Michael Simmons

Michael Simmons

Michael Simmons is The Spectator's economics editor. Contact him here.

Thursday

Michael Simmons

Labour is now the party of welfare, not work

From our UK edition

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have gone into bunker mode. The pair – whose political fortunes are so tightly bound – have been forced all week to defend the Chancellor’s claims at last week’s Budget that there is a black hole in the country’s finances. Mendacity soon gave way to something closer to bewilderment. Neither can grasp why they are being called out for their omissions and dishonest briefings – always more fiction than fiscal – about the state of the economy. Their new argument is this: once you factor in the Budget’s own measures – welfare increases, the U-turn on winter fuel payments and the desire to increase headroom – a hole did indeed appear. They insist they had no choice.

Friday

Michael Simmons

The black hole myth & the brain drain conundrum

From our UK edition

16 min listen

With Budget week finally at an end, certain mysteries remain. Chief among them is why the Chancellor decided to give an emergency speech preparing the public for a rise in income tax. On 4 November, Rachel Reeves summoned journalists to Downing Street early in the morning to warn that ‘the productivity performance we inherited is weaker than previously thought’. She then refused to rule out hiking income tax rates – sending a clear signal to markets that rises were coming. Nine days later, however, the Treasury let it be known via the FT that income tax increases would not be needed after all.

Thursday

Michael Simmons

Young people are fleeing Britain

From our UK edition

Net migration has fallen to its lowest level in four years. Figures released this morning show that 204,000 more people arrived in the UK than left in the 12 months to June – a drop of more than two-thirds compared with the year before. The real story, though, is that inward migration remains close to record highs. Some 898,000 people arrived in the UK over the year, but the net figure dropped because an unusually large 693,000 people left, with the rate particularly high among young people. Some 59,000 16–24-year-olds left the country along with a further 52,000 25–30-year-olds. The Office for National Statistics described this as part of a ‘gradual increase in levels of emigration’. Fewer non-EU nationals came to the UK to work or study too.

Wednesday

Michael Simmons

Rachel Reeves’s Budget is a shambles

From our UK edition

As Budget days go, today was unprecedented. The complete list of measures announced by Rachel Reeves – along with their costings and economic impacts – was leaked by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) an hour before the Chancellor took to her feet. The OBR apologised and called it a ‘technical error’. The headline is tax hikes to the tune of £26 billion, income tax thresholds will be frozen again and the tax burden will hit a record high at 38 per cent of GDP. Was this the most farcical Budget in history?

Michael Simmons

Rachel Reeves’s farcical Budget

From our UK edition

15 min listen

As Budget days go, today was unprecedented. The complete list of measures announced by Rachel Reeves – along with their costings and economic impacts – was leaked by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) an hour before the Chancellor took to her feet. The OBR apologised and called it a ‘technical error’. The headline is tax hikes to the tune of £26 billion, income tax thresholds will be frozen again and the tax burden will hit a record high at 38 per cent of GDP. Was this the most farcical Budget in history? Michael Simmons speaks to James Heale and Tim Shipman.

Michael Simmons

Rachel Reeves’s Budget is a shambles

From our UK edition

What we have seen today is unprecedented. The entire list of Budget measures announced by Rachel Reeves – along with their costings and economic impacts – were leaked by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) an hour before the Chancellor took to her feet. The OBR apologised and called it a ‘technical error’, but make no mistake: this is perhaps the biggest scandal in Britain’s Budget history. Make no mistake: this is perhaps the biggest scandal in Britain’s Budget history The headlines from the Budget are: Reeves will hike taxes by a total of £26 billion. Income tax thresholds will be frozen again, raising £8 billion and dragging nearly 800,000 more people into paying tax. The tax burden will hit a record high at 38 per cent of GDP.

Michael Simmons

How bad will Rachel Reeves’s Budget be?

From our UK edition

After a needlessly long run-up, Budget day is finally here. Investors, bond traders and house builders are breathing a collective sigh of relief – not because of what the Chancellor will say at around 12.40 p.m., but because the speculating, pitch-rolling and U-turning is finally over. Under the rules of engagement between the Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the fiscal watchdog must be given ten weeks to produce forecasts. After dithering over when to trigger the process, Reeves decided to give them 12. I’d argue that decision has proved close to catastrophic. Her hope that good news might materialise in the meantime has, in fairness, partly paid off: gilt yields have improved slightly and wage growth projections have strengthened.

Tuesday

Michael Simmons

Why Reeves’s smorgasbord Budget won’t fix Britain

From our UK edition

14 min listen

James Nation, managing director at Forefront Advisers, and Michael Simmons join James Heale to analyse what we know, one day ahead of the Budget. James – a former Treasury official and adviser to Rishi Sunak – takes us inside Number 11, explains the importance of every sentence and defends the Budget as a fiscal event. Plus, Michael takes us through the measures we know so far – but is the chaotic process we've seen so far just symptomatic of 'broken Britain'? Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Monday

Michael Simmons

Benjamin Disraeli to Rachel Reeves – how each Chancellor drank their way through the Budget

From our UK edition

Rachel Reeves is due to deliver her budget this Wednesday. Throughout the years, the only person permitted to drink inside the House of Commons is the Chancellor. What has been the tipple of choice for each Chancellor dating back to Benjamin Disraeli? Michael Simmons and James Heale drink their way through the ages, discuss the historical context of each budget, and question whether Rachel Reeves has the toughest job yet.

Michael Simmons

Britain’s expensive energy problem – with Claire Coutinho

From our UK edition

16 min listen

Britain has an energy problem – while we produce some of the cleanest in the world, it's also the most expensive, and that's the case for almost every avenue of energy. On the day the Spectator hosts its Energy Summit in Westminster, a report commissioned by the Prime Minister has found that the UK is the most expensive place to produce nuclear energy. This is important for so many avenues of government – from future proofing for climate change, to reducing the burden households are facing through the cost-of-living crisis. Claire Coutinho, shadow secretary of state for energy, and political editor Tim Shipman join economics editor Michael Simmons to talk about tackling Britain's energy crisis and how energy policy could feed into Labour's budget in two days time.

Saturday

Michael Simmons

Why Britain needs more Yimbys

From our UK edition

21 min listen

Chris Curtis and Maxwell Marlow may have different political ideologies, but they agree on one key diagnosis: Britain is broken. Their solution can be found on baseball caps and bucket hats across social media and SW1: ‘Build Baby Build’. Less than a week before the Budget, Chris – MP for Milton Keynes and chair of the Labour Growth Group – and Maxwell – policy fellow of the Yimby Initiative, alongside his day job at the Adam Smith Institute – join our economics editor Michael Simmons to talk about the pro-growth measures they champion to radically change Britain. Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Friday

Michael Simmons

Covid report: ‘a £200 million I told you so’

From our UK edition

15 min listen

Yesterday we had the publication of the second module of the Covid Inquiry on the decision-making at the heart of government. It confirmed a toxic and disorganised culture at the heart of No. 10 and the headline is that the government acted ‘too little, too late’, costing as many as 23,000 lives in England. That figure is already disputed, not least by our economics editor Michael Simmons who argues on the podcast that the inquiry is a ‘disgrace’ and demonstrates a lack of domain knowledge about the limitations of modelling. Where else does the inquiry fall short? What will be the political ramifications in Westminster? James Heale speaks to Michael Simmons and Isabel Hardman. Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

Michael Simmons

Britain will never clear its debts

From our UK edition

It’s hard to think of a more shambolic budget than the one Rachel Reeves will deliver next week. His Majesty’s Treasury has spent the last month pitch-rolling policies in the Financial Times – using the paper as a sort of town crier – then pulling them back as the OBR’s forecasts have wobbled.  Directly, the cause for this volatility is the wafer-thin headroom the Chancellor left herself after her first Budget and the Spring Statement. The markets quickly eroded the slack in the face of persistent inflation and a government politically incapable of reining in Britain’s stratospheric spending. Beneath all that is the staggering amounts we’re spending on debt interest.

Michael Simmons

Labour’s toxic budget, Zelensky in trouble & Hitler’s genitalia

From our UK edition

39 min listen

It’s time to scrap the budget, argues political editor Tim Shipman this week. An annual fiscal event only allows the Chancellor to tinker round the edges, faced with a backdrop of global uncertainty. Endless potential tax rises have been trailed, from taxes on mansions, pensions, savings, gambling, and business partnerships, and nothing appears designed to fix Britain’s structural problems. Does our economics editor Michael Simmons agree? Host Lara Prendergast is joined by co-host – and the Spectator’s features editor – William Moore, alongside associate editor Owen Matthews and economics editor Michael Simmons.

Thursday

Michael Simmons

The greatest threat to the economy? The Employment Rights Bill

From our UK edition

On Monday night, former England manager Gareth Southgate joined MPs and philanthropists for an event in Westminster described as ‘the Oscars of the charity world’. Cabinet ministers Lisa Nandy and Bridget Phillipson joined the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) in handing out prizes to five charities that help those who fall through the cracks. Across the winners, a single theme stood out: the transformative power of a good job. But Britain is running out of those jobs. Vacancies are falling, unemployment has risen to 5 per cent, while a deeper crisis sits beneath both: nine million working age people are economically inactive, including more than four million on out-of-work benefits with ‘no work requirement’.

Tuesday

Michael Simmons

The net migration debacle is a blunder too far for the ONS

From our UK edition

Another day at the Office for National Statistics (ONS), another apparent data mishap – this time on net migration figures. The agency published revised figures for 2021 to 2024 this morning, which set out a very different picture on who’s been coming in and out of the country. The ‘Boriswave’ was larger than previously thought For a start, the ‘Boriswave’ was larger than previously thought. When Brits are excluded, net migration is now thought to have peaked at over one million people in the year to March 2023 – some 110,000 higher than the previously estimated record high. Including Brits, there was a substantial downgrade in the revision.

Michael Simmons

Mahmood’s right turn, as migration figures revised – again

From our UK edition

19 min listen

Economics editor Michael Simmons and Yvette Cooper's former adviser Danny Shaw join Patrick Gibbons to react to the Home Secretary's plans for asylum reform. Shabana Mahmood's direct communication style in the Commons yesterday has been praised by government loyalists and right-wingers alike, but her plans have been criticised by figures on the left as apeing Reform. Will her calculated risk pay off and how will success be judged? Plus, as ONS migration figures are revised – again – Michael restates his appeal for more reliable data. And how could migration data affect the budget next week? Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Monday

Tuesday

Michael Simmons

Reality Check: Britain’s data is broken

From our UK edition

There were cheers in the Treasury in September when statisticians found an unexpected £2 billion ‘down the back of the sofa.’ The tax man had underreported VAT receipts to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and it meant Britain’s borrowing figures for the current year had been overestimated. A lucky discovery for HMT but an indictment of Britain’s statistical systems.  At the ONS headquarters in Newport, morale is collapsing. The agency, long criticised for data blunders, has become a symbol of a deeper crisis: Britain’s economic numbers can no longer be trusted. Across government, the data infrastructure that underpins policymaking is crumbling.