Economist, Visiting Professor, Lecturer, Writer, Public Speaker.
Framed as a budget to shrink debt and control inflation, Jeremy Hunt’s statement in the fifth fiscal event of this year essentially left most of the heavy lifting to 2025 and beyond. Of the measures announced, some three quarters were spending cuts, and just one quarter were tax increases. Of the £61.7 billion fiscal tightening …
Continue reading “Has the Chancellor tightened policy too much?”
Friday’s mini-Budget was anything but small. It’s the biggest tax-cutting Budget since the ‘Barber’ boom Budget of 1972 or 50 years ago. Unfortunately, the parallels are not good, as that Budget did not end well. Eventually, it led to the loss of a general election by Conservative prime minister Ted Heath. Time will …
Continue reading “Mini Budget 2022: all the money is on tax cuts”
Yet again, the Chancellor’s Spring Statement turned into a Spring Budget. Expectations were that the Government would intervene to alleviate the impact of higher fuel and food prices on household income. Whilst fuel duty was cut by 5p a litre for 12 months and the National Insurance threshold raised, for many, those expectations weren’t met, …
Continue reading “Economic shocks and the tightrope to growth”