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…
As Conservatives head to Manchester for their annual party conference this weekend, it seems a very long time since David Cameron, then newly-elected party leader, urged the electorate to “Vote Blue, Go…
Energy Minister Michael Fallon’s recent comments about the impact of fracking on communities in the leafy Home Counties (“We are going to see how thick their rectory walls are, whether they like the flaring…
Now the dust has settled on the government’s spending review and the publication of long-term infrastructure investment plans, where exactly are we with local growth policy? The coalition’s approach to…
The coalition came to power in 2010 full of talk about ending the era of top down government and shifting power away from Westminster. The intervening years have given us one broken promise after another…
George Osborne’s populist attack on public sector salaries made for just the headlines he wanted. He promised to end “automatic progression pay” in the civil service by 2015-16, and to work towards ending…
John Van Reenen, London School of Economics and Political Science
The spending review is a strange beast. Invented by Gordon Brown, it would normally cover 3 to 4 years instead of a single year – but this one is aimed at 2015-16. Chancellor George Osborne’s 2010 Review…
The clash between Boris Johnson and George Osborne over cuts to Transport for London’s budget, which would scupper the mayor’s 2020 vision for a cycling city, represents far more than an argument over…
John Van Reenen, London School of Economics and Political Science
The International Monetary Fund’s annual investigation into the health of the UK economy makes ugly reading. The IMF points out that “per capita income remains 6% below its pre-crisis peak, making this…
The International Monetary Fund’s annual report on the UK economy calls for the Chancellor to boost economic growth through investing in infrastructure. While the IMF is right to make this point, we must…
The UK’s former AAA credit rating is no more. Moody, a tyrant of the credit rating system, decided that a downgrade was in order from AAA to AA1 for the first time since 1978. The pound fell in a state…