Michael Simmons is The Spectator's economics editor. Contact him here.
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Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride delivered a speech today where he attempted to banish the ghost of Liz Truss and improve the Conservatives’ reputation over fiscal credibility. And he compared leader Kemi Badenoch to Thatcher, saying she too struggled at first and will ‘get better’ at the dispatch box. LBC broadcaster Iain Dale and the Spectator’s
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‘The ONS apologises for any inconvenience caused’ is becoming an all-too-familiar refrain from Britain’s statisticians. The latest mea culpa came after a blunder involving vehicle tax data led the Office for National Statistics to overstate April’s inflation figure. Initially reported as 3.5 per cent, the true figure was 3.4 per cent – only revealed once
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Rachel Reeves unveiled billions of pounds of investment today for transport and infrastructure projects, as Labour attempts to demonstrate that next week’s spending review is not just about departmental cuts. However, most of the political noise today has centred on her announcement that the winter fuel cut will be reversed by the end of the
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Rachel Reeves has been warned again that the slim headroom against her ‘ironclad’ fiscal rule could be wiped out if growth prospects worsen. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said in its latest economic outlook for the UK that ‘very thin fiscal buffers could be insufficient to provide adequate support without breaching the
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Changes to how inheritance tax and trusts are treated for non-doms have already put the nation’s finances on shakier ground – something I revealed in a cover story last month. Now, a new report suggests these anti-business Treasury policies may risk killing off Britain’s family firms too. Fresh analysis by the CBI’s economics consultancy, commissioned by Family
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16 min listen
Lots to discuss today: Robert Jenrick takes on TfL, a Nazi jibe from the attorney general and allegations of shoplifting made against our own Michael Simmons. But we start with Keir Starmer’s big speech yesterday, where the theme was ‘get Nigel’, after polling from More in Common showed that framing the election as a two-horse
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This week Dominic Cummings said the Tories may have ‘crossed the event horizon’. He was trying to find a tech bro way of saying the game is up: they’re finished as an electoral force and it’s only Labour, Reform and the Lib Dems still in play. But might the Tories have one last chance? If
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Overnight three federal judges on the United States Court of International Trade ruled that Donald Trump’s worldwide tariffs are unlawful and blocked them from going into effect. A group of businesses had taken the President’s administration to court, successfully arguing that the tariffs announced on ‘Liberation Day’ were beyond the powers of the presidency. The
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18 min listen
James Heale and Michael Simmons join Patrick Gibbons to discuss the speculation that Labour could scrap the two-child benefit cap. Is this just red meat for the left of the party or is it a sign that public opinion around welfare has shifted? And, with mixed messages on the economy, can the country afford to
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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned Britain faces ‘difficult fiscal choices’ if it is to meet ever increasing spending pressures. The fund predicted a surge in public spending, driven largely by commitments to welfare, health, and pensions. According to the IMF, these policies will push public spending as a share of GDP up by 8
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Fallout continues from yesterday’s summit and the announcement of a deal between the UK and EU – or is it fair to call it ‘fallout’ as, despite criticism over the deal from Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch, has the public got Brexit fatigue? James Heale and Michael Simmons join Patrick Gibbons to talk about the
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As much of Westminster gets up in arms about fish, the major change in Starmer’s EU deal is going under the radar. The deal, announced yesterday, commits Britain and the EU to exploring Britain’s participation in Europe’s energy market. If we go forward with this, it effectively gives up our energy policy to Brussels. It’s
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13 min listen
The Prime Minister is in Albania today to focus on immigration: the government has announced that the UK is in talks to set up ‘return hubs’ with other countries to send failed asylum seekers abroad. Unfortunately for the government though, also going abroad are Britain’s millionaires. In the cover article for this week’s Spectator, our economics
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The great escape: why the rich are fleeing Britain Keir Starmer worries about who is coming into Britain but, our economics editor Michael Simmons writes in the magazine this week, he should have ‘sleepless nights’ thinking about those leaving. Since 2016, nearly 30,000 millionaires have left – ‘an outflow unmatched in the developed world’. Tax
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The UK economy grew faster than expected in the first three months of the year. According to figures just released by the Office for National Statistics, GDP rose by 0.7 per cent in the first quarter – ahead of economists’ forecasts. If this pace were maintained across the rest of the year, Britain would far
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Keir Starmer is worried about who’s coming into the country. This week, he launched a white paper with the aim of cutting migration. Britain risks becoming an ‘island of strangers’, he said. However, it’s not just arrivals that should give him sleepless nights. It’s the number of people in the departures lounge too. London’s private
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Figures just released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the UK unemployment rate has risen to 4.5 per cent, the number of people on company payrolls has dropped by 63,000 over the past year, and there are 131,000 fewer job vacancies than at this time last year. Today’s employment data covers the period
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The White House has announced a breakthrough in trade negotiations with China following two days of talks in Switzerland. Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the two sides had made ‘substantial progress’. This morning, he said that the US would lower tariffs on China to 25 per cent from 145 per cent for 90 days,
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Voters turned to Reform in the recent local elections for many reasons, but one theme resonated more than most: the state of our streets, neighbourhoods and communities. Across Britain – as Gus Carter writes for the cover of this week’s magazine – the same pattern repeats. Whether it’s car thieves smashing windows in London, shops being looted
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11 min listen
On Thursday afternoon Prime Minister Keir Starmer gave a speech about closing the long-awaited UK-US trade deal. Not that his announcement went without a hitch however; after first directing lobby journalists to the wrong Jaguar Land Rover factory in Coventry, Starmer then had his limelight stolen by the election of a new Pope. Although, Labour’s
