” You don’t hear him talk about Ed Balls’ “too hard, too fast” cuts, just a reference

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Miliband’s growing argument

Ed Miliband turned in a crisp performance on the Andrew Marr show this morning. If he is having media training, it is paying off. In a clear sign of where Labour’s economic policy is heading, he constantly stressed that growth was the key to getting the deficit down. But he was far less clear on how he would stimulate the economy beyond a proposed cut in VAT. Miliband was also asked about his proposal to cut tuition fees to £6,000. I’m not convinced by the politics of this move. It leaves fees in place and raises them from where they were under the last government which is hardly a radical change or

David Blackburn

Leadership at last?

Most of today’s papers carry reports of a deal to relieve the European sovereign debt crisis. The details are varied, but it seems that 50 per cent of Greek debt will written off and the currency will be allowed to remain within the single currency. This means that banks that are exposed to Greek debt will incur potentially ruinous losses. The EFSF mechanism will probably be extended to cover those losses and guard against contagion. Estimates vary, but it seems the fund will have to increase to somewhere around 2 trillion euros if the mounting crises in Italy and Spain are to be contained. Britain’s exposure remains unclear at this