Treasury

Answer: it depends on how you look at it. I’ve put together the chart below (click for a larger version), which sets how much money we’ve given the the EU since 1973. There are three lines for each year: i) our gross contribution, ii) our total contribution (which is the gross contribution minus the money we get back from the rebate), and iii) the net contribution (gross contribution minus both the rebate and the money that the Treasury gets to pay for various EU projects across the UK). In terms of how much the EU costs the taxpayer, then, I’d say the second line is the best one to follow:

Is George Osborne the first British Chancellor to hide good news in the small print? I ask this in my News of the World column (£) today, and ask what he’s up to. Listening to Nick Clegg on Marr this morning, even he can’t quite say that the same forecasts that predict 500,000 public sector job losses also envisage three times as many jobs created in the private sector. Why so coy? I suspect because it would spoil the magic. That there is a deliberate gap between what this government is saying and what it believes it is doing.   James Forsyth was the first to write (in his political

It’s fast becoming a tradition: when the IFS calls the government’s work “regressive,” send for Nick Clegg to take the think tank on. He wrote an article for the FT debunking their analysis back in August. And, today, he does the same via an interview in the Guardian. It’s pretty forceful stuff from the Deputy PM, as this quote testifies: “I think you have to call a spade a spade. We just fundamentally disagree with the IFS. It goes back to a culture of how you measure fairness that took root under Gordon Brown’s time, where fairness was seen through one prism and one prism only which was the tax

George Osborne was well received by the 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers when he addressed them on the spending review earlier. There was much thumping of desks, the traditional sign of approval at meetings of the ‘22.   Talking to Tory MPs this afternoon, they are pretty happy with the package. They are glad that the money being taken out of the welfare budget means that the departmental cuts are less than expected. Overall, they think the package is politically sellable and has denied Labour that many targets.   One concern is about how local councils, including Conservative ones, might react to a 28 percent cut in their funding from

Only one week to go, folks, until the main event itself: the Comprehensive Spending Review. And judging by this morning’s papers, the Treasury have almost settled on their final acts. Only the welfare, eduction and defence budgets have any significant question marks hanging over them. Those question marks, though, are fading fast. A story in this morning’s Times (£) reports that David Cameron has endorsed the building of two aircraft carriers, but has decided to delay the Trident upgrade until after 2015. No, strictly speaking, he’s not going back on this. Rather, the idea is that the coalition will keep on working towards a replacement for Trident between now and

When Sir Alan Budd was head of the Office for Budget Responsibility, there was an insistent argument in opposition circles that the independent body was biased in favour of the coalition. Much of this cented around the OBR’s growth predictions. How on Earth, came the question, can growth hit 2.3 percent next year and 2.8 percent the year after? Isn’t that a bit optimistic in view of all the warnings about a double dip? Won’t the cuts stifle growth? And so on and so on. A few months ago, I produced a graph which showed that, when compared to a range of independent forecasts, the OBR’s growth predictions weren’t really

Predictable lines from Ed Balls this afternoon. ‘DIY free schools’ are iniquitous; Michael Gove is like the child snatcher in Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang. Naturally, he made a pitch for the shadow chancellorship. Nick Clegg was his target and his pitch was avowedly left-wing: ‘It was Nick Clegg: the man whose own election leaflets said ’Vote Liberal Democrat or you’ll get a Tory government, who said ‘stop the Tory VAT bombshell, who said spending cuts now would be ‘reckless’ and put jobs and the recovery at risk. It was Nick Clegg who has given us: a Tory Prime Minister, a Tory Chancellor, a massive and unfair hike in VAT and a Budget