The government cites the strength of employment as evidence of its success. Yet the rest of the economy has been perilously weak. So what’s going on? Is employment really doing well, providing the springboard for recovery and growth; or is...
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George Osborne has rejected outright the possibility of further tax rises as part of the government’s fiscal consolidation programme. Analysing the forecasts for government borrowing the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) recently said that in order to relieve pressure on...
Today the Fabian Society publishes the first report of our Commission on Future Spending Choices, a year-long inquiry into the spending choices which will face whatever government comes to power in 2015. We set up the commission at a time...
Why is the Chancellor announcing cuts today at all? Figures released by the OBR show why. Despite spending cuts weak growth has meant that from 2011-12 the deficit has barely moved, throwing the government’s strategy way off course.
The deficit fell...
Normally it’s Conservatives who like to wrap themselves in the union flag. Yet Labour could in fact now have most to gain from an assertion of progressive nationalism.
Not the customary left of centre perspective; but the rationale goes from hard-headed...
Both ‘Total Place’, initiated through a partnership between the last Labour government and local government, and the current coalition government’s ‘Whole Place Community Budgets’ have much to offer to the debate on future spending choices.
I was the programme director for...