Time to hit the roof over housing? Top of the charts 15 March 2024 Morning all, Despite what this morning’s papers and Labour say, it’s not ‘news’ that there’s no May election. If you’re running the country you don’t call an early one after those kind of by-elections results, no matter how many squillions of pounds a racist might have given you for a campaign. The Kate photograph fandango is also … Continued READ MORE
Budget watch Top of the charts 8 March 2024 Morning all, Happy Budget week. Well, happy for the National Insurance payers among you. Commiserations to the pensioners, the landlords and the pensioner landlords. Your time will come had already come over the last few decades. So, two real stories from this Budget. The micro – winners and losers – story, which is getting harder … Continued READ MORE
Fake news, phony data and falling debt Top of the charts 1 March 2024 Afternoon all, There are questions to which George Galloway – a painfully powerful speaker in our orator free era – is the answer. They just aren’t ones we should be asking – like how do we stoke divisions. The result last night is pretty staggering. The Labour, Tory and Lib Dem vote share in Rochdale … Continued READ MORE
Fact fudging and future funding Top of the Charts 23 February 2024 Afternoon all, Another classic week for Britain in the world. Making an unspeakable tragedy in the Middle East about ourselves takes some doing, but we have managed it. And we’ve exported Liz Truss to the US. Apparently “it was the deep state that won it for the lettuce”. And where better to make the case … Continued READ MORE
Recession watch Top of the charts 15 February 2024 Afternoon all, Happy recession day. To help you mark the occasion, TOTCs is 24 hours early this week. And we’ve got a recession special from myself and James Smith (who runs our macroeconomic work), unpacking today’s gloomy GDP stats with everything you need to know. It’s not pretty, but if you think this is grim, just be … Continued READ MORE
French building failures, growing generational divides, and fixing Britain’s future Top of the Charts 9 February 2024 Morning all, It’s always nice to get emails from TOTC readers – or feedback in person at events. Sometimes there’s suggestions of reads to include, or topics we’ve never had a chart of the week on. I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but there’s even the occasional suggestion that a joke has not … Continued READ MORE
The societal wrecking balls of social media and hot parents 2 February 2024 Afternoon all, Over-egging your policies is normal pre-election behaviour. And we’re definitely in the, so long it makes you want to end it all, pre-election phase. But this week had a different theme: those policies getting watered down. Jeremy Hunt’s reining in expectations for the scale of tax cuts to come in the March Budget, telling … Continued READ MORE
Fraying safety nets, social circles and fertility rates Top of the Charts 26 January 2024 Afternoon all, It’s nice when there is something to bring the country together. Like the worst. Coup. Ever. The Prime Minister’s opponents and supporters all agree that Simon Clarke’s was the least successful heading over the top since Blackadder’s reluctant effort. That’s the risk with cunning plans. We say we want our politicians to represent the … Continued READ MORE
Britain isn’t post-work Top of the Charts 19 January 2024 Morning all, Apology in straight away. This was going to be a normal TOTCs, but I got sufficiently annoyed about a BBC headline this week that you’ve got a TOTCs special on… the idea that we’re about to be, or should be, post-work. “AI to hit 40% of jobs and worsen inequality, IMF says” it … Continued READ MORE
Things aren’t as bad as you thought. Top of the Charts 12 January 2024 Afternoon all, And a belated happy New Year. 2024 is going to be better than 2023. Why am I confident? Because reversion to the mean is a powerful thing. As we covered a fortnight back, it’ll be messy but at least there’ll be winners, as well as the losers we’re all used to being over the past few … Continued READ MORE
Resilient rust belts, cash conspiracies and dumping on the Dutch Top of the Charts 15 December 2023 Afternoon all, A classic week on the economics/politics front – another numpty MP means another by-election’s on the way and the economy managed to actually shrink in October. The latter’s got the over-excited saying we’re recession bound – I’ve no idea if that’s right (note today’s PMI survey shows firms perking up a little, consistent … Continued READ MORE
An Ending Stagnation special Top of the Charts 8 December 2023 Afternoon all, Did I mention we’ve been conducting an Inquiry into the UK economy – the Economy 2030 Inquiry? Thought not. Well we have, and this week we published its Final Report. Ending Stagnation: A New Economic Strategy for Britain is out, single handily solving all your hardest “what to get your mum/brother/lover/small child for Christmas” … Continued READ MORE
Shifting stances on migration, investment and economic change in Britain Top of the Charts 1 December 2023 Afternoon all, I’m a long way from neutral on Alistair Darling – he gave me my first big job and his wonderful wife Maggie somehow single handedly catered our wedding, a feat if I’m honest I still don’t understand. But even recognising my bias, I think Alistair deserves every one of the kind words that … Continued READ MORE
Autumn Statement of intent Top of the Charts 24 November 2023 Afternoon all, Hot tip in case any of you end up running the Resolution Foundation one day: don’t move house the weekend before a major fiscal event. It’s not good for your sleep/blood pressure/marital bliss. Anyway, what’s done is done – we’re in the new place and Jeremy Hunt’s made his (VERY long list of) … Continued READ MORE
Tax The coming tax reshuffle: winners and losers 20 November 2023 by Torsten Bell and Adam Corlett and Lalitha Try Last week, the Prime Minister carried out a major Cabinet reshuffle, aiming for a political reset as the election run-in builds up steam. This week, the Chancellor is doing his bit towards the same goal, with a major tax reshuffle – adding tax cuts to the tax rises already in train – on the cards … Continued READ MORE
Super spuds and smashing the patriarchy Top of the Charts 17 November 2023 Afternoon all, The Autumn Statement pre-briefing is well underway. The latest is that the Government is fed up with people who left their last role years ago just sitting around, announcing tougher sanctions if they don’t take a role when offered. Which at least explains why David Cameron took the Foreign Secretary gig. We get the new … Continued READ MORE
Longer lie-ins across Britain and more savings booty for the boomers Top of the Charts 10 November 2023 Afternoon all, First, the good news. This morning’s GDP data for Q3 2023 was better than economists expected. The less good news? Better than expected means… the economy flatlined/stagnated/stalled – or whatever you want to call 0 per cent growth. That shouldn’t be surprising given surveys of firms and consumers have been telling us gloom is setting in, and the Bank … Continued READ MORE
Analysing the effects of appreciating your colleagues vs. stabbing them in the back Top of the Charts 3 November 2023 Afternoon all, It’s good that at last some attention is getting paid to the Covid Inquiry. There are important lessons to be learnt and truths to be told, even if it’s understandable that most of us (and therefore the media) would rather pretend those lockdown years never happened. But it’s a shame that attention has … Continued READ MORE
The perils of overconfident youth, and underconfident shoppers Top of the Charts 20 October 2023 Morning all, So. Many. By-elections. Will no-one think of the voters. Or the pundits, who can only say seismic so many times. Yesterday’s ones weren’t even close, which is particularly surprising in Mid-Bedfordshire given Keir Starmer’s main conference promise was to concrete over decent chunks of the shires house building wise. I’m starting to think a … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Labour market Good work across the UK’s nations, regions and industries The 11th Annual NERI Dónal Nevin Lecture 19 October 2023 by Torsten Bell The 11th Annual NERI Dónal Nevin Lecture in association with the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work at Queen’s University Belfast took place on Monday 16 October, 2023 from 11am – 1pm. The venue was the Canada Room (and Council Chamber), Lanyon Building, Queen’s University Belfast. Torsten Bell, Chief Executive of the Resolution … Continued READ MORE
A winning woman, successful jocks and social media FOMO 13 October 2023 Afternoon all, Conference season is done. South of border anyway. The punters will have taken away from it that the Government can’t get a train line built and Keir Starmer got glittered – which may not be bad for a man accused of not having enough glitz. And they’ll rightly recognise all of it pales … Continued READ MORE
Euston, we have a problem Top of the Charts 6 October 2023 Afternoon all, Euston, we’ve got a problem. Or more accurately, we’ve got a problem: Euston. The station suspiciously lies behind all the big stories this week. By being quite so expensive to sort out, Euston’s centre stage in the HS2 debacle may see the train line dominating the (rather small) market for Brummies visiting suburban … Continued READ MORE
Living standards What does it take to reduce poverty? Lessons from the 21st Century so far 2 October 2023 by Torsten Bell Torsten Bell, Chief Executive of Resolution Foundation, delivered the 2023 Annual Challenge Poverty Week Lecture. The lecture is hosted by The Poverty Alliance, Scotland’s network of organisations and individuals working together to end poverty, and Scottish Poverty Inequality Reduction Unit (SPIRU). Catch up on the presentation below for an insight into the state of British living standards, … Continued READ MORE
Not all eggs are created equal Top of the Charts 29 September 2023 Afternoon all, Good news Britain – we’ve had a little ‘the economy did better than thought’ pick me up from the ONS this morning (the UK managed growth of 0.3 per cent in Q1 2023 up from the previous estimate of 0.1 per cent). Combine that with the earlier upgrade to the size of the … Continued READ MORE
Zero sum doom loops and the seven bin armageddon Top of the Charts 22 September 2023 Afternoon all, Well if last week was quiet, this one was anything but. The Bank are done on rate rises* and Rishi Sunak is done with rushing on net zero**. Obviously everyone should have been done with Russell Brand years ago. I’ll be honest, the PM’s net zero speech was problematic. Forget the content (see … Continued READ MORE