A Budget for the Wealthiest
All Budgets are important, but this one is especially critical: 13 years of market fundamentalist policy choices have left the UK in a state of decay, with a weak economy, […]
Should Cameron be Foreign Secretary?
Last week, Sunak faced a difficult conundrum. His hand had been forced by the ever-more-extreme Suella Braverman and, faced with internal and external pressure, he felt that he had no […]
How to Analyse the Budget
The Chancellor is due to announce his Autumn Statement on November 22. Truss will apparently also announce her own so-called ‘Budget for Growth’. This is an open letter to the […]
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Silver Blaze is one of Conan-Doyle’s best-loved stories: Sherlock Holmes has to solve a killing and find a missing race-horse – and of course he does both. At one point […]
A Tale of Two Conferences
Last week was the Conservative Party Conference, CPC23. Or perhaps there were two different conferences: The official conference, run by Sunak’s team, whose objective was to rally the party […]
The Letter Andrew Bailey Should be Writing
The UK government has left management of inflation almost entirely to the Bank of England, which has a remit to keep inflation to around 2% per annum. And the Bank […]
How not to handle the cost-of-living crisis
Churchill commented, “It is a joke in Britain to say that the War Office is always preparing for the last war. But this is probably true of other departments and […]
Still Invulnerable?
Yesterday, faced with the humiliation of a damning report by the House of Commons Privileges Committee, due to be published shortly, Boris Johnson resigned as an MP. For him personally, […]
“We Can’t Afford It” – Is that True?
Our government claims to want strong public services, but refuses to fund them adequately on the grounds that to do so would be “financially irresponsible.” Most of the media […]
The Debate We Need to Have
Our social contract – the ‘deal’ that makes us a civilised country – is under grave threat both practically and philosophically. And we are not talking about it. Practically, the […]