Euston, we have a problem

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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

What does it take to reduce poverty?

Lessons from the 21st Century so far

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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

Not all eggs are created equal

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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

Zero sum doom loops and the seven bin armageddon

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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

Policy lessons on how to have children, and how to bribe them

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Afternoon all, A moderately quiet week politics/economics wise. Which is nice. Unless you’re a renter hoping we’d actually stop the ‘landlord evicting you for fun’ thing, given we’ve got yet another delay to the Renters Reform Bill. There has been the ‘how much should pensions go up next April’ row, but even that was half … Continued

Britain’s big search for profits, puffers and prisoners

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Afternoon all, The G20 in India will get all the weekend headlines, but without sounding too parochial we shouldn’t be moving off the story of Birmingham quite so quickly. Way too many people in Westminster sounded surprised the city council’s declared bankruptcy. And there’s been no discussion of the city’s even more important deficits on … Continued

Brooding over beer and crunching the cricket numbers

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Afternoon all, I’m all for some routine in life. It helps contain the existential angst. So at least the Bank of England is helping with their now traditional monthly interest rate rise. Obviously that’s less useful on the financial angst front, but you can’t have it all. I’m down in Dorset today and didn’t see … Continued

Close encounters of the productive kind

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Afternoon all, Last weekend I wrote a short article on Britain’s dangerous habit of getting distracted public policy wise. Luckily (for the article’s accuracy, not for Britain) the last week has rather proved the point. The response to the ULEZ/Uxbridge row? Government playing footsie with the idea of scrapping plans to phase out new petrol/diesel … Continued

French fears and WFH Anglo-Saxons

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Afternoon all, Turns out by-elections are just like sports days at ‘woke’ primary schools – everyone gets to win something. Uxbridge was clearly a bit of a surprise, but Conservative politicos of an optimistic bent should probably take more heart from this week’s inflation news than the west London result. I’m no soothsayer, but it’s … Continued

Longer working lives and parental worries about pay rises

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Afternoon all, So… I’m all for yesterday’s public sector pay announcements for bringing to an end teacher strikes traumatic home-schooling flashbacks. But it’s worth pondering two rather less self-centred implications. First, the price of public sector workers is up but with little extra funding for these pay rises the quantity is likely heading down. Today is probably … Continued

Binge watching pensioners and binge reading kids

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Afternoon all, The cost of living crisis got real this week: Nigel Farage hasn’t even got the £3 million minimum savings needed to stop Coutts taking back control his debit card. Forget foodbank usage being up 50 per cent vs pre-pandemic levels, this is what real hardship looks like (you’d think from the huge media attention). … Continued

Young German radicals and misleading comparisons with Romania

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Afternoon all, I’m on the way to a big cliff. Hopefully to climb up, not jump off, but that was yet another terrible week for the British economy. Starring out at a never ending and choppy Atlantic from the top of jagged Cornish granite seems an appropriate response to the latest dollop of doom. Rishi’s … Continued

CrapGPT and an historic mortgage crunch

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Afternoon all, Quite a week. Mortgages are up, Boris is out. Basically Britain’s having a full on protestant work ethic/puritan phase – no-one with a mortgage can holiday/eat out/savour the small joys of life, but at least we can tell the kids that crime = punishment. Cromwell would be proud. Until he found out that … Continued

Why we need greater exposure to data, and less exposure to Donald

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Afternoon all, You know what I was feeling reading the ONS latest GDP release at 7am this morning (usual doubts about my lifestyle choices aside)? Emotionally conflicted. Stepping back, it’s staggering that Britain (and Europe generally) has avoided a chunky recession given the scale of the energy price shock (a trebling of wholesale prices) we’ve … Continued

Britain’s cost of quiche crisis

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Afternoon all, The bunting’s out, the quiches are in the oven (see COTW) and I’ve had to fight my way into Resolution towers all week amid ever growing tourist/police numbers in Westminster. The coronation is very much on. I know there’s a bit of scoffing at genuine enthusiasm levels, but I was down in Kent … Continued

The benefits of better work, superstar firms and drunken hordes

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I was wrong. Obviously on lots of things, but I mean specifically on precipitation on last week’s ‘holiday’. It was more hail than rain throughout Cumbrian walks. I tried the Dominic Raab approach of telling the kids to toughen up and enjoy the “direct critical feedback” from the British weather, but unsurprisingly this led to … Continued

The Budget and Britain

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Afternoon all, I’m generally anti banks going bust. Doubly so when the rude things do it in Budget week – there’s quite enough going on already. And trebly when it ended up being a bigger Budget that most expected. But we are where we are. For our comprehensive take on the Budget – the forecasts, … Continued

What Britain should learn from Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act plan

Like or loath the ‘protectionist’ Inflation Reduction Act’s green subsidies, America offers an example of strategic thinking

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The UK has lost the habit of thinking strategically. Grappling with the constraints imposed by the global and domestic economies — or reality as it is sometimes known — is deeply out of fashion these days. Debates on how the UK might respond to Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and its near $400bn of green … Continued

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