Economy

When inflation was at 5.5 per cent and rising in January 2022, the BBC’s Faisal Islam adopted a look of amazement when he asked the governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey: ‘So you’re trying to get inside people’s heads and ask them not to ask for too high pay rises?’ ‘Broadly, yes,’ Bailey stepped into the trap, ‘It’s painful, but we need to see that in order to get through this problem more quickly.’ The governor was slated for insensitivity, critics making much of his own half-million package. That 38-second clip did more to make his out-of-touch reputation than any of his other stumbles. But he wasn’t wrong.

Over mighty trade unions. Short-termist management that prioritises profits over investment. And an education system that doesn’t produce enough scientists or engineers. There have been many different versions of the ‘British disease’ over the years to explain the consistent under-performance of our economy compared to some of our main rivals. But right now there is a new one: the British don’t want to go back to the office – and that is hitting output hard.  According to a survey by the consultancy AWA published this week, the British are more reluctant to go back to the office than workers in almost any other major developed country. Even as bosses plead

So the economy has defied the predictions of doom once more. The latest figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) this morning show that the economy grew by 0.5 per cent in June, more than countering a 0.1 per cent fall in May, widely attributed to the extra bank holiday for the coronation. Over the three months to June the economy grew by 0.2 per cent, following a 0.1 per cent expansion in the first quarter. One of the most promising aspects of today’s figures is that all sectors of the economy grew in June, with production (1.8 per cent) and construction (1.6 per cent) outpacing services (0.2

It will be harder to pick up a last-minute light bulb. You might have to rely on Amazon Prime for a quick delivery of new tea towels. And your local shopping centre will look even more dismally empty than it already does.  There will, in fairness, be some disadvantages to the hardware chain Wilko disappearing. And yet there is no point in pretending that it is any great loss. In reality, it was one of many ‘zombie’ companies, kept alive by artificially low interest rates. Now that capital costs money again, many more will go bust.  Wilko announced today that it was going into administration, and that its 400 stores

It’s no great secret that the events of the past few years have delivered a serious economic blow to the UK. But just how many years has the country been set back? This morning the National Institute of Economic and Social Research has published its updated ‘Economic Outlook’ which digs into some of these figures, erring on the pessimistic side of the forecast spectrum. According to the NIESR’s new report, the UK economy is still a year off reaching its pre-pandemic levels. In the last quarterly update, the country’s GDP still sat 0.5 per cent below its level in the last quarter of 2019 – a figure that the Bank of England thinks

The government’s objective to ‘halve inflation’ by the end of the year seems to be back on track – for now. Last week’s interest rate hike was delivered with an updated inflation forecast from the Bank of England, showing the rate slowing to 4.7 per cent by the end of the year, just below Rishi Sunak’s target. The better-than-expected fall in the headline rate last month has forecasters thinking things are finally moving in the right direction. As Ross Clark reports on Coffee House, Capital Economics is expecting another major fall in the rate next week – down to 6.9 per cent on the year – when July’s figures are released.

Small companies will face massive fines for not checking the papers of everyone they hire. Landlords will be put out of business for renting rooms to anyone without permission to be in the UK. With its Rwanda policy stalled, and with the numbers of illegal immigrants still at record highs, the government has a big new idea for trying to stem the numbers of people coming into the country. It will get small businesses to police the system. The only trouble is, that will damage the economy, and we will all suffer from that.  The government’s latest big idea for controlling immigration is to make it a lot harder for

The Bank of England has raised the base rate yet again, this time to 5.25 per cent, a high not seen since April 2008. Like a child trapped in the back seat of a sweltering car, the response of many people will be: ‘Are we nearly there?’      Many people seem to think so – that perhaps there will be one or two rises to come before rates peak and perhaps even start to fall modestly next year. Markets seem to think that 5.75 per cent will most likely be the summit.   I wouldn’t be so sure. What stands out most from the Monetary Policy Report that accompanied the interest rate

Enough said about the fall of Dame Alison Rose; more than enough about the second coming of Nigel Farage. But one question remains: what happened to the Governor’s eyebrows? In former times, the fate of errant bank chiefs was unequivocally a matter for the Bank of England. Careers were sunk or salvaged by a twitch of the governor’s supercilia. When Bob Diamond of Barclays was under fire in 2012 after the rate-fixing scandal and the Barclays board tried to save him by offering the head of chairman Marcus Agiusinstead, the then governor, Mervyn King, ordered Agius to unresign and fire Diamond – while the chancellor George Osborne denied any part,

The current government will do almost anything to avoid reforming welfare or the NHS. Last month, we were informed school leavers might be allowed to train as doctors without a traditional medical degree in an ill-conceived cosplay scheme. And it was reported yesterday that GPs may be encouraged to refer patients to life coaches, rather than issue sick notes, to help people get back into work. Between the starts of 2019 and 2023, the number of economically inactive working adults with depression or anxiety jumped by 40 per cent to hit 1.35 million. There are 400,000 more people on long-term sickness than before the pandemic. Yet rather than hiring more