Progressive Budget? You are joking
The abuse of the word “progressive” continues. In his Budget speech yesterday, George Osborne said:
“Overall, everyone will pay something, but the people at the bottom of the income scale will pay proportionally less than the people at the top. It is a progressive Budget.” Read more
Live blog on UK Budget now running at Westminster blog.
All coverage available via Budget in-depth. Read more
UK election 2010: Conservative gamble on deficit
Forget the waffle about cutting £12bn of waste out of government from the Conservatives and £11bn of efficiencies from Labour. We now have a firm policy from the Tories: to cut £6bn (or 2.8 per cent) from government departments’ 2010-11 budgets. The savings will be used to fund reductions in national insurance contributions for employees and employers. What can we say about this policy:
- Deep, clear and immediate budget cuts. The £12bn headline reduction in “waste” is, in reality, a simple cut of £6bn in departmental expenditure limits for 2010-11
Alistair Darling said today the Ministries would provide details on £11bn savings by 2012/13. Below is a breakdown by Ministry. But you can save yourself the detail: almost all of the departments list the same cost reduction plans (with worrying similarity). Almost all of the savings are expected to come from:
In savings-size order:
UK Budget 2010: potholes and black holes
Alistair Darling will allocate £100m to fill in potholes. That small sum got into his speech. But what new did we learn about filling in the £167,000m black hole in public finances? Nothing.
Yesterday, I wrote a courage checklist for Mr Darling to see whether he had the balls and integrity to tell the British public the implications of his own deficit reduction plan. The scorecard is as follows: Read more
Mr Clegg on Budget:
Mr Cameron’s says Budget is “pitiful”.
Claims stamp duty cut has been Conservative policy for three years. Cider plans likewise claimed as Tory policy. Labour officials have historically opposed the policies they now embrace.
On specific policies:
Chris Giles will be posting later. Meanwhile, you can watch the budget. Or read Alistair Darling’s speech.
New/amended policies:
UK Budget 2010: deficit reduction … details, details
Alistair Darling says the Budget is all about choice – choose Labour and get measures that get growth going; choose anyone else and suffer the consequences.
And what about explaining how to lower borrowing? Read more
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Chris Giles has been the economics editor of the Financial Times since 2004. Based in London, he writes about international economic trends and the British economy. Before reporting economics for the Financial Times, he wrote editorials for the paper, reported for the BBC, worked as a regulator of the broadcasting industry and undertook research for the Institute for Fiscal Studies. RSS
Michael Steen, Frankfurt bureau chief, covers the ECB and the eurozone's economies. He joined the Financial Times in 2007 as Amsterdam correspondent and later worked as a front page news editor in London. Before joining the FT, he spent nine years as a correspondent at Reuters, mostly in foreign postings that included a previous stint in Frankfurt, as well as Moscow, Kiev and central Asia. He read German and Russian at Cambridge.RSS
Robin Harding is the FT's US economics editor, based in Washington. Prior to this, he was based in Tokyo, covering the Bank of Japan and Japan's technology sector, and in London as an economics leader writer. Robin studied economics at Cambridge and has a masters in economics from Hitotsubashi University, where he was a Monbusho scholar. Before joining the FT, Robin worked in asset management and banking. RSS
Ralph Atkins, capital markets editor, has been writing for the Financial Times for more than 20 years following an economics degree from Cambridge. From 2004 to 2012, Ralph was Frankfurt bureau chief, watching the European Central Bank and eurozone economies. He has also worked in Bonn, Berlin, Jerusalem and Brussels. RSS
Claire Jones is Money Supply economics team writer, based in London. Before joining the Financial Times, she was the editor of the Central Banking journal and CentralBanking.com. Claire studied philosophy and economics at the London School of Economics. RSS
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