Kate Andrews is deputy editor of The Spectator’s World edition.
Will NHS Scotland withstand the winter? According to draft minutes of a meeting of CEOs from each health board in September, there is growing concern the health service will not be able to operate normally over the winter months. It ‘is not possible to continue to run the range of programmes’ it reads, before stating
34 min listen
It’s no doubt a depressing time for the British economy, but how much that is the fault of the government, either for getting us to this stage and/or for not setting out a more optimistic exit route? On this episode, Cindy Yu moderates a debate between Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Kate Andrews who battle
40 min listen
This week: How long will the pain last? The Spectator’s economics editor Kate Andrews asks this in her cover piece this week, reflecting on Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement. She joins the podcast with Professor David Miles, economy expert at the Office for Budget Responsibility, to discuss the new age of austerity (00:58). Also
Jeremy Hunt has just announced the most austere fiscal statement since 2010. The Chancellor’s plan to plug the £55 billion black hole in public finances will be achieved with £25 billion in tax hikes and £30 billion worth of spending cuts by 2027-8, taking the tax burden to a post-war high. The economic forecast from
Rishi Sunak has ushered in a new era of austerity, not just Osborne-style spending cuts, but tax hikes as well. His Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, says the plan is not just to balance the books but to control inflation, and so this will be the theme of the Sunak years: Austerity 2.0. Throughout the leadership campaign,
There had been quiet but growing optimism from some economists that inflation in Britain was nearing its peak as the CPI headline rate had fluctuated slightly – in and out of double digits – over the past few months. But that optimism was put on pause this morning when the Office for National Statistic revealed
The workforce has not sprung back. According to the latest labour market figures, released by the Office for National Statistics today, the UK workforce is falling, not rising. Employers may be crying out for workers but the number in employment fell by 52,000 in the three months to September, twice what was expected. This was
There is a conundrum at the heart of Jeremy Hunt’s comments leading up to the Autumn Statement. Hunt describes inflation as an ‘evil’ that ‘erodes the pound in your pocket’: uncontroversial. So Autumn Statement, he says, has been designed by his Treasury to ‘help the Bank of England bring down inflation.’ But controlling inflation is
26 min listen
Natasha Feroze hosts as Fraser Nelson and Kate Andrews debate Lord Wolfson’s recent BBC interview in which he called for the UK to import more low skilled workers in order to fill the country’s job vacancies.
11 min listen
The ONS forecasts reveal that UK output fell by 0.2 per cent between July-September. Whilst not a recession yet, it is increasingly likely the next quarter will see another dip following a surge in interest rates. Will the government’s messaging change ahead of the Autumn Statement next week? Also on the podcast, Kate and James
September was always going to be a tough month for economic growth. The additional bank holiday added for the Queen’s funeral, combined with much displaced activity for the days around it, created a consensus amongst economists that we’d see economic contraction that month. And indeed, we have. New figures published by the Office for National
37 min listen
On the podcast: In his cover piece for the magazine, The Spectator’s deputy editor Freddy Gray says the only clear winner from the US midterms is paranoia. He is joined by The Spectator’s economics editor Kate Andrews to discuss whether the American political system is broken (00:52). Also this week: Isabel Hardman writes that Ed Miliband is the power
There was no ‘red wave’ in America last night. This became obvious fairly early on, when congressional seats the Republicans hoped to pick up in New England failed to flip. Many on the American right had made the assumption that seats won by Democrats by a few percentage points in 2020 would easily turn red.
11 min listen
Alongside an interest rate hike of 3 per cent, the Bank of England have today warned the economy will ‘be in recession for a long period’. How much of the blame can we place on Truss’s economic policy? What will this recession look like? Also on the podcast, Rishi Sunak plans to remove the ‘legal
Alongside a rather defensive interest rate hike today, the Bank of England unveiled some alarming forecasts for economic growth. The BoE predicts the economy will be in ‘recession for a long period’ – until mid-2024 – with inflation peaking around 11 per cent. While the Bank is predicting that the recession will be shallower than
After yesterday’s fourth consecutive 0.75 percentage point interest rate rise from the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England has finally decided to follow suit. This afternoon the BoE announced a rate hike of 0.75 points too, the first rise of this size in 33 years. This takes UK interest rates from 2.25 per cent up to 3
There is no such thing as free money. This was learned the hard way last month, when investors made clear after Liz Truss’s mini-Budget that the era of cheap money was over. Mass borrowing for day-to-day spending was going to have a big premium attached: a bill so large that no government would want to
When Rishi Sunak entered No. 10 on Tuesday, he paid lip service to the aims of his predecessor. Liz Truss ‘was not wrong to want to improve growth in this country’, he said outside Downing Street. But ‘mistakes were made’ which is why he was installed as Prime Minister: to fix the economic fiasco that
The date of the fiscal statement has changed again. The Treasury has announced that the update – now being billed as an ‘Autumn Statement’ – will be pushed back from 31 October to 17 November, just six days earlier than the original date planned by Kwasi Kwarteng. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said the delay means it will be based
In the coming weeks we’re going to learn a lot more about what went so badly wrong inside Liz Truss’s government. Indeed, my colleague James Heale is co-writing the book on it. As Rishi Sunak heads into No. 10 in a bid to undo some of the damage (‘mistakes were made…’ he said on the
