Manchester to Leeds railway line, Peak District underground tunnel and Crossrail 2 to receive funding from chancellor in budgetGeorge Osborne will use Wednesday’s budget to set in motion plans for a high-speed railway line from Manchester to Leeds and an 18-mile underground road tunnel beneath the Peak District.The chancellor will also promise to “prioritise” a north-south link through central London as he accepts the final recommendations of the National Infrastructure Commission, led by former Labour peer Lord Adonis, which are being published on Tuesday.Related: Budget 2016: George Osborne fuels speculation of nasty shocks Continue reading...

The confederation may hold some of the UK’s biggest exporters, but does its opinion count in an era of corporate scandals and “fat cat pay” rows?There was never the slightest doubt that the CBI would back Britain remaining a part of the European Union. For all the talk while David Cameron was conducting his negotiations that the employers’ organisation was in favour of remaining in a reformed union, it would not really have mattered had the prime minister come back from Brussels with a blank sheet of paper: he was always going to have the CBI onside.Related: CBI member survey reveals huge support for remaining in EU Continue reading...

North-east England is still feeling the effects of the Redcar closure, but some businesses are confounding grim statisticsIt costs £1.35 for a Victoria sponge in Yasmin’s halal bakery on Middlesbrough’s Parliament Road. That’s for a whole cake, not just a slice. “We charge what we can,” said owner Shazad Ahmed, describing his shop as the “Asian Greggs” as he tried to tempt us with a jumbo samosa (58p). Business is not booming: “We’re just covering our costs at the minute.”When the SSI steel plant 10 miles up the road in Redcar shut in October with the direct loss of 2,200 jobs and the same again in the supply chain, the reverberations were felt across Teesside. “It has a knock-on effect for us. With the steel workers not having any jobs, they aren’t going to come and spend money in our businesses. They haven’t got no money no more,” said Ahmed. A customer, Tan Hanif, chipped in: “If that steel complex was in London, the government would have put money into it and kept it open.”Related: Budget 2016: George Osborne fuels speculation of nasty shocksRelated: Life after steel: can Redcar rise from the ashes? Continue reading...

A key component of every budget is the distributional analysis, which shows how the chancellor’s spending decisions will affect households across the income spectrum. However, despite its obvious importance, the government removed this analysis from last year’s emergency summer budget. We believe this is a serious mistake.It is a vital function of government to clearly detail the implications of its policies on the finances of different income groups. Moreover, in order to tackle poverty, inequality, and other social ills, it is important that government publishes its most robust data to provide an accurate account of the scale of these problems. This includes data on whether government policies effectively alleviate or exacerbate them. Continue reading...

All the day’s economic and financial news, as traders brace for news from the Fed, the Bank of England and the BoJ this week

The former Bank of England governor’s condemnation of the world economic and political order offers few solutions but deserves a wide audienceMervyn King looks like one of those old-fashioned bank managers who cast a paternalistic eye on the nervous customer. Or he could be a GP telling you that you really need to exercise more and go easy on the carbs. It is in this vein that he probes the state of the global economy; his diagnosis does not reassure.Not for him is the Piketty-esque grand sweep. He avoids the hubris of the “I told you so” school (virtually none of them actually did tell us so ahead of time). He says he is not interested in the blame game, which is probably just as well considering that he was governor of the Bank of England at the time of the great crash of 2007-08. He baldly states: “No doubt there were bankers who were indeed wicked and central bankers who were incompetent, though the vast majority of both whom I met during the crisis were neither.” Many (myself included) might beg to disagree, but this argument has exhausted itself.Most alarming is the inability of economists and politicians to think their way out of the mire Continue reading...

With such grave financial prospects, it’s no wonder today’s under-25s prefer jogging to drinking. To have a sense of freedom now seems illogicalIt’s bad news for the drinks industry, but it’s mainly bad news for people who think each generation is more feckless than the last: the number of drinkers among 16- to 24-year-olds has dropped sharply. All kinds of drinkers are dying out: the steady drinkers, the binge drinkers, the drinkers-in-training, the social drinkers the bus stop drinkers – the lot.In a study by the Office for National Statistics, less than half of young people reported drinking anything in the previous week, compared with two-thirds of 45- to 64-year-olds – many of whom are in all likelihood under medical advice to please cut it out, or at least do the nation the favour of lying about it in surveys.Today’s students must look at the lad and ladette culture of the 90s and wonder who we thought we were Continue reading...

Jeremy Corbyn has a tough job countering chancellor’s budget but openings do exist – on wages, investment and productivityJeremy Corbyn has one of the hardest gigs in politics coming up on Wednesday. By tradition the response to the budget comes not from the shadow chancellor but from the leader of the opposition, who has the unenviable task of responding to a package of measures he has not seen and which invariably contains one or two big surprises.The surprise this time could be some modest tax cuts. George Osborne likes nothing better than to set traps for his political opponents, so Corbyn should be alive to the possibility that the budget will not be nearly as grim an affair as its advance billing has indicated.Related: George Osborne's November pledges: how far has he got? Continue reading...

It’s 100 years on from the Easter Rising, but in the wake of economic crisis and deep uncertainty, Ireland faces huge challenges once more. Here, five young Irish novelists offer a personal view of their homeland todayKevin Curran’s first novel, Beatsploitation, tackled the subject of racism in Ireland. His follow-up, Citizens, takes the events of 1916 as its starting point. He works as a teacher and lives in Skerries, County DublinIn the winter of 2014 I attended my first anti-water charges protest. But the march had already started – its smooth flow of bodies drifting cheerfully down O’Connell Street in Dublin – by the time I joined it. My train had been delayed. Such was the feeling of distrust with the government, whispers from passengers with their “No way, we won’t pay” placards had spread giddy rumours through the carriage that it was a state-directed conspiracy to stop us getting there.Cities, to my mind, are for people who like to do things in close proximity to other peopleRelated: Spill Simmer Falter Wither by Sara Baume review – instils fear and wonderRelated: The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney review – the Sweary Lady is on bellicose formRelated: This Is the Ritual by Rob Doyle review – sex, drugs and NietzscheRelated: Eggshells by Caitriona Lally review – a daring debutCoffee used to be a treat to meet a pal for; now it’s a polystyrene necessity to get through the day Continue reading...

The chancellor made many promises in his autumn statement and spending review in November – but how many has been able to keep?As George Osborne puts the finishing touches to his budget, voters may well be bracing themselves for yet another smoke-and-mirrors performance. Like so many chancellors before him, the government’s austerity champion has had to fend off plenty of accusations of double-counting, re-announcing and empty promises.

It seems like machines are taking all the jobs, so let’s nurture our ‘soft skills’ and keep people one step aheadWhat a time to be a human: barely a day goes by without a new warning that the machines will steal our jobs. More news is due on this robot uprising this week when George Osborne is expected to announce a trial of driverless lorries in his budget.The World Economic Forum says more than 7 million jobs are at risk from advances in technology in the world’s largest economies over the next five years. The Bank of England’s chief economist, Andy Haldane, is gloomier still and warns up to 15m jobs in Britain are at risk of being lost to an age of robots. Continue reading...

The politics of the EU referendum and of the Tory succession mean the chancellor’s future depends on his performanceDavid Cameron was talking with an intimate about his relationship with George Osborne and their differences in temperament. “I’m 50% politician, 50% human being,” said the Tory leader. He did not spend every waking minute scheming and strategising. There were other things in his life. That is why he would be content in the retirement from Number 10, which he has told everyone will take place before the next election. Then he mused upon his neighbour, friend and favoured successor. The chancellor was a different blend of species, said the prime minister: “George is 90% politician, 10% human.”Some of George Osborne’s colleagues might query whether there is as much as 10% of human DNA in his genome. He prepares to deliver this week’s budget with a reputation as a supremely political chancellor. His six-year tenure at the Treasury can be seen as an extended tutorial in how guile at politics can be more important than success at policy. He has repeatedly failed to hit many of his own targets. The deficit was supposed to have vanished by now. He has bust his own welfare cap. His growth forecasts have been subject to endless revision. More than once, he has been compelled into large and humiliating U-turns. Yet he has survived his mistakes because he established such a strong narrative when he first moved into the Treasury that everything could be blamed on “the mess” inherited from the last Labour government and he sustained that framing of the argument through to the Tory election victory last May. That was also a reminder that all politics is relative. However chequered his own record, the group of voters who trusted him and David Cameron with the economy outnumbered those who had faith in the two Eds. Continue reading...

The capital is home to 1,000 ‘family offices’, made up of lawyers and financiers who service every need of the super-richBehind smart Georgian facades in prime West End addresses a little-known industry that serves the growing numbers of the global super-rich in London is booming.Boasting marble foyers and plushly carpeted meeting rooms, some of these companies might be mistaken for luxury hotels. In fact, they are private offices that manage family wealth that can compare with the assets of FTSE 250 companies such as Tate & Lyle and Debenhams.Related: Almost half of Britain's private wealth owned by top 10% of householdsRelated: One in 65 UK adults now a millionaire, figures show Continue reading...

Chancellor urged by Labour and Lib Dems to give priority in his budget to low earners and use spare money to offset welfare cutsChancellor George Osborne is under pressure to shelve promised tax cuts for the well-off as he looks to plug a massive and unexpected black hole in the public finances.In his budget on Wednesday, Osborne faces one of his toughest political and economic tests to date as he tries to keep his deficit reduction strategy on course after a period of weaker than expected growth, while honouring Tory election pledges to cut personal taxes.Related: Osborne faces up to tough choices in an altogether bleaker budgetRelated: How Eurosceptics are stalling George Osborne's ride to No 10 Continue reading...

Last year’s autumn statement painted a rosy picture of rising incomes and revenues. Now the global economy is slipping back, what will the chancellor do?George Osborne is struggling to hit his financial targets. And like an archer facing strong headwinds, the chancellor will almost certainly be forced to adjust his sights in the budget this week to meet his promise of a surplus in the government’s finances by 2020.For months Osborne has warned that storm clouds are gathering over the global economy and that this poses a threat the UK and, by implication, the exchequer. It is these factors that he will blame for blowing him off course. Yet his own fiscal charter’s aim of a budget surplus must still be met. Here are seven areas he may tackle to raise taxes and cut spending. Continue reading...

Bank of England says graduates can still expect to earn more than those without degrees but supply has exceeded demandThe rapid expansion of university education is affecting the earning power of graduates, according to a Bank of England study showing the value of a degree has declined sharply over 20 years.Threadneedle Street said those leaving university could expect to earn more over their working lives than people without academic qualifications, but that the wage premium had been cut from 45% to 34% between 1995 and 2015. Continue reading...

Key figure in EU deal Cameron sealed in Brussels last month to replace Sir Nicholas MacphersonThe Whitehall man who helped David Cameron hammer out his EU deal has been rewarded with one of the most powerful jobs in the civil service and a key role in the running of the economy.Tom Scholar, 47, the prime minister’s principal adviser on the European Union, has been installed as permanent secretary to the Treasury, replacing Sir Nicholas Macpherson who is stepping down at the end of this month.Delighted Tom Scholar will be new @HMTreasury permanent secretary. One of the very best and brightest in our public life. Continue reading...

Party’s former election chief says tax and spending plans echo Ed Balls’s approach that was derided by supporters of Jeremy CorbynLabour’s former election chief Spencer Livermore has accused the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, of rehashing the tax and spending policy on which the party fought the last election.McDonnell used a speech in Westminster on Friday morning to announce a “fiscal credibility rule”, which would force a future Labour government to match tax revenues and day-to-day spending – while allowing borrowing to pay for investment.Related: John McDonnell’s new fiscal rule is strong. But it won’t win an election | Andrew HarropRelated: Nothing wildly radical about John McDonnell's spending plans Continue reading...

With interest rates so low, governments should borrow to invest in research, education, and infrastructureThe world economy is visibly sinking, and the policymakers who are supposed to be its stewards are tying themselves in knots. Or so suggest the results of the G-0 summit held in Shanghai at the end of last month.The International Monetary Fund, having just downgraded its forecast for global growth, warned the assembled G20 attendees that yet another downgrade was pending. Despite this, all that emerged from the meeting was an anodyne statement about pursuing structural reforms and avoiding beggar-thy-neighbour policies. Continue reading...

City links: A worldwide cost of living index, a failed ‘smart’ bus service and a new gentrification podcast all feature in this week’s pick of the best city storiesThis week’s round-up of city stories takes you from Singapore to New York via Helsinki. We’d love to hear your responses to these stories, and any others you’ve read recently: share your thoughts in the comments below.

UK’s trade deficit narrows as construction industry output weakens slightlyA modest narrowing of Britain’s trade gap coupled with a slight weakening in the construction sector has provided George Osborne with mixed economic news before next week’s budget.Related: European stocks jump on ECB stimulus and higher oil prices – business live Continue reading...

Read the full transcript of our interview with the ECB president in which he calls for more to be done to help Generation YWhat does the European Central Bank’s own research on incomes and younger generations say?

ECB president laments high levels of youth unemployment and warns near-zero inflation damages Generation Y’s prospectsEurope’s economies are rigged to protect older workers at the cost of new employees, the president of the European Central Bank has told the Guardian.Mario Draghi also said “tragic” high levels of youth unemployment had the potential to threaten social harmony in Europe and that rock-bottom inflation was damaging the prospects of Generation Y by redistributing their wealth to older people.Related: Mario Draghi: 'Reducing youth unemployment is a priority for everyone'Youth unemployment is a tragedy and prevents people from playing a full and meaningful part in societyRelated: Why the falling oil price may not lead to boom Continue reading...

New ultra-cheap loans to banks among unprecedented package of measures as Mario Draghi seeks to jump-start economyThe European Central Bank has cut interest rates across the eurozone to zero as it unveiled an unprecedented package of growth-boosting measures against the backdrop of a fragile global economy.Related: ECB stimulus hint steadies marketsRelated: How the ECB is trying to revive the eurozoneRelated: ECB can only buy time, not solve eurozone growth woesRelated: Kipper Williams on ECB cutting eurozone interest rate to zero Continue reading...

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell tells Guardian restoring Labour’s economic reputation is “struggle of generation”Labour would borrow billions of pounds to fund public investment projects, while exerting an “iron discipline” over day-to-day spending, shadow chancellor John McDonnell has said, as he seeks to win back the party’s reputation for economic competence.In an interview with the Guardian, he described shoring up Labour’s fiscal credibility as “the struggle of a generation”, but insisted that exerting tight control over spending did not signal the abandonment of Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-austerity stance. Continue reading...

European Central Bank also ramps up quantatitive easing programme in attempt to fend off deflationThe European Central Bank has surprised financial markets by cutting interest rates in the eurozone to zero, expanding its money printing programme and reducing a key deposit rate further into negative territory as it seeks to revive the economy and fend off deflation.Related: ECB can only buy time, not solve eurozone growth woesRelated: How the ECB is trying to revive the eurozoneMonetary policy decisions https://t.co/eZRPXZcJCy Continue reading...

European Central Bank tries again to revive bloc’s economy, with measures including increased quantatitive easing Continue reading...

Mario Draghi’s efforts will count for little without structural reforms and more aggressive use of fiscal policy by European governmentsFor most of its short life, the European Central Bank fretted about inflation being too high. Now it has the opposite concern.The fear of deflation explains the package of measures announced by Mario Draghi on Thursday. Three months ago, the ECB president disappointed the markets by coming up with less stimulus than he had led them to expect. This time there were no half measures.Related: Markets volatile after ECB cuts interest rates and boosts QE - business live Continue reading...

European Central Bank has four key measures to get money into the financial system – what are they and will they work?What has the European Central Bank done?Mario Draghi, the ECB president, has announced four key measures:Related: ECB cuts eurozone interest rate to zero to jump-start economy Continue reading...

Organisation’s chief economist dismisses Boris Johnson’s argument that long-term benefits of leaving outweigh costsThe west’s leading economic thinktank has provided backing for David Cameron’s pro-EU stance by warning that a UK vote to leave the union would cause lasting damage and would harm the rest of the world.Catherine Mann, the chief economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, said a vote against remaining in the EU would be “bad for the UK, bad for Europe and bad for the global economy”.Related: The EU referendum: a guide to the UK's biggest political decision of the century Continue reading...

All the day’s economic and financial news, including signs that the UK economy weakened last December, before picking up again

With country at risk of becoming a failed state, Kiev must recognise that economic survival depends on Moscow not the westIn January Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, congratulated the country on surviving its first winter without buying Russian gas. It had instead bought European gas which, as Poroshenko pointed out proudly, was 30% more expensive.

Drops in import and export figures reverse recent rally in oil and metal prices and rekindle concerns about China’s slowdownShares in mining companies fell heavily in the City on Tuesday after the biggest fall in China’s exports in almost seven years rekindled concerns about the impact of a slowdown in the world’s second-biggest economy on the rest of the world.Official figures released in Beijing showed that exports in February were down 25.4% on a year earlier, the worst performance since May 2009, the trough of the global recession.Related: IMF urges action to prevent 'economic derailment' - as it happened Continue reading...

While your in-depth quantification of the economic betrayal of “generation Y” (Millennials, 8 March) is timely and welcome, setting it as an opposition between the young and pensioners is to miss the real issue. A cursory reading of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century would lead one to expect such a transitional effect. As the balance of power between returns on capital and income shifted back towards the owners of wealth, it disproportionately hit those entering work. It is easier to deny decent wages, job security and pensions to those joining than it is to take them away from those who already have them.That shift in power was orchestrated through state power, including trade union legislation, and the lifting of controls on capital movement, by governments. Shifting the focus from the super-rich, the beneficiaries of that political project, to a generation fortunate in their time of birth is misleading. The civilised pensions will die with that generation, and the wealth in property of the middle classes will quickly dissipate as it is inherited down generations.

The figures reflect a steady decline in bonuses since the financial crisis in 2008 and the implementation of new controls on how bonuses are awardedWall Street bonuses fell 9% to an average of $146,200 in 2015, driven down by a “challenging year in the financial markets” and new regulations, according to New York state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.The decline in the banking bonuses was the result, in large part, of a 10.5% decline in profits on Wall Street to $14.3bn in 2015, according to the report from the watchdog. Continue reading...

It’s in the government’s interests to keep promoting the very myths that keep the benefit fraud hotline ringing – and distract us from real social problemsI can’t decide what is most disturbing: that more than 85% of allegations of benefit fraud put forward by the public over the past five years have been false, or that this is about almost 900,000 out of more than a million cases.That isn’t a handful of mistaken or malicious individuals. It’s a widespread anti-benefit mindset that – over five years of austerity – has rooted itself in British culture: through Benefits Street type-television, the rhetoric of politicians, and the pages of national newspapers. Continue reading...

Spot prices for iron ore explode by 18.5%, their biggest single gain since daily pricing began in 2008The Australian dollar has surged to an eight-month high after a “spectacular” jump in iron ore prices.At 7am on Tuesday, the local unit was trading at US74.70c, up from US74.0c on Monday.Related: Australian shares set to open higher on Monday after surge in base metal price Continue reading...

Those who become mothers before 33 earn 15% less than peers who do not, finds study marking International Women’s DayWomen who become mothers before 33 earn 15% less than their peers who have not had children, the Trades Union Congress is to say as it calls for better childcare support to tackle the “motherhood pay penalty”.The TUC’s analysis to mark International Women’s Day on Tuesday says the disparity is down to younger mothers being more likely to have had a significant period out of work or working part-time, before returning to full-time work when their children are older. Continue reading...

Your reporting of npower’s problems (Npower to shed 2,500 jobs after mass departure of customers, 7 March) focuses on the anticipated job losses. I have every sympathy for those who will be affected, but jobs are constantly created and lost in a market economy – it’s what competition does. In this case, you might have noted how many staff are already employed by the new competitors who have made life difficult for npower. Politicians, regulators and consumer organisations have been frustrated by the apparent reluctance of consumers to change suppliers of energy (and other essential services where the market has been liberalised and/or privatised). A small celebration, then, for the 200,000 who acted on their dissatisfaction with npower. Banks and others take note.