The Conservatives are campaigning on the idea that they have succeeded at reducing the UK’s fiscal deficit. But deficit reduction has been an economic failure.
After years of austerity, European citizens are organising resistance and voting against the politics of fear. Will they learn from Latin America’s painful experience?
“Read my lips: lots more austerity”
Andrew Matthews
Syriza’s surge to power with a campaign against austerity has forced politicians across Europe to justify their economic policies. The UK chancellor was hot-off-the-mark to assure everyone that the Greek…
European markets have so far reacted cautiously to Greek anti-austerity party win.
EPA/Juan Carlos Hidalgo
Syriza, in choosing to enter into coalition with the Independent Greeks, is sending a clear message to the Eurozone’s leaders: it is intent on challenging Greece’s debt repayments. So, some form of challenge…
Greek PM Antonis Samaras gets the Merkel treatment.
EPA/Maja Hitij
A joke that is often told among European leftists these days portrays the current situation between Germany and Greece quite accurately. An officer at the passport control at Athens airport asks a tourist…
It doesn’t look good for prime minister Antonis Samaras.
EPA
Greece faces a decisive moment on January 25 in a snap election that could see major gains for the extreme left and right. But anyone worried about how Syriza on one side, or Golden Dawn on the other…
By George there are a lot of protestors here!
The Weekly Bull
From their inception, austerity policies have been promoted as necessary for economic recovery. Throughout Europe, the demand to cut spending and deficits is presented not as a choice but a requirement…
Pensioners protest in Nicosia.
Katia Christodoulou/EPA
The nightmare for Cyprus started in March 2013. The country’s banking sector faced a sudden squeeze. The two biggest players – Bank of Cyprus and Marfin Laiki Bank – were in danger of a collapse which…
Rebuilding Greece’s economy – a Sisyphean task?
Mopic via shutterstock
The Greek economy, after five years of recession, has nearly reached the top of the hill it has been climbing. But there is a real threat that in just a few months it will roll back down again. Like Sisyphus…
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is seeking a vote of confidence.
EPA/Pantelis Saitas
Marianna Fotaki, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick
The Athens stock market plunged in its biggest one-day fall since the 1980s on December 9, following the Greek prime minister’s shock decision to call a snap presidential election for December 17. This…
Feeding Britain, a new report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Hunger and Food Poverty, has been greeted with some fanfare. It details the full extent of the UK’s food poverty crisis and urges…
The Autumn Statement was supposed to be a celebratory moment for the coalition government – with its deficit-reduction strategy nearing completion and the 2015 election on the horizon, pre-election giveaways…
Alarm call: election battle lines are becoming clearer.
Kevin Friery
When he delivers his autumn statement later today, George Osborne will inevitably highlight any good economic news he can. With a general election barely five months away he will ride the jeers of Labour…
Hi-Vis and hard hat; Osborne into the breach.
Number 10
Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer will aim to deliver an election-winning financial package on Wednesday. But he will effectively have one arm tied behind his back. It wasn’t meant to turn out this…
Stormont can learn from its southern neighbour on how to cut its deficit.
Robert Young
Northern Ireland is engaged in another round of high level talks involving the British, Irish and US governments to resolve the latest political impasse at Stormont. In the shadow of these sensitive discussions…