Fears for the so-called lost generation look more valid by the day. Britain’s chancellor might have the confidence to target full employment, but the problem of getting young people into work is a genuine…
Chancellor George Osborne has delivered his last budget before the September referendum in Scotland. He did so with one eye on the UK election in May 2015. But the other was firmly focused on the Scottish…
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, “pulled a rabbit out of the hat” for pensioners and savers with changes to UK pensions that have been hailed as the most significant overhaul to the system…
George Osborne’s impromptu child-minding of shadow chancellor Ed Balls during pre-budget interviews summed up his task in the last full year before the election as effectively as Wednesday’s budget speech…
As usual the budget is as much about the theatre of the event as it is the economics of what is being announced. The chancellor, George Osborne, was able to make some dramatic pronouncements about pensions…
If Cameron is the heir to Blair, Osborne is the heir to Brown. His budgets have always been intensely political. The serious fiscal work now goes on in the spending review and the autumn statement. Budgets…
The current vogue for heralding the recovery of the British manufacturing should not lead us to complacency about the very real difficulties currently faced by the sector. George Osborne’s budget offered…
Chancellor George Osborne has unveiled his fourth budget. The blueprint for recovery includes wholesale changes to pensions and savings, attempts to boost business investment, new relief for the costs…
There is good news for George Osborne as he approaches his latest budget speech. The Bank of England is predicting the economy will grow by 3.4% per cent this year and the Office of Budget Responsibility…
Britain is home to an increasingly dysfunctional housing market. The risk is that a chancellor trying to lay the foundations for a 2015 election victory will struggle to find the balance between the short…
The days leading up the budget are hectic as many in the Treasury are busy devising financial gimmicks to please the electorate. This forthcoming budget is particularly important as next year’s budget…
The announcement by the Chancellor, George Osborne, that there would not be monetary union between an independent Scotland and the rump UK is a game changer. It comes one day after researchers, including…
Currency unions between independent states are technically difficult to establish and run. They can require strict limits to fiscal autonomy, and they can need painful adjustments if the component economies…
Who lives at Number Ten Downing Street? The answer is of course… George Osborne. While his official residence may be next door at Number Eleven, it is he and not David Cameron who lives in the flat above…
George Osborne’s announcement this week that a Conservative government would implement £25 billion of cuts over two years after the next election is a bold statement of intent both economically and politically…
The Autumn Statement is a curious ritual. With the chancellor already delivering an annual budget based around a medium-term strategy, the autumn statement does not provide an opportunity for any major…
George Osborne long ago realised that policy programmes designed to avert crises do not win elections. What he has offered instead in his Autumn Statement is once again a simple trade-off of public austerity…
This year’s Conservative Party conference has reminded us incessantly that George Osborne and his fellow ministers are “for hardworking people”. This same slogan has also become popular among Labour politicians…
George Osborne’s Help to Work scheme, announced in his keynote speech at the Conservative Party Conference, gives three options to the long-term unemployed – work placements, daily job centre visits, or…
There is still a year and a half to go, but the 2013 party conference season might be remembered as the moment the 2015 general election campaign unofficially got underway. Last week, Ed Miliband delivered…