Kudos to Gordon Brown. The former Labour Prime Minister and Chancellor is at least coming up with bold ideas to tackle soaring energy bills. Unfortunately, his ideas are not new, and they are not good ones either. Brown’s starting point is that the energy price cap should be ‘suspended’ before the results of the latest … Continue reading Nationalisation of energy suppliers would solve nothing – and could make the crisis even worse
Author: julianhjessop
The Bank of England shouldn’t be above criticism
If you believe many of the comments in the broadcast media and from the City, Liz Truss is threatening to undermine the independence of the Bank of England and rip up a policy framework that has served us well for decades. One member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), Michael Saunders, has already felt the … Continue reading The Bank of England shouldn’t be above criticism
Would more tax cuts be inflationary?
One of the central arguments of Rishi Sunak’s campaign to become the next Prime Minister is that it would be irresponsible to cut taxes further until inflation is under control. Of course, there are risks here, but my view is that they are worth taking. For a start, it is not clear that tax cuts … Continue reading Would more tax cuts be inflationary?
Is Liz Truss on the right track on ‘Covid debt’?
Liz Truss has pledged to put Covid debt on a ‘longer-term footing’ as part of her bid to become the next Prime Minister. The details are sketchy, but the proposal seems to be to extend the maturity of £311 billion of pandemic-related borrowing to lock in low interest rates, and to slow the pace of … Continue reading Is Liz Truss on the right track on ‘Covid debt’?
Plain-speaking Economics 