As the autumn statement looms, the Chancellor borrows a leaf from ConservativeHome’s book about the affordability of Britain’s public spending.
The Left blames the wealthy, just as a failed merchant blames his competitor, as a way to cover for its failings and ineptitude.
The squeeze on living standards threatens to hollow out middle class support for the Conservatives. No wonder Labour’s poll lead is so stubborn.
Councils are fighting the battle for growth with both hands tied behind our backs. Can someone in Whitehall free us from these shackles?
Last year, we became a net exporter of cars for the first time since 1976 – and exports from the region are up by almost a third.
“We’ve had a gradual but bumpy recovery, but in the last two quarters we’ve had fairly healthy growth.”
While your Conservative-led coalition is making progress, our leaders have reverted to failed quasi-socialist policies.
Previously on the Deep End, we’ve explored the idea that the western world has entered a period of permanent low growth. The latest GDP figures may allay such fears, but it remains to be seen whether anything like a ‘normal’ rate of growth can be sustained without massive amounts of quantitative easing and public borrowing. […]
The prospect of a British shale gas revolution attracts broad support across the centre-right. As well it might do, because unlocking this potential resource bonanza would have major benefits. For a start, the economy would benefit – a home grown shale gas industry would undoubtedly boost growth, certainly help with our balance of payments and […]
So, no triple dip recession, then – and maybe no double dip either, once the final figures are sorted out. Of course, the whole narrative around multiple dips always was absurd – as if bumping along just under and over zero growth was worse than an equally long period of consistently negative growth. In any […]
Larry Elliot is the economics editor of the Guardian, but don’t let that put you off. Unlike the Labour frontbench, there are some parts of the British centre-left still capable of original thought on the economy. It is, for instance, refreshing to see someone look beyond the frustratingly restricted debate between ‘Keynesian’ supporters of stimulus […]
Back in February, the Deep End featured a post entitled Sweden: Beacon of the right. Today, we look to a rather more obvious source of inspiration: the Lone Star State of Texas. Writing for the Dallas Morning News, Erica Grieder contends that talk of a ‘Texas miracle’ is no exaggeration: “Between 2001 and 2011, according […]
0.3 per cent GDP growth in the first quarter of this year was better than many people expected. But it would have been better still if the construction sector hadn’t done so badly, contracting by 2.5 per cent. As Nicholas Crafts reminds us in the Guardian, there was a time when construction led Britain out of recession: […]
America has the ‘BosWash corridor’ (Boston through to Washington), Germany has the Ruhr valley, Japan has Tokyo-Yokohama. England, of course, has Greater London, but we also have the ‘Northern conurbation’ – Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and all the places in between: one of the greatest concentrations of humanity anywhere in the world. So why don’t […]
The party cannot campaign against changing horse mid-stream if the public is convinced that we are back on dry land.