Theresa May has finally announced her resignation. How can we capture the flavour of her tenure in office? This can be found in the dry and measured content of the Economic and Fiscal Outlook from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). The OBR stated in its latest
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The surprise of the week was the re-election of the centre-right Coalition government in the Australian General Election. The Labor opposition had led every major opinion poll for the past two years. But Scott Morrison of the Coalition is still Prime Minister – and it is his
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One of the most dispiriting aspects of the Labour Party conference, which ended last week, is how deeply conservative the political left has become. Its remedies for Britain’s problems look to the past and not the future. Far from embracing new technology, the left is hostile to
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Are members of the Labour Party frontbench experts in doublethink? The concept was invented by George Orwell for his novel 1984, written in the 1940s as a critique of the Soviet Union. Masters of doublethink can hold, for purposes of political expediency, two opposing opinions at the
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The German elections on Sunday went pretty much according to the polls. Another victory for Chancellor Merkel. Much of the commentary has focussed on the success of the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) party. One of its leading candidates eulogised the German armed forces during the Second
Read more →Paul Ormerod, Alison Wolf, and Adam Tooze join Prospect Editor Tom Clark to discuss whether it’s a good thing that so many people go to university; why trust in experts has fallen so low; and how, 10 years on from the banking crisis, a new system of regulation has been
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The income tax system in the UK is highly progressive. Not many people know that, to use a catch phrase attributed, rightly or wrongly, to the great actor Michael Caine. The top one per cent of earners contribute 27 per cent of all income tax receipts. To
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There is a great deal of discussion, following the election, of relaxing or even abandoning austerity. There is an equal amount of confusion about this, because the same word is being used to describe two quite separate concepts. The consequences of the government changing its policy on
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One of the most remarkable features of the Conservative election campaign was the dog which did not bark. There was no systematic attempt to undermine Jeremy Corbyn’s wholly implausible economic narrative. Magic Money Tree comments aside, Labour’s economic incompetence was allowed to pass almost unchallenged. One part
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The two main manifestos have been published. Initially at least, the Labour one seems the more popular. Many people are susceptible to being bribed with other people’s money. Labour claims that their plans to spend an additional £49 billion have been fully costed. At one level, this
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