Women are massively more affected by budget cuts than men, says the Labour peer. They are more likely to be single parents, earn less and work part time than their male counterparts. She argues the government must replace ‘gender-neutral’ budgeting with economic policies that put women first Continue reading...

Philip Hammond denies big changes in spring budget as UK economy continues to perform strongly. But what does that mean for public finances?Philip Hammond has played down the significance of the spring budget and denied he plans to surprise parliament with big spending plans or tax reforms.This was always going to be a “just in case” budget, only bursting into life should the public finances need rescuing from a further slowdown in the economy. But the economy is performing strongly, even as it slows, leaving the chancellor to continue where he left off in the autumn statement: focusing on relatively limited measures to improve the UK’s infrastructure, skills and education.Related: Six key charts you need to make sense of the budget Continue reading...

UK expected to grow faster than thought in 2017 but chancellor urged to support jobs amid fears over inflation and house pricesThe west’s leading economic thinktank has raised its outlook for the UK this year, in a boost to Philip Hammond ahead of his budget. But the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said it still expected Britain’s economy to shift down a gear compared with last year as rising inflation hits households.The Paris-based organisation predicts that after expanding 1.8% in 2016, the UK economy will grow 1.6% this year. That is faster than the 1.2% it was predicting in late November. It made no changes to its earlier forecast for growth to slow further in 2018 to just 1% – which would be the weakest performance since the depths of the global financial crisis in 2009. It also highlighted rapid house price growth in the UK and other countries as a potential warning sign of another economic downturn. Continue reading...

Sharp fall in pound since EU referendum feeds into big rise in food prices with butter up 15%, fish up 8% and tea up more than 6%Supermarket inflation doubled last month as shoppers had to pay more for staples such as butter and tea, underlining expectations that household budgets will come under extra pressure in 2017.Grocery inflation jumped to a near three-year high of 1.4% in the 12 weeks to 26 February, from 0.7% in the 12 weeks to 29 January, according to the consumer consultancy Kantar Worldpanel. The cost of fruit and vegetables – a large proportion of which are imported – also rose. Continue reading...

Analysts suggest rising inflation is starting to rattle consumers as pre-Christmas boom comes to an abrupt halt and even once-buoyant car sales slip backBritain’s hard-pressed retailers have urged Philip Hammond to rethink government plans for revamping business rates amid signs that rising inflation has led to the weakest high street spending in more than five years.A report from the British Retail Consortium and KPMG found that the spurt in consumer spending seen in the run-up to Christmas had come to an abrupt halt, with the result that non-food sales are falling for the first time since the economy was flirting with a double-dip recession in November 2011.Related: Business chiefs tell chancellor: reform business rates now to avert high street crisis Continue reading...

As the chancellor prepares to slash the state he claims there’s no cash. Yet he’s preparing to give billions away to the richHow perfectly their faces fit the parts they play, this pair of graveyard undertakers to public services. Chancellor and prime minister use their grim solemnity to persuade the nation that there is no alternative. It’s all a charade – and they are, of course, play-acting – but they do it alarmingly well. Polls show they still convince voters that this extreme punishment is a doleful necessary.Related: Chancellor's budget to build up Brexit reserves, not tackle NHS crisisAnother £12bn axe will fall in April on ‘hardworking' low-paid families, plus £3.7bn taken from disability pay Continue reading...

Larry Elliott’s authoritative piece on the parallels between today’s economic and political trends and those of the 1930s (After the Crash, The 1930s supplement, 4 March) surprisingly omits mention of one contribution to the UK’s current budget deficit: Gordon Brown’s reckless decision in his last budget as chancellor to reduce the income tax rate from 22% to 20%. Had we retained higher tax revenues then, would the coalition and Tory governments have had the excuse to impose George Osborne’s unprecedented and profoundly regressive austerity budgets and the Brexit outcome they probably contributed to?

Chancellor urged to scrap planned tax cuts as figures reveal extent to which living standards will be squeezed by rising pricesPhilip Hammond is being urged to scrap cuts to inheritance, corporation and income tax in order to plough money into benefits, as figures reveal the extent to which living standards are going to be squeezed by rising inflation.Analysis by the Resolution Foundation, shared exclusively with the Guardian, shows a “double-whammy” for lower-income working families who the government has said it wants to target.Related: Chancellor's budget likely to appease dissent and aim to tackle Brexit | Heather Stewart Continue reading...

Michael Every, an English economist based in Hong Kong, to tell conference world could be split into trading blocs based around currenciesThe presidency of Donald Trump could mark the breakdown of global trade and the division of the world into trading blocs based around currencies – forcing Australia to choose between the United States and China.That is the scenario that will be painted by Michael Every, head of financial markets Asia Pacific for Rabobank at the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (Abares) Outlook conference on Tuesday.Related: Trump presidency poses threat to global economy, warns Fitch Continue reading...

‘No spending spree’ warning from Philip Hammond, who is likely to guard against economic damage of UK leaving EUPhilip Hammond is expected to use Wednesday’s budget to announce that tax revenues will be used to build up a reserve to deal with uncertainties arising from Brexit, rather than increase spending on the health service.The chancellor has indicated that some extra money will be allocated for social care. The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has warned that £12bn should be immediately redirected to the NHS, warning that “the crisis is happening now”.Related: A budget in the shadow of Brexit leaves Hammond short of choicesRelated: Budget 2017: Hammond to tell us the Brexit vote could have been worse Continue reading...

With debt repayments of €7bn due in July and default looming, Greek government hunts rescue funds to boost employmentIn the long and winding road of Greek debt drama, disappointment and hope have been the alternating emotions that every government has faced. With the nation’s crisis no nearer to being resolved than when it erupted seven years ago, negotiations with creditors at another critical juncture and Europe engulfed in uncertainty, the need for hope has never been greater.“What Greece needs is a shock of growth,” the country’s deputy prime minister Yannis Dragasakis told the Guardian ahead of a crucial cabinet meeting on Monday. “We will meet to discuss a new growth strategy that will focus solely on boosting investment and reducing unemployment to pre-crisis levels, that is to say 8% in the next 10 years.”Related: Greek debt: will EU and IMF finally offer light at the end of the tunnel? Continue reading...

Chancellor will say UK economy is in far better shape than forecast. What he won’t say is inflation rates rise faster for the poorWhen Philip Hammond stands up to give his budget on Wednesday, this is what you are likely to hear: economic growth has been, and will be, stronger than expected after the Brexit vote. Defying all the doomsayers who said a vote to leave could prompt a recession, consumers carried on spending and businesses continued to expand.The picture for the public finances is also looking rosier compared with Hammond’s maiden autumn statement in November. Back then, the fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), overhauled its forecasts to show that the impact of the Brexit vote on the economy would force the government to borrow £122bn more than hoped over coming years. Less than four months on, healthy tax receipts mean the government has not borrowed as much as previously feared to fund its spending over this financial year.Related: The budget 2017: seven things that we already know will happen …Related: Philip Hammond vows UK will fight back if it gets bad Brexit deal Continue reading...

Chancellor tells EU that Britain won’t ‘slink off like a wounded animal’ if no trade agreement is struck during article 50 talksPhilip Hammond has sent a warning to Britain’s European partners that Britain will “fight back” and not “slink off like a wounded animal” if it does not get the Brexit deal it wants.In combative language ahead of triggering the article 50 negotiations on terms of withdrawal, the chancellor said Britain would “do whatever we need to do” to be competitive in the event of leaving the EU without a trade agreement.

Britain’s negotiations to leave the EU look set to take place against a buoyant global economy and amid optimism over jobs and wagesAnyone who voted to stay in the EU should turn away now. There is disturbing news from far-off continents that could prove upsetting. The news is that Britain’s negotiations to leave the EU will take place against the backdrop of strong global growth. Such is the magnitude of this turnaround from the wobbles of 2015 that it could save the Tory administration from the inevitable cuts or extra borrowing that would follow a stagnating economy.We are not talking about a Trump-inspired dash for growth, although the US president is part of the story. The underpinnings for a year of high employment and solid wage growth across the globe are survey figures showing the largest improvement in worldwide manufacturing business conditions for more than five-and-a-half years. Continue reading...

The Crash of 1929 was an apocalypse, Northumbrian towns were worse than those in occupied France and even the Times admitted there was great povertyPope Pius XI said that the Great Depression of the 1930s was “the worst calamity that has befallen man since the Flood”. Such pronouncements might be expected from the Vatican, but apocalyptic language became commonplace during the “devil’s decade”.The writer and critic Edmund Wilson likened the crash of the US stock market in 1929 to “a rending of the Earth in preparation for the Day of Judgment”. The economist John Maynard Keynes suggested that the world in the grip of the economic blizzard was entering a new dark age that would last a thousand years. The French premier Léon Blum was one of many who compared the Depression to Armageddon, declaring that its effects were as traumatic as those of the first world war. The poet Edwin Muir described the army of unemployed as “the dead on leave”. Continue reading...

Combined TV, film and music industry grew almost 11% in second half of 2016, underpinned by digitally savvy UK consumersAt a time when the British economy is looking for leadership, step forward Darth Vader, Adele and Queen Victoria. One of the reasons GDP growth has stayed robust since the EU referendum is the UK’s creative sector, which has produced buoyant box office receipts thanks to Star Wars, healthy sales of Adele’s latest album and global demand for homegrown TV productions such as Victoria.The combined UK film, TV and music industry boomed in the second half of last year, growing almost 11% compared with the previous six months, according to government figures. In December alone, the film sector accounted for half of all growth in the key services sector – which accounts for 80% of the British economy – because of box-office takings from UK-made Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and JK Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Continue reading...

A basic income could defeat the scarcity mindset, instil a sense of solidarity and even ease the anxieties that gave us Brexit and TrumpEvery student learns about Magna Carta, the ancient scroll that enshrined the rights of barons against the arbitrary authority of England’s monarchs. But most have never heard of its arguably more important twin, the Charter of the Forest, issued two years later in 1217. This short but powerful document guaranteed the rights of commoners to common lands, which they could use for farming, grazing, water and wood. It gave official recognition to a right that humans nearly everywhere had long just presupposed: that no one should be debarred from the resources necessary for livelihood.But this right – the right of habitation – came under brutal attack beginning in the 15 century, when wealthy nobles began fencing off common lands for their own profit. Over the next few centuries, the enclosure movement, as it came to be known, shifted tens of millions of acres into private hands, displacing much of the country’s population. Excluded from the basic means of survival, most were left with no choice but to sell themselves for wages for the first time.Related: To deal with climate change we need a new financial systemRelated: Does the west really care about development? Continue reading...

It was the biggest setback to the global economy since the dawn of the modern industrial age. But did the world’s reaction worsen the effects of the 1929 Crash? And have we learned from those mistakes?As the summer of 1929 drew to a close, the celebrated Yale university economist Irving Fisher took to the pages of the New York Times to opine about Wall Street. Share prices had been rising all year; investors had been speculating with borrowed money on the assumption that the good times would continue. It was the bull market of all time, and those taking a punt wanted reassurance that their money was safe.Fisher provided it for them, predicting confidently: “Stock markets have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” On that day, the Wall Street Crash of October 1929 was less than two months away. It was the worst share tip in history. Nothing else comes close.There are similarities between now and the 1930s, in the sense that you have a declining superpowerIf Keynesian and monetarist economists agree on one thing, it is the disastrous consequences of deflationary policyThe Great Depression ushered in isolationism, protectionism, aggressive nationalism and totalitarianismRelated: Dali's enigma, Picasso's protest: the most important artworks of the 1930s Continue reading...

Record unemployment, costly healthcare, a massive north-south divide, rat-infested slums – and movie palaces, dance halls and lidos. Juliet Gardiner kicks off our special focus on the 1930s with a look at daily life in BritainRead more: Crash course. What the Great Depression reveals about our futureRelated: What the 21st century can learn from the 1929 crash | Larry ElliottCommentators often point to parallels between the current era and the 1930s – whether they are discussing geopolitics, state benefits or even “alternative facts”.By the 1930s, cinema had taken over from theatre and music halls as the most popular entertainmentRelated: Hunger, outrage and bombs: how the Manchester Guardian reported the 1930s Continue reading...

Country to become Europe’s most populous nation by 2050 but Brexit could change projections, says ONSThe UK’s population will pass 70 million in less than a decade, according to official projections, as demographers say the number of people living in the country is increasing “steadily” due to a combination of natural growth, ageing and the indirect impact of the expansion of the European Union.

Latest surveys bolster expectations that Bank of England will leave interest rates at their record low for rest of the yearBritain’s economy is cooling fast, according to the latest surveys of the services, manufacturing and construction sectors, bolstering expectations that the Bank of England will leave interest rates at their record low for the rest of this year and beyond.Coming days before Philip Hammond’s spring budget, the figures add to evidence that the economic strength seen in after the Brexit vote, which put the UK’s GDP growth in the front rank of developed nations, is now faltering.Related: Why the Bank of England won’t raise interest rates any time soonRelated: Germany overtakes UK as fastest-growing G7 economy Continue reading...

Premier Li Keqiang will deliver his annual report against the backdrop of a falling currency and an ever-growing housing and debt bubbleChina’s rubber-stamp legislature convenes this weekend with the script focused on containing economic risks while president Xi Jinping consolidates power ahead of a pivotal Communist party meeting later this year.The gathering of 3,000 delegates for the national people’s congress in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People is staged annually by the party.Related: Why Donald Trump can't bully China on tradeRelated: Australian housing market crash could lead to broader downturn, OECD warnsRelated: China accuses western media of fake news about human rights Continue reading...

Prices tick up helped by the rising cost of oil but a slump in household spending clouds the outlookJapan’s core consumer prices have risen for the first time in over a year thanks to a pickup in energy costs, marking a rare victory in the government’s long battle against deflation.

The flotation of this tech company is an absurdity, where desperate investors pay to own a piece of a company that they will have no say in running

The new president can’t change the rules of the game singlehandedly. He must learn to work effectively within the systemThe first few weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency have contained what felt like a year’s worth of activity and rancour.The US media is “all Trump, all the time” – and they have had plenty of fuel. Amid Trump’s initial moves to “shake up” Washington, DC, including a five-year lobbying ban and approvals of pipelines that Barack Obama had blocked, he has made some serious – and avoidable – mistakes.Related: Will Trump build a wall protecting US banks from global rules? | Howard Davies Continue reading...

Attacks on the Federal Reserve raise alarm bells – it could be forced to halt worldwide cooperation on banking regulationAs President Trump struggles to staff his administration with sympathisers who will help transpose tweets into policy, the exodus of Obama appointees from the federal government and other agencies continues. For the financial world, one of the most significant departures was that of Daniel Tarullo, the Federal Reserve governor who has led its work on financial regulation for the last seven years.It would be a stretch to say that Tarullo has been universally popular in the banking community. He led the charge in arguing for much higher capital ratios, in the US and elsewhere. He was a tough negotiator, with a well-tuned instinct for spotting special pleading by financial firms. But crocodile tears will be shed in Europe to mark his resignation. European banks, and even their regulators, were concerned by his enthusiastic advocacy of even tougher standards in Basel 3.5 (or Basel 4, as bankers like to call it), which would, if implemented in the form favoured by the US, require further substantial capital increases for Europe’s banks in particular. In his absence, these proposals’ fate is uncertain.Related: Donald Trump, the master of unreality, must be resisted at every turn | Joseph Stiglitz Continue reading...

The Institute for Financial Studies is predicting that households will be almost 20% worse off by 2021Britain is in the midst of the weakest growth in living standards in at least 60 years, with low income families faring the worst, a leading thinktank has warned.Weak earnings growth, together with changes to taxes and benefits, will lead to a rise in inequality by 2021-22, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). In a new report on living standards, poverty and inequality, the IFS says incomes for the average family will not grow at all over the next two years.Related: IFS warns of biggest squeeze on pay for 70 years over Brexit Continue reading...

Experts says Department for International Trade’s ‘cultural fit’ criteria are too subjective to comply with procurement rulesLiam Fox’s Department for International Trade may have broken EU procurement rules by specifying in advertisements that contractors must support Brexit.Albert Sanchez-Graells, senior lecturer in law at Bristol University law school, said the “cultural fit” criteria, included in two advertisements asking tech firms to bid for work with government, were too subjective to comply with EU procurement rules. Continue reading...

The boost to the latest GDP figures has come from commodity prices and is not trickling down into wage risesThe latest GDP figures are a prime example of the great divergence of major economic indicators and the reality that most people feel after strong economic growth in the December quarter last year failed to translate into growth for workers’ wages.The treasurer, Scott Morrison would have breathed a small sigh of relief when the figures were released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday. While there was little expectation that the figures would be bad, had the economy gone backwards in the quarter we would have been in a “technical recession” (that most silly of phrases) given the September quarter saw the economy shrink 0.5%. Continue reading...

A massive shift of global capital investment has left homes empty and people homeless, argues Leilani Farha, UN special rapporteur for housing

Shadow chancellor says news of further potential cuts was ‘sneaked out’ and condemns government’s ‘failed austerity’Government departments have been told to outline potential spending cuts of up to 6% with the aim of saving up to £3.5bn by 2020.Before the budget on 8 March, the chief secretary to the Treasury, David Gauke, announced that all Whitehall departments should submit ways to contribute to the government’s “efficiency review”. Continue reading...

Review of race in the workplace makes economic as well as moral case for more diverse workforcesHelping black and minority ethnic (BME) people to progress in their careers at the same rate as their white counterparts could add £24bn to UK economy each year, a government-backed review has found.The report into race in the workplace found recruitment processes, a tendency by managers to promote people similar to themselves and, in some cases, outright discrimination had all held back workers from BME backgrounds.Related: British Asians 'struggle for top jobs despite better school results'Related: Race still determines success in Britain. But there is a way to break the barriers | Rushanara Ali Continue reading...

Forecasts likely to be cut by cumulative £29bn between 2015-16 and 2020-21 but sustainability issues remain, says thinktankSolid economic growth and strong tax receipts since the Brexit vote have put Philip Hammond on course to announce a drop in government borrowing when he presents his spring budget next week, a leading thinktank has predicted.The Resolution Foundation said it would be the first time since March 2014 that a chancellor could stand at the dispatch box and announce borrowing will be lower – not higher – than previously thought.Related: UK government surplus gives Philip Hammond pre-budget boost Continue reading...

Brexit and exodus of foreign workers may force employers to pay more, but there are no guarantees

Could this young Dutchman, hailed as a visionary, galvanise the left with his radical plan for a borderless future in which we are all paid for working less?As liberal democracy seems to be crumbling under the weight of widespread despondency, some hardline opinions are in danger of becoming received wisdoms. In the global market, we are told, we must work harder and improve productivity. The welfare state has become too large and we need to cut back on benefits. Immigration is out of control and borders need to be strengthened.The choice seems to be either to accept this new paradigm or risk the likes of Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders gaining power. The centre ground is being dragged to the left and right, and collapsing down the middle. Meanwhile progressive politics has returned to its comfort zone, busily opposing everything and offering almost nothing. Where is the vision, the ambition, the belief?I’ve heard for years that my ideas are unrealistic. You want to stick to the status quo? How’s that working out?Related: State handouts for all? Europe set to pilot universal basic incomes Continue reading...

It is not just the British economy at stake: the absurdities and evasions of the Leave campaign are jeopardising hard-won stability across the continentThere are many problems afflicting the British economy, and many afflicting the European Union. The trouble with Brexit is that it is almost guaranteed to aggravate both.Although I continue to emphasise the economic damage likely to result from cutting ourselves off from half of our export market, in common with many Remainers I am also exercised by the geopolitical risks in any move that encourages the current outbreak of nationalism in Europe. Continue reading...

Our economy is at a watershed. We need a new capitalism that will stop firms thinking in the short-termIt may have been nine years ago, but the financial crisis continues to throw its long shadow over Britain. Last week, RBS, at the time of the crisis the world’s biggest bank, announced another stunning loss of £7bn – so chalking up cumulatively some £58bn of losses since 2008.It is now even clearer than it was at the time that had the government not stepped in, taking a vast £45bn stake, RBS would have gone bust, threatening a more widespread banking panic with cascading consequences hard to contain. At the very least, Britain would have had an even deeper recession – and much slower recovery. At worst, there would have been a full-scale depression.British companies, because of their fragmented shareholder base, are under pressure to provide good short-term results Continue reading...

Policymaker Gertan Vlieghe shocked MPs with his admission about the limitations of forecasting. But it’s not hard to see where some hotspots areIt was like a private confession broadcast to the nation. When Gertjan Vlieghe cast his eyes down at the desk in front of him and said “we are probably not going to forecast the next financial crisis”, it was a moment of sorrow and self-reproach rarely seen from a Bank of England policymaker.Vlieghe is a member of the Bank’s monetary policy committee, alongside governor Mark Carney and seven others who set the UK’s base interest rate. Continue reading...

Progressive parties have overwhelmingly failed to develop alternative policies. Listening to a modern progressive politician is like taking a tepid bathThe 10th anniversary of the global financial crisis looms this year, which means it’s almost a decade since neoliberal economics began to fall apart. The crisis spawned a global recession, the near collapse of global finance and the subsequent eurozone crisis as governments incurred huge debts amid efforts to rescue the hapless banking industry.The then Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd, observed in the immediate aftermath:The current crisis is the culmination of a 30-year domination of economic policy by a free-market ideology that has been variously called neoliberalism, economic liberalism, economic fundamentalism, Thatcherism or the Washington consensus. The central thrust of this ideology has been that government activity should be constrained, and ultimately replaced, by market forces.Related: We are unlikely to spot next financial crisis, Bank of England official saysRelated: Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problemsRelated: You’re witnessing the death of neoliberalism – from within | Aditya Chakrabortty Continue reading...

Flawed takeover bids, bad lending, and a tower of legal bills have left the Royal Bank of Scotland deep in the redSir Howard Davies, chair of Royal Bank of Scotland, described the £7bn loss the bank rang up last year as “stark”. But it is just a fraction of the bank’s towering total losses of £58bn over the nine years since it was bailed out by the taxpayer. And the bank will rack up even more losses this year.Related: RBS braced for multi-billion-pound settlement for loan-misselling scandalRelated: Treasury plan may allow RBS to avoid selling 300 branches Continue reading...

We must restore the principle of parliamentary sovereignty – Theresa May does not have an open-ended mandateFormer UK prime minister Tony Blair’s recent call for voters to think again about leaving the EU, echoed in parliamentary debates ahead of the government’s official launch of the process in March, is an emperor’s new clothes moment. Although Blair is now an unpopular figure, his voice, like that of the child in Hans Christian Andersen’s story, is loud enough to carry above the cabal of flatterers assuring Theresa May that her naked gamble with Britain’s future is clad in democratic finery.The importance of Blair’s speech can be gauged by the hysterical overreaction to his suggestion of reopening the Brexit debate, even from supposedly objective media: “It will be seen by some as a call to arms – Tony Blair’s Brexit insurrection,” according to the BBC.Related: Blair has a far bigger vision than saving us from Brexit | Matthew d’Ancona Continue reading...

I lived through the 30s and 80s and know the only way to beat the tyranny of austerity is through defiance. As long as you can love, there’s a purpose to lifeI have lived a very long time. Tomorrow, it will be exactly 94 years ago that a midwife with a love of harsh gin and rolled cigarettes delivered me into my mother’s tired, working-class arms. Neither the midwife nor my mother would have expected me to live to almost 100 because my ancestors had lived in poverty for as long as there was recorded history in Yorkshire.Nowadays, when wealth is considered wisdom, too often old age is derided, disrespected or feared, perhaps because it is the last stage in our human journey before death. But in this era of Trump and Brexit, ignoring the assets of knowledge that are acquired over a long life could be as lethal as disregarding a dead canary in a coal mine.Related: Life expectancy forecast to exceed 90 years in coming decadesRelated: Living to 90 and beyond? No thanks | Michele Hanson Continue reading...

I began studying economics at night school in Leeds in the 1950s and continued, at various institutions, as an external student of London University. Our courses were broadly, but not uncritically, Keynesian. We abjured fancy equations and sprinkled our essays with phrases like “a tendency to” and “pressure towards” this or that as a consequence of some other event. As a teacher I have tried to keep reasonably up to date, and learned in the early 70s, for example, to regard most monetarist nonsense as the fantasies of “Friedmaniacs”.With this background, and aware of the influence on our leaders of Oxford’s PPE (philosophy, politics and economics) course, I have often wondered what on earth they taught them. Andy Beckett’s article (The degree that runs Britain, 23 February) gives the answer. PPE graduates are “intellectually flexible”. Or, to put it another way, they sway with the wind. And the winds of monetarism and arrogant attempts to make human behaviours as subject to mathematical predictions as the laws of physics, have captured economics academia for the past 40 years. Conservative, Labour and, to our eternal shame, Liberal Democrats have been equally culpable, as the damage done to the bottom 20% in this country, and to 80% of the population of Greece, so clearly demonstrates. Continue reading...

Your article (Pension changes could cost 11m Britons thousands of pounds, 21 February) says 75% of pension schemes use the retail price index (RPI). But all the public-sector schemes, which must be more than 25%, as well as many in the private sector – eg BT, BA – have used the consumer price index (CPI) for years. The article says RPI is usually greater than CPI; in fact it is virtually always greater because of the different way they are calculated – it’s called the formula effect. To cut a long and complicated story short, RPI may overstate inflation by about 0.2% on average but CPI understates it by about 0.8%.Over time that’s a big difference and will of course affect future pensioners (today’s young) more than it will current pensioners – this is not a baby boomer issue. Basically CPI was never meant to be a real measure of inflation; rather it was a way of comparing inflation in EU states. Its adoption by the government as the measure of inflation rises – on benefits as well as pensions – since 2010 is basically a mendacious scam.

Britain loses top spot as ONS revises down annual growth to 1.8%, from an initial estimate of 2%Germany overtook the UK as the fastest growing among the G7 states during 2016. Europe’s largest economy expanded at the fastest rate in five years, showing growth of 1.9% last year.The expansion pushed Britain into second place among the G7 industrialised nations, after the Office for National Statistics revised down annual UK growth to 1.8%, from an initial estimate of 2%.Related: Germany overtakes UK to become fastest-growing G7 economy in 2016 - business liveGerman economy was marked by strong and steady growth during 2016, with GDP increasing 1.9% - highest rate of GDP growth among G7 countries. Continue reading...

Heather Stewart is joined by Andrew Lilico, Ann Pettifor, Jonathan Portes, Rachel Reeves and Vince Cable for an extended discussion at a Guardian Live event in LondonSubscribe and review: iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast & Stitcher and join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterThere’s a word that’s suddenly part of almost every political discussion going on in the democratic world: populism. Continue reading...