I often come across ‘zombie statistics’ for my collection of ‘bad Brexit takes’. Here’s a classic example for those not familiar with the genre. This week the Guardian published an article by Polly Toynbee which included the claim that “the Office for National Statistics says Brexit cost the UK £1m an hour in 2022”. This … Continue reading Project Rejoin’s ‘zombie statistics’ are doing no-one any favours
Tag: news
Is Britain really fated for economic decline?
Another day, another flurry of bad news on the fallout from October’s Budget. The BDO Monthly Business Trends indices - which pull together the results of all the main UK business surveys – show that confidence has fallen to the lowest level in almost two years, with output and employment down, and only inflation up. … Continue reading Is Britain really fated for economic decline?
The real ‘black hole’ is in public sector productivity
The Nobel Prize-winning economist, Paul Krugman, once famously said that “productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything”. If so, the UK has a huge problem – and that problem is particularly acute in the public sector. Official estimates released last week suggest that public service productivity was an astonishing 8.5 … Continue reading The real ‘black hole’ is in public sector productivity
Five ways in which the Budget could unravel
Rachel Reeves’ first Budget was not all bad (see my response on the day here). For a start, the new fiscal rules, while still flawed, are an improvement on what went before. Balancing day-to-day spending with current tax revenue makes good economic sense, as does tweaking the targeted measure of debt to take more account … Continue reading Five ways in which the Budget could unravel
Plain-speaking Economics 