Economy

He’s only gone and done it again. Mark Blyth, born in Dundee but now professor of international economics at the prestigious Brown University in the United States – the man who was wooed by the Scottish government to join its economic advisory council in 2021 in the obvious hope he would lend credibility (and maybe a touch of stardust) to its case for secession – has eviscerated the economic arguments for splitting from the UK. What was meant to be a PR triumph for the SNP completely backfired As a quick recap, not long before Blyth took up his role formally advising the Scottish government, video emerged of him criticising

So, is the recession over? The Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) retail sales figures show that sales volumes were flat in February, when many expected them to fall. Moreover, the increase in sales volumes for January was revised upwards from 3.4 per cent to 3.6 per cent, coming on the back of a sharp fall in December (on seasonally-adjusted figures). Clothing stores did better than most with sales volumes up 1.7 per cent in February. Household goods volumes were down 1 per cent – something which retailers apparently blamed on the poor weather – although it doesn’t make a lot of sense why we would feel happy going out in

Mortgage rates will finally start to come down again. Consumers will have a little more money in their pockets. And companies will find it cheaper to invest. Today’s cut in interest rates was a much needed boost for the economy. Oh, but hold on. That was over in Switzerland, where the central bank this morning cut rates by 0.25 per cent. By contrast, the Bank of England has today kept them on hold. This raises the question of whether the Swiss or British central banks have a better record of managing monetary policy. If most people in the markets had to put money on it they would probably place a franc

Rachel Reeves has a busy day: the shadow chancellor is giving her big speech tonight, where she is expected to outline the broad brush of her economic policy and claim there is a ‘new chapter in Britain’s economic history’ just waiting to start under a Labour government. Reeves was in the Commons this morning for Treasury Questions, and her focus there was on whether the Tories had a sequel planned for their own National Insurance policy. Labour has decided that it’s worth exploiting the suggestion As I reported from the Commons yesterday, Labour has decided that it’s worth exploiting the suggestion from senior Conservative figures that they would like to

A curious attack from Labour in the Commons this afternoon: shadow work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall used her slot at the regular departmental questions to ask how a policy that the government doesn’t yet have would work. She referred to the statements made by the Chancellor and the Prime Minister about their ambition over the long term to scrap National Insurance as a ‘double taxation’, pointing out: Labour obviously thinks that talk of abolishing national insurance is a way into the pensioner vote ‘Your NICs record helps determine your entitlement to the state pension. So if that’s scrapped, how will people know what pension they will get?’  Work and

It’s official: weight-loss wonder drug Wegovy (also marketed as Ozempic) makes US celebrities shrink but makes the Danish economy grow. This week, the most amusing Oscars clickbait featured not the typical best- and worst-dressed actors, but instead celebrities who have experienced recent miraculous weight loss. The Daily Mail helpfully split this award category between those confirmed to have taken Wegovy, and others who have merely inexplicably and rapidly shrunk. Their collective weight loss is Denmark’s economic gain: this week, Denmark’s statistics agency confirmed the Danish economy grew 1.8 per cent in 2023 – but without the contribution of Wegovy’s owner, Novo Nordisk, it would instead have shrunk 0.1 per cent. Free market

Is Jeremy Hunt’s ‘British Isa’ worth having? The new £5,000 tax-free allowance for UK equity investment comes on top of the existing annual £20,000 Isa limit, so on the general principle that it makes sense to maximise tax-efficient savings, the answer might be yes. But will it achieve the Chancellor’s aim of allowing patriotic savers to buy into the growth of ‘the most promising UK businesses’ while supporting them with capital to expand? To that, I’m afraid, the answer from the professionals has been a resounding no. UK stock-market performance has been so limp in recent years that UK-only share-buyers would have reaped barely a third of the returns earned