The prospect of a ‘reset’ of the UK’s relations with the EU has excited some and alarmed others. This muddle of emotions has not been helped by a barrage of misinformation from supporters of much closer ties with the rest of Europe. So, how worried should we be? To be fair, the opening of negotiations … Continue reading EU’s legal battles with Britain show Starmer’s ‘reset’ is a fool’s errand
Tag: OBR
Project Rejoin’s ‘zombie statistics’ are doing no-one any favours
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
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
More pain to come as Budget measures bite
The jump in inflation in October was not a big surprise after the 10% increase in household fuel bills, but the cost-of-living crisis will worsen before it gets better. Most commentators expect the measures in last month’s Budget to add to inflation next year, as businesses pass on the costs of the large increases in … Continue reading More pain to come as Budget measures bite
Plain-speaking Economics 