Economy

In the weeks since Rachel Reeves’s Budget and its shock attack on agricultural property relief, we’ve seen various armchair pundits pontificate on farmers’ lives – a source of mounting exasperation for farmers themselves. The peak of pundit-on-ploughman contempt came, unsurprisingly, from LBC’s James O’Brien First, there have been the panicky announcements from the government – that the threshold for agricultural tax relief is £1 million, or that no, actually, it’s £3 million if you’re under 5’8” and are married to a woman called Susan or…“Ooh, look over there! A bird!”’ We’ve had Owen Jones on Jeremy Vine declare that farmers were overreacting due to ‘inflammatory’ rhetoric from the media, that

Is the OECD doing Labour’s PR for it? I ask only because of its bullish prediction for UK economic growth in its latest economic outlook, published this morning, and the contrast with what it has been saying about Britain over the past few years. An economy that was supposed to be hammered by Brexit has suddenly been transformed into one of which Rachel Reeves is able to say: ‘The OECD upgrade will mean the UK is the fastest growing European economy in the G7 over the next few years.’ The OECD has pencilled in growth of 0.9 per cent in 2024, followed by 1.7 per cent in 2025 and 1.3

The power probably feels good. And it may help her win the presidency eventually. Even so, there is a catch to Marine Le Pen’s decision to bring down Michel Barnier’s government in France, potentially as soon as tomorrow afternoon. If the government goes, the eurozone ay well go down with it. The financial plans of Le Pen’s National Rally’s (NR) party are completely reckless. And even if the chaos that will follow the vote does help win the Élysée Palace for Le Pen, she will inherit a ruined economy – for which she will only have herself to blame.  The NR’s only answer to excessive spending is to spend even

‘Hear me when I say this – no more money without reform.’ That was the Prime Minister’s message to the NHS only in September, when he promised the biggest reform of the health service since its founding.  But that’s not quite how it has panned out. Labour’s first Budget, which raised an additional £40 billion in tax, also announced an additional £22 billion for day-to-day spending within the NHS. Having allocated more than half of the tax rises to the health service, the promise from Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves was that improvements would be forthcoming. It’s not obvious, however, that the NHS agrees.  There is never a circumstance where

Living and working as a dairy farmer in Shropshire, I’ve witnessed firsthand the fallout from Rachel Reeves’ recent Budget. It has dealt a catastrophic blow to the farming industry, leaving many of us reeling. Just a year ago, the now Environment Minister Steve Reed promised us there would be no changes to agricultural property relief (APR). Now Labour has taken a bulldozer and smashed the policy to smithereens without any consultation with Defra (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) or the farming community, leaving us scrambling to process the changes and adapt.  The charges Labour have brought in will reshape British farming and our country’s landscape I come

Russia’s ruble is in trouble. The currency has plunged to its lowest rate against the dollar since the weeks after the outbreak of war against Ukraine. On Wednesday, the ruble hit 110 against the dollar for the first time since 16 March 2022. The currency has recovered slightly, to 108 against the dollar this morning, but in Moscow people are worried. There are no good remedies for the Russian economy’s malaise apart from ending the war Russians who lived through the tumultuous years after the collapse of the Soviet Union know all about the dangers of currency devaluation. While, clearly, things aren’t as bad as they were in the 1990s,

For the first time ever, France’s borrowing costs have risen above those of Greece. As of today, the bond markets have decided that French debt is a riskier bet than Greece, the country that 15 years ago almost crashed the entire euro-zone with its fiscal extravagance and irresponsibility. True, to some degree that reflects an improvement in Greece’s position, as well as the decline of France’s. Yet the harsh reality is this: France is in a sorry state and president Emmanuel Macron will struggle to patch things up. The bond markets have decided that French debt is a riskier bet than Greece This moment of crisis was bound to happen

Labour talks of having the ‘bold ambition of an 80 per cent employment rate’. But who should they target to get there? The government published its white paper this week on ‘getting Britain working’ and tackling the growing health and disability benefits bill, which is forecast to hit £120 billion.  Figures slipped out by the Office for National Statistics today give more insight on which groups could perhaps be better targeted. These figures split out employment rates by parental status, and show that already more than 80 per cent of married (or cohabiting) mothers and 93 per cent of married (or cohabiting) fathers with dependent children are working. This doesn’t leave a

The government has today announced a £45 million work drive, with proposed changes to the welfare and out-of-work support systems, in a bid to get more people back in work and off benefits. In particular, the government has said that it wants to tackle the statistic that one in eight young people aged between 18 and 24 not currently in employment, education or training. It plans to do so by offering skills training to teenagers with institutions such as the Premier League, Royal Shakespeare Company and Channel 4. There is no doubt that we need to get young people earning or learning again. Over three quarters of a million young

Rachel Reeves was probably expecting to be cheered for restoring ‘stability’, for rebooting ‘growth’ and crafting a British version of Bidenomics to create ‘the industries of the future’. Instead, the Chancellor’s ‘fireside chat’ at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference today is likely to be rather uncomfortable. There probably won’t be any heckling, walk-outs, boos and cat-calls. Yet the business world has made it all-too-clear that Reeves’s Budget will hit both jobs and growth hard. Reeves is going to get a rough ride this afternoon – and deservedly so. Labour’s relationship with business is now broken beyond repair The CBI made it clear this morning what it thinks of

Some lesbian and gay campaigners might have you believe that life is hard for gay people. Of course, for many it is. But my experience of being a lesbian is that it is mostly a privilege rather than an oppression. Lesbians can avoid the multiple disadvantages of navigating relationships with men, some of whom have absorbed messages of how they are superior to women. There’s another perk, too: what the Financial Times calls the ‘lesbian pay premium’. An analysis of studies from 1991 to 2018 found that lesbians typically earn 7 per cent more than their heterosexual counterparts. The LGBTQ umbrella term can be suffocating for lesbians That life is

The Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) forecasts on Budget day included the startling figure that spending on health and disability benefits is set to pass £100 billion in five years’ time. Figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) today, which are based on a broader range of benefits and recipients, put the amount even higher: £120 billion.  The DWP’s figures include housing benefit for health and disability benefit recipients. In real terms, spending on this definition is forecast to rise by 20 per cent (or £18 billion) over the next five years. The share of government spending that goes on these benefits will be at a record level this year,