They Blog For You

                The week-end press had started to wake up to the private sector squeeze which we have been talking about on this website  for the last year, the squeeze which was even heralded by the Bank of England itself. The high rate of inflation coupled with a low rate of wage [...]

The Office for Budgetary Responsibility apparently “needs more time to factor in budgetary changes to their forecasts or risks losing its credibility”.  You mean to say that technocratic experts at the OBR, like those at the MPC, don’t always [...]

                 First we are told that providing a new loan to Greece, or Ireland, or Portugal, creates a line in the sand, prevents the contagion spreading. As each sucessive loan demand showed, that did not work. The incoming tide of debt erased the lines. The contagion spread. The mixed metaphors [...]

Rarely can a Budget have disintegrated so quickly.   Dixons have just announced sales falling by 11% over the last 11 weeks, and are now cutting capital expenditure by 25%.   Oddbins goes bankrupt.   The former Asda boss has predicted a “long-term trend of trading down”.   HMV has just issued its thrid [...]

The internal contradictions in Osborne’s economic policy multiply.   Before the election he complained quite rightly that the nation’s private debt was far too high – in the bubble years it reached £1.35 trillion, only slightly less than the nation’s entire GDP which was £1.45 trillion.   It is now £1.56 trillion, [...]

                        As a critic of the regulators in 2006-7 I said the banks should be made to hold more capital. In those days they were too heavily geared. The banks were allowed to lend far too much money with far too little capital to pay the losses if some of the [...]

               I stand accused of being unclear on public spending. Let me try again. The quicker the government can cotnrol the excess of spending over income, the quicker the economy will perform better.               I do not set out alternative spending targets or numbers to the Chacenllor, as experience has taught me [...]

                    The Portuguese government has fallen because it was unable to push through yet another austerity package. The  bond market demands ever higher interest rates to lend money to the ailing country. The economy remains mired in poor performance. Now all the talk is of another EU led bail out. [...]

KEVIN Brennan MP has accused George Osbourne of giving with one hand but taking it away with the other over his plans to cut 1p off fuel duty - weeks after his VAT rise added 3p.The coalition Government increased VAT by 2.5% in January which pushed petrol prices up by [...]

THE BUDGET 2011: An MP today welcomed the announcement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Norwich Research Park will share in £100 million of investment in science and research facilities. The Park includes the John Innes Centre, one of the world’s leading centres for [...]

Chloe Smith, MP for Norwich North, today commented on fuel prices in advance of the Budget: "It's clear from many individuals, families and businesses locally that fuel prices are one thing hitting very hard at the moment. I strongly appreciate how much fuel prices affect people in and around Norwich, both [...]

Delyn MP David Hanson has expressed is real concern at the latest rise in unemployment across the...

Delyn MP David Hanson has expressed is real concern at the latest rise in unemployment across the UK. UK unemployment rose by 27,000 in the three months to the end of January to 2.53 million, the highest since 1994. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the jobless rate was now [...]

I awoke to the BBC revealing some of the details from 1979-80 from the Thatcher archive. As always, and as then, the talk was about the cuts not working. If they cared to look back at the figures, they would see that in her first year in office Margaret Thatcher’s [...]

                     Money has been easy for the UK public sector. The 0.5% interest rate is the one that applies only to government. Government has enjoyed using it to the full, borrowing collosal sums on the back of it.                   Money has been much tighter in the non bank  private sector. Effective [...]

                       I have been involved in turning round companies that had too much borrowing, too little cash and too big a running deficit.  When a new team goes in to save them, everything in the first few months is designed to stem the outflow of cash. You first have to [...]

Chloe Smith, MP for Norwich North, today welcomed simple but significant reforms which help young people get work experience. Today the Commons passed measures to allow people who are on Jobseeker's Allowance to gain work experience without losing their benefit. This is on the same day as the principal debate on [...]

                  It was strange timing for the Governor to give an interview attacking the attitude and approach of the commercial banks shortly after the government had declared an end to the war on banks. The Merlin deal was meant to mark an end to the era of hostility. It was [...]

Philip Hammond on Tuesday gave the go-ahead for the £4.5bn Intercity Express Programme (IEP) and the £704m plans to electrify the Great Western Main Line (GWML). The £4.5bn programme will see the building of a combination of around 100 electric trains and bi-mode - diesel and electric - intercity trains which [...]

KEVIN Brennan MP is inviting bands and live music venues in Cardiff West to put their name forward for the first ever parliamentary Rock the House competition.Rock the House aims to promote the intellectual property rights of unsigned and up and coming musicians while highlighting the importance of live music [...]

Four years after the credit crunch hit, interest rates look set to rise. Ouch.    If only rates had been kept modestly higher over the past decade or so, we perhaps might not be in such a mess - or about to experience quite such painful consequences.  For the past couple [...]