Economics newsletter

Michael Simmons guides you through the week’s biggest stories across news, business, money, property, stocks and shares, and, of course, the economy.

Badenoch is right: the benefits bill could cripple Britain

‘We are becoming a welfare state with an economy attached,’ said Kemi Badenoch in a speech on sickness benefits today. She’s right, though anyone who read the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) dire report this week knows we’re past becoming: we already are. The figures are staggering. The bill for sickness benefits is heading towards £100

Michael Simmons

Wes Streeting is right to take on the doctors

The public won’t forgive and nor will I, said Health Secretary Wes Streeting of plans by junior doctors to strike over his refusal to cave to demands for 29 per cent pay rises. Speaking to the Times he said: ‘There are no grounds for strike action now. Resident doctors have just received the highest pay award across the

Michael Simmons

Britain is heading for economic catastrophe

Britain is in trouble. That’s the judgement of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) in their ‘fiscal risks and sustainability’ document released this morning. The language is polite, matter of fact and bureaucratic. But read between the lines, look at the numbers and it paints a damning picture of the risks we face as a country.

Britain’s state pension is about to blow

Health Secretary Wes Streeting says that the changes to the Welfare Bill will ‘give people peace of mind’. Perhaps for some, but certainly not economists. Britain’s welfare crisis is staggering – £313 billion a year is spent on disability payments, Universal Credit, winter fuel payments, Motability, child benefit, and, most expensive of them all, the

Northern Ireland is still paying a heavy price for Brexit

This week heralds the arrival in Northern Ireland of yet more overregulation, bureaucratic overreach, and political incompetence. No, Keir Starmer isn’t making an unannounced visit to Belfast. From this month, many thousands of food products imported from Great Britain to Northern Ireland will have to display warnings on their packaging highlighting that these goods are not

Michael Simmons

Britain is racing towards a fresh cost-of-living crisis

The poorest Brits now owe £6.6 billion in unpaid council tax – a record high and up some 85 per cent since before the pandemic. That’s according to data released this morning by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which suggests Britain is plunging back into a cost-of-living crisis. What’s more, a report

Your pension fund is right to flee Labour’s Britain

One of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s few big ideas for boosting growth was to persuade pension funds to invest more of their assets in Britain. But hold on. Today, we learned that Scottish Widows, one of the biggest funds, is dramatically reducing its exposure to this country – and it is quite right to do so.

Michael Simmons

Why is the ONS saying inflation has gone down?

The rate of inflation remained flat at 3.4 per cent in May – still well above the Bank of England’s 2 per cent target. Bizarrely, the Office for National Statistics (ONS), in their figures released this morning, claims this is down from 3.5 per cent the month before, even though just a couple of weeks