Report by joint committee on human rights says worst suffering has been inflicted on children from migrant and low-income families

In what we hope was his last budget, George Osborne made a series of false claims about his economic record (Editorial, 20 March). The reality is that his priority is to raise profits for the corporations, top executive salaries and bonuses, at the expense of ordinary working people. His achievement is the slowest ever “recovery” from recession, while ordinary people suffer increasing hardship during the longest continuous fall in living standards since records began. That is the real Tory record of this parliament. All those who have seen their real wages fall understand the real effects of austerity policies, along with people forced into low-paid or zero-hours contracts, families forced into using food banks and everyone suffering rising A&E waiting lists. Austerity policies have not reduced the public-sector deficit to the level its supporters claimed. The limited fall in the deficit is a result of hugely damaging cuts to government investment as well as the windfall of falling global interest rates, which are a sign of economic weakness.Austerity policies have failed everyone but the super-rich, bankers and landlords who have benefited from the government’s tax cuts, bonuses and measures to boost house prices, but not home building. We call for an end to austerity policies. We need to invest in a future for the majority of the population. That’s why we’ll be supporting the People’s Assembly Against Austerity national demonstration and festival against austerity on Saturday 20 June. Continue reading...

Greek prime minister has held talks with the German chancellor in Berlin, as pressure grows to meet its creditors’ demands.

The commodification of our lives is creating a time-poor society that damages our happiness and our planet, and will ultimately harm our economy tooWhat are the building blocks of a post-growth politics? And how can we get from here to there?A crucial part of the answer is that we need a deep reframing of the central questions of politics. In the first place, we should talk less about the economy as a machine for producing more goods (many of which turn out to be “bads”). We should talk more about what an economy is actually for: satisfying needs, creating a better society and improving our quality of life. Once we do that we see that continuing growth can be counter-productive, as well as impossible in a finite system such as the planet we live on.Related: Growth is not the answer to inequalityRelated: A wave of disruption is sweeping in to challenge neoliberalism Continue reading...

CBI industrial trends survey is the latest piece of evidence to suggest that the economy is growing less quickly than in the second half of 2014Order books for UK factories have stagnated as the strong pound and the protracted weakness of the eurozone affect demand for British goods overseas.The CBI said in its monthly health check of industry that export order books stood at their lowest in more than two years following a sharp fall in March. Continue reading...

Open Europe thinktank warns Ukip that Britain could lose 2.23% of its GDP by leaving the EU customs union and single marketBritain faces a stark choice after an EU exit of allowing its economy to shrink by £56bn, by shutting down its borders, or agreeing to the continued free movement of European citizens in a new deal with Brussels, according to a leading thinktank.In a challenge to Nigel Farage, who believes Britain can prosper outside the EU by blocking migration, the Open Europe thinktank warns that a unilateral UK exit could lead to a permanent dent in the country’s GDP of 2.23% by 2030. This works out at £56bn a year. Continue reading...

Report warns that people’s complacency over their ability to manage their borrowing could lead to resurgence in bad debtThe average UK household will owe close to £10,000 in debts such as personal loans, credit cards and overdrafts by the end of 2016, which is a new high in cash terms, a report has found.Total outstanding non-mortgage borrowing grew by nearly £20bn or 9% in 2014, to reach £239bn, marking the fastest rate of growth in a decade, according to the report from PwC, Precious Plastic: How Britons Fell Back in Love With Borrowing. Continue reading...

Alexis Tsipras and Angela Merkel are to meet in Berlin for high-stakes talks that could prove to be decisive in the battle over austerity measuresWhen the red carpet is rolled out for Alexis Tsipras in Berlin on Monday, the euro debt drama will come to a potentially decisive turning point.His host will be none other than Angela Merkel, Europe’s mother, its powerbroker par excellence and the queen of austerity, defender of the very policies the leftwing firebrand has vowed to dismantle. For many, it will be the long anticipated moment of truth. Continue reading...

Amid demands for wartime compensation from Athens, and for deep economic reforms from Berlin, a majority of Germans now want Greece out of the eurozone

Analysts expect inflation is likely to have fallen to 0.1% with some predicting that figures could show a negative readingThe British economy is heading for a spell of deflation as official figures are expected to show that inflation dropped to 0.1% last month.Analysts expect the UK’s consumer price inflation (CPI) figure for February, which is released on Tuesday, to fall from 0.3% in January, driven by lower energy and food prices. Some economists think the monthly update from the Office for National Statistics could already show deflation. Continue reading...

For Britain’s industrial areas, recovery is patchier, with weaker jobs growth and less infrastructure spending. The evidence says we never have been in it togetherHartlepool has seen better days. Its port was used to transport coal from the Durham coalfields and manufacturing thrived on the Tees estuary.Heavy industry is still important, although there is less than there was. The council has ambitious plans for regeneration. On the waterfront, there is evidence of previous attempts to turn the town’s fortunes around. The empty office blocks and the shuttered outlet centre show these have not been entirely successful. Continue reading...

IMF and Asian Development Bank tell Beijing conference they are happy to cooperate with Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, but US urges caution

The chancellor’s boastfulness and trickery have not saved him from the criticism of the independent economic watchdogs that he himself set upI keep wondering who George Osborne reminds me of, and it finally came to me, during what I hope – in common, I imagine, with tens of millions of British citizens – will prove to have been his last budget speech.During the austerity years of 1945-51, there was no shortage of demand, but a severe shortage of supply. Also, the country was broke, and there was, to coin a phrase, no alternative to austerity, of which the most obvious manifestation was rationing.Osborne cannot get away from the fact that he has presided over the slowest and feeblest recovery in living memory Continue reading...

Rolling economic and financial news, as European leaders urge Athens to present details reform plans quickly

UK index of top 100 companies surpasses 7,000, recording its all-time high since the index was introduced in January 1984The FTSE 100 has soared through the 7,000 barrier for the first time in its history, with investors buoyed by the prospect of continuing low interest rates and growing hopes that a solution may finally be found to Greece’s financial crisis.Seventeen years after the leading index hit 6,000, it finally added the next 1,000 points after a number of attempts, notably in 1999 at the height of the dotcom boom. Last year there were predictions that the index would reach new peaks, but after coming close a number of times, it always fell at the final hurdle as new risks – ebola, the Ukraine crisis, the eurozone – emerged. But on Friday, it closed 60.19 points higher at a record 7,022.51, a near-1% rise on the day. Continue reading...

Newcastle’s collaborative, ‘future thinking’ regeneration scheme has revived a city that was on its knees after the devastation of 1980s deindustrialisation. But what about near-neighbour Sunderland? Compare its fortunes hereIt comes as no surprise to the Geordies that Newcastle is rated one the UK’s best performing cities. I left in 1990 when the city (and most of the north-east) was on its knees, but the city I see on my visits home is revived, emerging as a poster child for the new north. A recent Centre for Cities report ranked Newcastle eighth among the UK’s largest cities in terms of jobs growth – attracting nearly 30,000 new jobs between 2004 and 2013 (an 8% increase), and belying the report’s overall message of a widening north-south divide.The revived Quayside is testament to the city’s determination to rebuild itself after the devastation of 1980s deindustrialisation. Building on the work of neighbouring Gateshead in promoting its Garden Festival, Sage culture centre and Millennium Bridge, Newcastle published Going for Growth, an ambitious, city-wide regeneration strategy, back in 2000. Seeking to position itself as a competitive, cohesive and cosmopolitan city of international significance, it built partnerships with citizens, communities, companies and government – and even bid to become European City of Culture, achieving a level of exposure overseas despite losing out to Liverpool.To many north-easterners, this part of the world has been ignored for so long that self-reliance is bred into the psycheRelated: City rivalries: Sunderland's reinvention is profound – but its recovery is fragile Continue reading...

Thinktank says chancellor must specify how he will reach targets announced in the budget, given that the poor had been hardest hit by benefit changesGeorge Osborne is under pressure from the Institute for Fiscal Studies to specify how he planned to cut welfare spending by £12bn in the next parliament, and warned the poor had lost most from the coalition’s benefit changes of the past five years.Britain’s leading experts on tax and spending also said the pickup in living standards hailed by the chancellor in his budget was the slowest in modern history and “no cause for celebration” – although the IFS did suggest living standards on current projections would be higher in 2015 than 2010, a finding that was hailed by Osborne.Related: Budget 2015: beneath George Osborne’s performance was a party on the defensive | Jonathan FreedlandRelated: Osborne will need unprecedented cuts in welfare to meet targets, says IFS Continue reading...

Greece has agreed to present a new list of reforms plan quickly, after top-level overnight talks in Brussels

In the medium-term, Next has nothing to worry about – even if the bottom of Wolfson’s profits range for the current year is £785m, or almost no growthNext shareholders should not despair: their chief executive, Lord Wolfson, may be “very cautious” about the year ahead but that represents only a modest downgrade on his normal mood in March.This time last year, he thought Next’s pre-tax profits would be £730m-£770m. In the event, Wolfson unveiled £782m on Thursday – and that was achieved even with a mild weather-related warning last autumn. Continue reading...

In his budget speech (Report, 19 March) the chancellor, George Osborne, forgot to mention the following eight factors: missed target to eliminate the deficit by end of this parliament; larger debt in the government’s five years than Labour accrued over 13 years in office; tax breaks for millionaires and hedge funds; a million people using food banks; 59% rise in working people forced to claim housing benefit; 1.4 million people on zero-hours contracts; record numbers of people living in poverty; and another £60bn in cuts still to be found before 2020. All seemed to have slipped George’s memory.

Housing benefit and pensions are likely to keep rising, as will tax credits. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies says, it’s time we knew where the cuts will fallAny challenge from the Institute for Fiscal Studies is a hard one for George Osborne to dodge.The tax-and-spending watchdog wants him to explain how he plans to cut welfare spending in the next parliament. Continue reading...

Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen, including George Osborne and Ed Balls’ post-budget interviews, and the IFS post-budget briefing

Political parties lobbying for curbs on immigration may be missing the bigger picture – Britain needs foreign workers to avoid deeper cuts and higher taxesGeorge Osborne’s sunny economic forecast and much of his claim that Britain is a “comeback country” have more to do with higher than expected levels of net inward migration than his stewardship as chancellor or the falling oil price.That is not a verdict that you are likely to hear from the Conservatives or from Labour for that matter, both of which like to appear as parties opposed to mass migration, but the Office for Budget Responsibility makes clear that it is one key factor fuelling Britain’s economic recovery. Continue reading...

The UK’s macroeconomic policy is uncoordinated and still unduly influenced by political factors, as the new budget proposals showThe lack of coordination of the different parts of UK macroeconomic policy – ­fiscal, monetary and financial­ – has caused problems for some time now. Political, not economic, factors have continued to have undue influence. They are much in evidence currently in the chancellor’s proposal to run budget surpluses in the future, in spite of his earlier quite elaborate extensions to both financial and prudential regulation. If these new arrangements work, there is no need to build up surpluses to offset the effects of a future crisis and this calls into question his motives for doing it.There are important lessons to learn from the years before the financial crisis, when financial liberalisation in the UK and elsewhere led to huge increases in private sector debt based on highly speculative collateral requirements. This fuelled a rapid increase in the consumption-to-income ratio, the major engine of growth in the economy then. After two years of fiscal consolidation, Labour also slackened the fiscal stance in the early 2000s. If the Bank of England had been operating independently as planned, it would have tightened monetary policy, which would also have curbed the asset bubble and limited the excessive risk­taking in the financial sector, as well as acting simultaneously to offset the fiscal relaxation. This, however, did not happen, either due to a complete failure of the Bank to understand these developments or because it was not actually operating independently. Continue reading...

Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, says the plans laid out in George Osborne's budget cannot be paid for without cuts to the NHS or a rise in VAT. Balls says the chancellor did not explain how he will pay for promises made in the budget on Wednesday. He says Labour would provide a 'better, fairer, more balanced plan' for the economy Continue reading...

The Fed has signalled it’s changing its approach to interest rates – and that means consumers are in for a volatile six monthsThe Federal Reserve isn’t going to be “patient” any more. Dropping that one word from the language surrounding policymakers’ approach to future interest rate hikes may seem minor, but it’s a significant change for savers, investors and borrowers.Last December the Fed signalled that the era of ultra-low interest rates was coming to an end. But it added it would patient about deciding when. Wednesday’s decision to drop the P-word throws open the doors to the first increases in lending rates since 2008, and means that Janet Yellen and her fellow Fed officials will respond to economic data on a meeting-by-meeting basis. Continue reading...

George Osborne, the chancellor, says his budget offered help for workers, savers and first-time buyers because his government has made difficult decisions. Speaking on Thursday in Tilbury, Essex, Osborne says his decisions have allowed him to protect the NHS and to invest in mental health services. The chancellor says that in the upcoming election voters need to understand that a strong economy is necessary for vital services to be maintained Continue reading...

Thinktank warns that extra £20bn will need to be saved – while protecting pensions – even if austerity targets are relaxed as plannedThe Treasury will need to find “unprecedented” welfare savings over the next three years for the government to achieve its public spending plans, according to an influential thinktank.The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the chancellor’s plans require welfare cuts that have eluded ministers over the past five years.

Prospect of tough post-election squeeze overshadows £3bn in pre-election budget’s gains for first-time buyers and savers

Robert Chote says consumers will provide momentum in coming term as chancellor’s amended austerity cuts put pressure on state-funded enterprisesPublic services face a “rollercoaster” ride over the next five years, the government’s fiscal watchdog has predicted, after George Osborne trimmed his austerity plans in the budget.The Office for Budget Responsibility has made radical changes to its public finances outlook after Osborne used his pre-election budget to scrap plans that would have meant the biggest squeeze on public spending since the 1930s by the end of this decade. Continue reading...

In response to budget, Labour leader claims chancellor has hushed up the fact that NHS faces even deeper cuts under the next parliament

George Monbiot is right that corruption poses a vast challenge to all economies (Let’s not fool ourselves. We may not bribe, but corruption is rife in Britain, 18 March), but he is wrong to suggest that institutions such as the World Economic Forum are standing idly by waiting for the problem to solve itself. He correctly points out that one of the major problems with tackling corruption is actually measuring it. Here, our annual survey of global executives has been successful in starting debates in countries where it is commonplace. Far better, though, to fix the international system so that loopholes and opportunities for exploitation are not there in the first place.Our eyes are on this bigger prize, which is why we convene leaders from business, civil society and government countless times throughout the year to explore and design ways to build institutions, policies and regulatory regimes that not only promote transparency and ethics but guarantee them. It is why we encourage debate in Davos on income inequality and trust in leadership. This is not lip service: it is action in the interests of every stakeholder. Continue reading...

He poses as a steadfast steward, but the record as well as the budget suggests that he is a man who reliably puts expediency above principleHe is reliably economical with words and in three sparse budget sentences the austerity chancellor reviewed his tenure and set out the Conservative election campaign: “We set out a plan. That plan is working. Britain is walking tall again.” With the UK edging out from the shadows of the great recession, this chancellor’s steadfast stewardship is a powerful election asset – if it is believed.On any objective appraisal, however, steadfast is not a word to apply to George Osborne: review the statistics in the light of all his original promises and he emerges instead as the chancer chancellor. Continue reading...

A little good economic news goes a long way in the chancellor’s budget speechRabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit. The Tory backbenchers were starting to get a bit restless. They wanted their pre-election feelgood rabbit but the chancellor just wanted to rabbit. And cluck. Sudden weight loss, sweaty forehead, pallid features and half-dead eyes; George Osborne had been re-reading Trainspotting.“We choose the future, we choose families, we choose the future,” he began. The second future was a different future to the first future: in the second future you also got a fucking big TV thrown in. The chancellor had first tried his line in junky-chic at the Conservative party conference last September and it hadn’t gone down particularly well then, either. A typical Osborne speech works best as aversion therapy and the Tories generally try to limit his public appearances. For the budget, they have to grin and bear it. Continue reading...

Central bank decision to raise interest rates after six years comes after months of impressive jobs growth, but IMF director warns of market ‘temper tantrum’The US Federal Reserve called time on an era of historically low interest rates on Wednesday.In its latest statement on the health of the US economy the central bank moved away from a pledge to be “patient” before deciding to raise interest rates. Economists expect that interest rates could now rise by the end of the summer, the first rise in more than six years. Continue reading...

Part of Chancellor’s speech claims living standards have completely recovered over course of parliament but metric he is using is not so clean cutIn a sharp rebuttal to Labour accusations that living standards have been squeezed over the course of this parliament, George Osborne said the following during his budget speech:“You can use the most up-to-date and comprehensive measure of living standards which is real household disposable income (RHDI) per capita. In other words, how much money families have to spend after inflation and tax. Continue reading...

Chancellor says stability would be greatly threatened if Athens exited eurozone and defends UK joining Asian Infrastructure Investment BankGreece’s financial crisis and the recent plunge in oil prices pose real risks to Britain’s economy, the chancellor warned in his budget speech, even as he unveiled better than expected growth forecasts for the UK.