Economy

With less than a fortnight to go until the Budget, it seems Rachel Reeves has performed an almighty U-turn. At the beginning of the week, the established consensus in Westminster was that the base rate of income tax would rise, breaking Labour’s flagship manifesto pledge. The Chancellor had already rolled the pitch, holding a press conference at which she warned ‘each of us must do our bit’. But the Financial Times – Reeves’ newspaper of choice – reports today that she has ‘ripped up’ her plans. Citing two officials, the paper reports that the decision to change tack was communicated to the OBR on Wednesday. Speaking on the media round, Culture

If Rachel Reeves was hoping for a glimmer of good news in today’s GDP figures, she has been left disappointed. We now have a whole year of data since she delivered her first Budget, and it does not look good. Labour’s promise to put ‘growth, growth, growth” at the heart of the economy looks increasingly forlorn. She may have to rethink her standard attack line of accusing Liz Truss of ‘crashing the economy’, on the grounds that it could equally well apply to her. When Labour came to power in July 2024, economic growth was enjoying a fillip – GDP had increased by 0.6 per cent over the previous quarter.

Worry not, dear taxpayer, there are more bills for you to pay. Not only must you pay for the lockdown that kept you in your cramped apartment for a disease that didn’t affect you, and don’t forget the deficit payments of over £100 billion a year – really, you should just shrug it off. Even if you have your expensive degree, which creates negligible returns, and levelled with record living costs and taxation, you can of course pay for more benefits for a small minority of retired people who didn’t pay attention to changes in their state pension benefit. Let’s be clear – in 1993 when Ken Clarke announced a change to

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. Surveys have shrunk, sample sizes have collapsed, and

As New York’s wealthy elite weigh up the options under their new ‘democratic socialist’ Mayor Zohran Mamdani, many of them are now reported to be considering fleeing to London instead. But will it really offer them the safe harbour they are searching for? The truth is that under the Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Mayor Sadiq Khan, Britain’s capital has become an even worse place to be rich than the city they are looking to get out of.  There are plenty of reasons for American billionaires to feel nervous about the Mamdani regime. The new mayor has promised an extra 2 per cent tax on incomes above $1 million (£758,000)

It is time to win again. Britain does not have to be in decline. The state of our country today is the result of the choices our politicians have made. Through their indecision and incompetence, they chose to prioritise consensus in committee rooms over progress, and over us. Be in no doubt: none of this was inevitable. They did this. They chose to effectively make theft legal, and to preside over declining living standards and little economic growth. Our national story has never been one of surrender, or acceptance of mediocrity In the run-up to the Budget, our political class remain stuck in the same tired conversations that have characterised

Rachel Reeves billed her £38 billion in tax increases last year – the biggest tax-rising Budget since Black Wednesday – as a ‘one and done’ approach. As she prepares to deliver her second Budget in three weeks’ time, the Chancellor is set for a ‘rinse and repeat’ strategy, as she tries to wring similar sums from taxpayers. Reeves is increasingly expected to hike income tax by 2p next month. The Chancellor has informed the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) that a rise in personal taxation is one of the ‘major measures’ that she will announce later this month, according to the Times. The Budget watchdog will assess the impact of her

The Bank of England has held interest rates at four per cent. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted five to four in favour of maintaining the rate. There had been some speculation that the Bank might consider a cut to pre-empt some of the harshest measures expected in this month’s Budget, but the rate-setting committee chose to align with market expectations, which had widely anticipated a hold. Alongside the rates announcement, the MPC released their quarterly Monetary Policy Report which set the blame for inflation squarely at the Chancellor’s door. ‘Unusually large increases in administered price, such as Vehicle Excise Duty, and sewerage charges, are currently estimated to account for