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John O’Neill and Sam McPhail, the Spectator’s research and data team, join economics editor Michael Simmons to re-introduce listeners to the Spectator’s data hub. They take us through the process between the data hub and how their work feeds into the weekly magazine. From crime to migration, which statistics are the most controversial? Why can’t
After ten months in office, Keir Starmer has promised to ‘finally take back control’ of migration – but what’s his record so far? We don’t yet have the key figure for net migration (that’s due in ten days’ time), but other more timely data shows that the Prime Minister is failing to live up to
What caused the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to lose faith in its own jobs figures? After the pandemic, the ONS asked for the ‘national statistic’ quality mark to be taken off its estimates of whether Brits are working when response rates to its labour force survey collapsed. Fewer and fewer people were willing to
What did businesses really think of Rachel Reeves’s Budget? Today we have one of the first economic indicators reflecting their responses to Labour’s tax and spend changes – as well as global events like the US presidential election. The Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell below 50 in November, which suggests the private sector economy 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:
Last week the National Institute of Economic and Social Research said Britain ‘would be one of the countries most affected’ by Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs, with growth cut by 0.7 percentage points in year one, 0.5 percentage points in year two, and inflation 3-4 points higher. But research from Oxford Economics today suggests the impact
Having squandered the Conservative majority, Theresa May is coming under pressure to resign. It’s not just from Jeremy Corbyn and opposition parties: Tory MPs are calling for her to go too, with Anna Soubry first out of the blocks this morning. So if she does resign (perhaps after the ‘period of stability’ she’s called for) who might take
Recent opinion polls have given the Conservatives bigger leads than they’ve had in years. So what if today’s polls were June’s General Election results? According to Electoral Calculus, Labour would lose 47 seats and the Conservatives would gain 51. The SNP may have a clean sweep in Scotland – and it still looks too early
Norbert Hofer has just conceded defeat in Austria’s presidential election after exit polls and interim results showed him losing by 47 per cent to 53 per cent. Victory goes to Alexander Van der Bellen, the 72-year-old former Green party leader. He has said the election result sends a message ‘to the capitals of the EU that
We are ‘in uncharted territory with, effectively, a blank sheet of paper’ in front of us – and that means ‘there might be’ a way that Scotland could stay in both the UK and the EU after Brexit, Nicola Sturgeon said on the Andrew Marr Show this morning. So England and Wales would get what
So, the Bank of England didn’t do it: against market expectations that there would be a cut, the base rate has been kept at 0.5 per cent, where it’s been since March 2009. The pound shot up by 1.5¢ against the dollar on the news. #BankRate maintained at 0.5% and Asset Purchase Programme at £375bn.
Will Jeremy Corbyn have a shadow cabinet by the end of the day? By 9am there have already been two departures. As Isabel said on the our Coffee House shots podcast last night, a lot of Labour MPs think the mood of the membership has shifted after the EU referendum and they think this vote of
The betting markets are all-but-ready to crown Boris Johnson as the next Conservative leader. After it became clear that Leave had won, the implied chance of Johnson succeeding David Cameron spiked to over 50 per cent – while the chance of George Osborne taking over plummeted. But these are the same betting markets that predicted a 14
New allegations are emerging about the man suspected of murdering Jo Cox yesterday. He was named locally as Thomas Mair, and his brother said he had a history of mental illness – and no known interest in politics. But overnight, the Southern Poverty Law Center – a US civil rights campaign group that tracks extremist organisations
Two polls putting Leave well clear of Remain – five points according to yesterday’s Guardian/ICM poll, seven points according to a Times/YouGov poll – have seen bookies slash their odds on Brexit, implying that it’s more likely than ever before – as shown by the chart above. A few weeks ago, the betting markets thought there was
The knives have been out for David Cameron today. The Sunday Telegraph splashed on Priti Patel saying that he is too rich to care about immigration; the Sunday Times on a letter to the PM, signed by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, calling his failure on the migration target ‘corrosive of public trust in politics’. And the Sunday Times quoted a Tory MP
Today’s migration figures (net migration was 333,000 in 2015, up by 20,000 on the previous year) are bad news for the Remain campaign – but there’s a crumb of comfort for them in today’s GDP and business investment figures. This second estimate of GDP growth is unchanged from last month’s, still saying that the economy
Annual CPI inflation rose by more than forecasters expected to reach 0.5 per cent in March, up from 0.3 per cent in February, figures released today show. The rise was due to a jump in the cost of air fares, which were affected by the timing of Easter. Growth in fuel prices slowed and consumers benefitted
GDP growth accelerated to 0.5 per cent the final three months of last year, compared with 0.4 per cent in the previous quarter. Based on this preliminary estimate, the economy grew by 2.2 per cent last year, a little shy of the OBR’s November forecast of 2.4 per cent, and down on 2014’s expansion of 2.9 per
The unemployment rate fell to 5.1 per cent in the three months to November, putting it at the lowest level since 2006 – and back to its average over the six years before the crisis. Back to what the Bank of England regards as the “equilibrium” rate. [datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/DUFV6/index.html”] The other side of the coin is
