Kate Andrews is deputy editor of The Spectator’s World edition.
‘There are obviously lessons to be learned,’ said Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey at today’s House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee. It was a point he repeated many times over, in reference to the inflation crisis that has plagued Britain for close to two years now. ‘We have to learn lessons from the experiences we’ve
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Kate Andrews, Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson react to the news that Boris Johnson has decided to stand down as an MP. Will the former Prime Minister go quietly? Produced by Natasha Feroze.
Is the government ready to start cutting taxes? After taking the burden to a post-war high, it seems ministers are preparing to change direction – in one area, anyway. This morning Jeremy Hunt announced that the energy levy on oil and gas companies, known as the ‘windfall tax’, will come to an end in 2028
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It was prime ministers questions today and while Rishi Sunak is away in the US Oliver Dowden stood in. The Covid inquiry was a hot topic of debate. Rishi Sunak says he is not worried about being embarrassed by messages seen by the inquiry, but is he right to be so calm? Also on the
The UK will narrowly avoid a formal recession this year. That’s the consensus that is emerging based on the current data. This morning’s Economic Outlook from the OECD – which forecasts 0.3 per cent growth in 2023 – reflects similar projections from the IMF’s latest update and the Office for Budget Responsibility, which have revised
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On this week’s episode: Price caps are back in the news as the government is reportedly considering implementing one on basic food items. What happened to the Rishi Sunak who admired Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Lawson? In her cover article this week, our economics editor Kate Andrews argues that the prime minister and his party
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Boris Johnson’s team today suggested that they would be happy to hand over his WhatsApp messages from during the pandemic to help the Covid enquiry. Why has the civil service got itself in such a muddle over this, and why have the Tories failed to reform Whitehall? Max Jeffery speaks to James Heale and Kate
What kind of conservative is Rishi Sunak? This time last year, there was a clear answer: he was a fiscal hawk who was worried about how much the government had to borrow to fund the Covid crisis. As chancellor, he was always fighting with the prime minister over high spending. When Sunak tried to raise
The government has been claiming since the start of the year that it’s on a mission to ‘halve inflation’ – despite having virtually no control in this area. Still, this week Rishi Sunak ramped up the narrative when the latest set of data showed the headline rate falling from 10.1 per cent on the year in March
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James Heale speaks to Fraser Nelson and Kate Andrews about the news that borrowing costs are back to being the highest since last Autumn. What could this mean for the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt?
It’s three years since the UK formally left the European Union and cut off free movement, and net migration has reached a record high: 606,000 in 2022. This total (measured by the number of new arrivals, minus people emigrating from the UK) is 118,000 higher than last year. This is certainly an increase from 2021,
The government is delighted with today’s inflation update. Rishi Sunak released a clip this afternoon, talking about his government’s efforts to ‘halve inflation’ by the end of the year. ‘I know it’s still tough’ he says, but ‘the plan is working, and we are delivering.’ The problem is that it is not in his gift
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Isabel Hardman speaks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews about the ongoing case of Suella Braverman’s speeding saga. And now Boris Johnson has returned to the spotlight over reports he broke more lockdown rules. Does the energy around these stories say something about the culture of Westminster? Also on the podcast, Kate Andrews takes a
Since the start of the year, politicians and central bankers have been promising a collapse in the inflation rate. But monthly data kept rolling in, and the rate remained in double digits. This put even more pressure on the data this morning, published by the Office for National Statistics, with the Bank of England (BoE)
We learned this morning just how much the government is struggling to keep its promise to bring down the national debt. But news from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will be lifting spirits in No. 10. Perhaps it can make good on another pledge: to grow the economy. The IMF has once again revised its figures for
All eyes are on tomorrow’s inflation rate figures, which need to start falling fast for Rishi Sunak to make good on his pledge to ‘halve inflation’ by the end of the year. But this morning we got an update on the one pledge from No.10 that was never likely to be made good on: the
The Grand Hotel sits on the outskirts of Taipei, at the edge of Yangmingshan national park. Overlooking the city, the 14-storey building is designed like a Chinese palace. It was built in the 1950s to host dignitaries when Taiwan was under authoritarian rule. Today it operates as a five-star hotel and is open to tours
When Rishi Sunak delivered his five key pledges at the start of January, the latest data we had for the inflation rate was for last November. It was up 10.7 per cent on the year, having fallen from a peak of 11.1 per cent the month before. Everyone thought this was the start of a fast and
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The UK economy grew by 0.1 per cent in the first quarter of this year. Jeremy Hunt said that the government needed to ‘stay focused on competitive taxes, labour supply and productivity.’ Is that enough to improve growth? Natasha Feroze speaks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews.
The UK economy shrank by 0.3 per cent in March, as ongoing strike action continued to take its toll. But the fall wasn’t enough to push the UK into recession territory, as the Office for National Statistics announced this morning that the economy grew by 0.1 per cent in the first three months of the year. This was thanks