Monthly Archives: December 2014

Many people were dismayed to find out that Trumpton has an active UKIP branch and a number of other extreme parties. It’s not really surprising, though, because, like everywhere else, Trumptonshire has changed quite a bit in the last few decades. Camberwick Green … Continue reading →

More weird stuff from the labour market. This chart from the OBR’s recent Economic and fiscal outlook shows how the wage distribution has shifted downwards over the last four years. Although, the number of people in work is higher than … Continue reading →

In a piece on the death of liberalism last week, Ed West wrote: English liberalism….grew out of parliamentary tradition [and] a free market in land and labour… I wouldn’t normally take issue with a tangential line in an article which … Continue reading →

New search button I keep getting emails and notes on Twitter asking me where to find posts I wrote months or even years ago. Proper bloggers tend to put things in categories but I never got round to it and it’s … Continue reading →

The Treasury Select Committee were grilling the Office for Budget Responsibility last week. Rudely, by the sounds of it. Asa Bennett quoted this from OBR boss Robert Chote: Getting economic forecasting right is like “trying to pin a tail on a … Continue reading →

I don’t know who is advising Ed Miliband but “public spending back to 1930s levels” wasn’t a good line. It’s true that the Conservative’s proposed cuts take public spending to its lowest percentage of GDP since the ONS records began … Continue reading →

As promised, there was a lot more discussion about the labour market in last week’s Economic and fiscal outlook from the OBR. This chart shows how the income distribution has shifted over the last four years. Most of the increase in employee … Continue reading →

The Chancellor tried his best to put a positive spin on the Autumn Statement but any optimism was snuffed out by the IFS yesterday. Here’s IFS Director Paul Johnson: Some of yesterday’s biggest announcements were not from the Chancellor at all, they … Continue reading →

Yesterday, what was left of the government’s deficit reduction plan moved even further into the realms of fantasy. In its latest Economic and fiscal outlook, the Office for Budget Responsibility reduced its forecast for tax receipts over the rest of the decade. … Continue reading →

More from the Resolution Foundation’s report on public finances. (See yesterday’s post.) All the projections for deficit reduction could be thrown off course by tax revenues – or the lack of them. The importance of even fairly small variations in the tax … Continue reading →