Afternoon all, Turns out David Cameron had a cunning plan. Calling and losing a Brexit referendum may have cost him his job, but it’s proved electoral mana for the party he left behind. It’s hard to imagine a wedge issue that would quite so neatly turbo-charge England’s decades long political realignment. And do so in … Continued

Sign up for our weekly Top of the Charts reading email Morning all, It’s been a difficult week for some of us, realising that we’ve somehow not managed to bag a second job with Greensill when it turned out they were handing out cash to any Tom, Dick or Harry (it does appear to all be men). To get … Continued

Afternoon all, TOTCs is back from a pleasant Easter break – it was nice to get away stay home, living the lockdown dream (hopefully for the last time). In retrospect it was a basic error not to have snaffled parenting duties for next week given that’s when the whole country will actually be celebrating something rising … Continued

Morning all, Top of the Charts is taking a short break this week for Easter. But we couldn’t let the week go without sending a single chart because today is a special day for the Resolution Foundation and, more importantly, millions of low earners across Britain. It marks the fifth anniversary of the introduction of … Continued

Afternoon all, In the olden times, symbols were subtle – gently alluding to the challenges and joys in our lives if we spent time looking at them. These days a ship the size of four football pitches just wedges itself into the most important waterway in the world, bringing global commerce to a halt in … Continued

Sign up for our weekly Top of the Charts reading email Morning all, A year ago we were encouraged to Stay at Home, Protect the NHS and Save Lives, as the country went into its first full lockdown. I doubt any of us thought we’d be celebrating the anniversary of that moment in yet another … Continued

Sign up for our weekly Top of the Charts reading email Afternoon all, The ONS like to get us all up at 7am these days for new stats. Which is nice of them. Ironically for those of us forced to get up, this morning’s batch told us that January was a month for doing less. The … Continued

Sign up for our weekly Top of the Charts reading email Afternoon all, The schools are mainly closed, but there is still an ‘end of term’ feel in the RF virtual office. Happy coincidence means the Budget, a big driver of our workload/sleep deprivation, is done exactly as water torture home schooling draws to a close. The … Continued

Sign up for our weekly Top of the Charts reading email Afternoon all, Happy pre-Budget weekend. Good luck to the sub-set of you beavering away on finalising it – I hope you’ll be returning the kind thoughts when the Resolution Foundation is up all Wednesday night analysing whatever you’ve dreamt up. We basically know what … Continued

Sign up for our weekly Top of the Charts reading email Afternoon all, The kids are quite excited about this rover landing on Mars thing – especially the looking for signs of life bit. Which is odd given that you have to look pretty hard for signs of life outside our front door right now. … Continued

Sign up for our weekly Top of the Charts reading email Afternoon all, Expectations matter it turns out. If you’d told anyone this time last year the economy would shrink by 10 per cent in 2020 they’d have predicted riots on the streets, but today’s stats confirming 2020 saw the worst annual performance in 300 years have … Continued

Sign up for our weekly Top of the Charts reading email Afternoon all, Vaccinations have got the Governor all perky, while Jackie Weaver and Handforth Parish Council have done the same for the rest of the country. Which is nice, although in the former case slightly jarring with the Bank’s forecast for unemployment to rapidly rise … Continued

The latest from Resolution Foundation Chief Executive Torsten Bell’s weekly Observer column, Hidden gems from the world of research and academia. Read more of the latest economics and policy research in our weekly reading email, Top of the Charts.   Don’t feel guilty about playing video games, it might land you a job You’ve all been playing … Continued

Sign up for our weekly Top of the Charts reading email Afternoon all, Good to have some more vaccine-related good news for a Friday, via the Novavax effectiveness study. The only downside is that being told the jabs are 89 per cent effective is a recipe for making me feel bad about my own 8.9 … Continued

Sign up for our weekly Top of the Charts reading email Afternoon all, Donald Trump is back on the golf course, the US is signing up to Paris, and the QAnon loons have realised something is up. Nature is healing, albeit after the political equivalent of a nuclear winter. Here the currently peaking daily death … Continued

Afternoon all, This morning brought news that UK economic output shrank 2.6 per cent in November, leaving it still 8.5 per cent below pre-pandemic levels. Output is almost certainly falling again now, but luckily as GDP goes down vaccinations are swiftly going up and indications are the government is doing a good job of further ramping … Continued

The latest from Resolution Foundation Chief Executive Torsten Bell’s weekly Observer column, Hidden gems from the world of research and academia. Read more of the latest economics and policy research in our weekly reading email, Top of the Charts.   Renewable energy’s plummeting price should put the wind in our sails It’s been a good week on … Continued

Afternoon all, Now I know this is going to be hard for some of you to accept, but there has been a full and fair process. None of the fraud allegations have been upheld. So it’s time to certify the winners of this year’s Resolution Foundation Christmas quiz. Almost 700 entries saw a mean score … Continued

Afternoon all, And no, I haven’t got a clue what’s going on either. Well, that’s not quite right, given it’s pretty clear what’s going on is a colossal failure by us and the EU to sort something in both of our economic and geo-political interests. But I’ve got no clue where this mess ends up. … Continued

The latest from Resolution Foundation Chief Executive Torsten Bell’s weekly Observer column, Hidden gems from the world of research and academia. Read more of the latest economics and policy research in our weekly reading email, Top of the Charts.   Vanity number plates are now status symbols not to be sneered at We humans care about social … Continued

Afternoon all, And happy “science is good” week to everyone. We’ve got vaccines being certified and protein structures getting determined – which all sounds very impressive. But the onward march of technology brings challenges too. This week saw retail reopen its doors but Arcadia and Debenhams on course to close theirs forever. So this week’s … Continued

Morning all, We started the week learning that we could all drive home for Christmas but ended it with fears for tiers confirmed across parts of the country, from Maidstone to Manchester. To be honest we haven’t got much Christmas prep/tiny turkey hunting done yet, with this week wiped out by examining the Chancellor’s new … Continued

Afternoon all, I can’t quite tell which bits of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn is and isn’t in these days, while the line appears to be that Priti Patel is a bully but not an intentional one (whatever that means). At least this style of facing both ways on personnel decisions is in no way … Continued

Afternoon all, I’m a little confused. Lee Cain was definitely offered Boris’ Chief of Staff job, but resigned. Dominic Cumming has most definitely not resigned, but will be leaving Downing Street before Christmas. It’s almost like some people think that reality is shaped by the words you say, rather than what you actually do. That … Continued