Economics newsletter
How to solve the student debt crisis
England’s student debt is staggering. It comes to £270 billion – that’s larger than the budget for the NHS and two and a half times larger than the education budget. This arsenal of taxpayer-backed cash has seen the creation of 34 new universities just to feed an ever-hungrier mass of undergraduates. It’s forecast that by
Frugal chic, the movement changing the way women shop
It is, apparently, a novel concept in our age of overconsumption, that life can still be enjoyable even if you don’t have stupid money. ‘Frugal chic’ is the new lifestyle trend summed up by the 25-year-old influencer Mia McGrath, who coined and trademarked the term, as ‘living luxuriously while spending intentionally’. Frugal chic supposedly teaches
The rise of the pocket money app
I am standing in the village Co-op with my eight-year-old daughter when she asks, inevitably, to be bought a magazine. As most parents will know, magazine is a generous term for this iteration: a collection of sorry pages whose sole purpose is a vehicle for plastic toys. I say no, but then she blindsides me.
The taxman is coming for the self-employed
Spare a thought for Mrs McClafferty & Co. Like thousands of small business owners, she has spent years managing things the old-fashioned way: jotting down figures in a Silvine cash book, stuffing receipts into a shoebox and sorting it all out when the tax return comes around. But according to HMRC, taxpayers like her are
Inflation stalls before the energy shock hits
Prices rose by 3 per cent last month – the same rate as the month before. Figures just released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that – ironically – falling petrol costs were one of the main things keeping the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) from climbing. This data was, of course, collected before
Why the Iran oil crisis might not be as bad as we feared
Have markets and governments around the world horribly under-estimated the fallout from the war in Iran? That is the claim made by the president of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol, who says the effect of the closure of the Straits of Hormuz is the equivalent of the 1973 oil crisis and the 2022 gas
Brace yourself: inflation is coming
In a surprise to no one, the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has voted nine-zero to hold interest rates at 3.75 per cent. The unanimous decision is the first time the MPC have been in complete agreement since September 2021. Before Trump and Israel’s bombs rained down on Iran, the markets had been
Britain may have finally turned a corner on jobs
Finally, some good economic news: Britain may have turned a corner on jobs. Figures just released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the unemployment rate remained flat at 5.2 per cent in January. On payrolled jobs there was positive news too: employees on PAYE payrolls in February grew at their fastest rate since
The Iran conflict is morphing into an energy war
Into the early hours of this morning, Israel and Iran continued exchanging direct strikes, while the fighting spread further across Lebanon and the Gulf, and increasingly centred on energy infrastructure. Iranian officials confirmed the death of Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib Israel widened its campaign inside Iran. Late last night, the Israeli military said it had
The French lesson that could save Rachel Reeves – and Britain’s economy
Rachel Reeves faces a strikingly similar predicament to that faced by Pierre Moscovici, who became France’s finance minister under François Hollande in 2012. Moscovici – and Reeves – both inherited the classic problem of the modern centre left: expensive promises and no obvious way to pay for them. The economy was sluggish; unemployment was climbing