Time to hit the roof over housing?

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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

Budget watch

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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

Fake news, phony data and falling debt

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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

Fact fudging and future funding

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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

Recession watch

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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

The societal wrecking balls of social media and hot parents

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

Fraying safety nets, social circles and fertility rates

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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

Britain isn’t post-work

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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

Things aren’t as bad as you thought.

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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

Resilient rust belts, cash conspiracies and dumping on the Dutch

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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

An Ending Stagnation special

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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

Autumn Statement of intent

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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

Super spuds and smashing the patriarchy

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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

Longer lie-ins across Britain and more savings booty for the boomers

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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

The perils of overconfident youth, and underconfident shoppers

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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

Good work across the UK’s nations, regions and industries

The 11th Annual NERI Dónal Nevin Lecture

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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

A winning woman, successful jocks and social media FOMO

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

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

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