Afternoon all, It’s been a pretty difficult week in Westminster. For MPs, there’s the whole being machine gunned by the press for their second jobs/squillions of £s/Caribbean office. But spare a thought for the rest of us: my self-esteem has been battered by the realisation that I’m the laziest worker in Westminster, with the time … Continued

Afternoon all,   Last week the Chancellor announced a lot more policy (largely spending) wise than was expected, but this week the Bank of England (rightly on balance) defied expectations in the other direction by doing less. What’s going on? There is a common thread of sorts between the two expectation-defying moves: talk is cheap. … Continued

Afternoon all, Happy the Budget is over Friday. As is customary, we celebrate with a TOTCs special on what on earth was going on. This one is penned amid half-term related crowd control on the West Sussex coast. The crowd control bit involves a mini-Spending Review every couple of hours to decide who gets which … Continued

Afternoon all, I’m worried we Brits don’t know how to row properly anymore. Obviously we still love a debate – the volume is probably up if anything – but we seem to love rowing about the wrong things or at cross purposes. First, we had the PM-induced “are wage rises on the back of lower … Continued

Afternoon all, I was wrong. More accurately, Boris Johnson did the wrong thing. But I was wrong in thinking he wouldn’t press ahead with removing the £20 a week Universal Credit uplift. Although it feels like old news, it’s obviously very fresh for the 4.4 million families whose incomes fell by £1,000 overnight on Wednesday … Continued

Afternoon all, Party conference season is back. Which is about as nice as waterboarding. The travelling circus of techy think tankers, jaded journalists and loaded lobbyists has survived Brighton (which is saying something given the weather). Labour’s jamboree taught us that the party does want to borrow loads for green investment but doesn’t want a £15 minimum wage … Continued

Afternoon all, Hope you’re all enjoying this week’s retro feel. Price surges and supply shocks have got everyone in the 70s vibe. And the only thing more retro than a Labour leader writing a long pamphlet is that loads of people appear to have actually read it. We’re getting into the historical mood with some TOTCs … Continued

Afternoon all, Well that was a smoothly executed reshuffle. From painful experience I promise you the baseline for these things is a mixture of excruciating social awkwardness and total chaos. It broadly happening to plan (bar a bit of Raab wrangling) is a triumph. The No10 operation will be satisfied with the job they’ve done, … Continued

Afternoon all, The chicken’s off, milkshakes awol and abattoirs in meltdown. Luckily TOTCs has made it through this week’s supply chain disruptions unscathed. In fact, I wouldn’t mind some interrupted supply chains if that meant fewer interesting economics papers being published – would help in the quest to vaguely stay on top of what’s coming … Continued

Afternoon all, Welcome back to TOTCs, and apologies again for abandoning you for the past fortnight. Then again, those two weeks haven’t really been about economics, as Afghanistan has surged from being totally ignored by UK politics to centre stage. As ever having policies but no plans can seem fine, until it’s suddenly not (an … Continued

Afternoon all, Our Olympics medal tally is up (rowers aside), case numbers are down and holidays are here – so happy days. Two weeks camping drowning in drizzle in the Lakes means TOTC will be taking the next fortnight off. If you could all keep the declining Covid thing going while I’m away that would … Continued

Afternoon all, It’s been a bit of a manic week. It was only last Sunday that the PM was ‘piloting’ his way out of isolation in the morning, but locked back down by tea. On Monday night the Government was about to announce an infusion of badly needed cash into social care (a great idea) … Continued