Opinion

  • Public Finance
    25 Apr 08
    PETER WILBY | Gordon Brown, in the end, did enough to buy off the backbench revolt over the abolition of the 10p tax band, which had threatened a Commons defeat and even an early exit from Number...
  • Public Finance
    18 Apr 08
    MIKE THATCHER | In politics, as in comedy, timing is everything. And timing, as we know, is not Gordon Brown’s strong suit.
  • Public Finance
    18 Apr 08
    VICTORIA MACDONALD | General practitioners are, on the whole, a conservative (with a small ‘c’) bunch.
  • Public Finance
    11 Apr 08
    MIKE THATCHER | Another day, another prophecy of economic woe. This time it was the International Monetary Fund delivering the bad news, announcing this week that it has cut its UK economic growth...
  • Public Finance
    11 Apr 08
    PETER RIDDELL | Immigration is the most sensitive issue in British politics: the hardest to handle and potentially the most explosive electorally.
  • Public Finance
    4 Apr 08
    MIKE THATCHER | If the morale of public sector workers slips any lower, it will be Prime Minister Gordon Brown who requires the flak jacket rather than Harriet Harman.
  • Public Finance
    4 Apr 08
    MELISSA BENN | The past week has been dominated by the C-words: Carla, of course — all demure, gazelle-eyed feminine silence. The credit crunch, and associated financial insecurity, continues....
  • Public Finance
    28 Mar 08
    MIKE THATCHER | Gordon Brown is a Scot who is proud to be British. He believes in British workers for British jobs and is scathing of those who threaten the Union.
  • Public Finance
    28 Mar 08
    PHILIP JOHNSTONE | Whisper it if you dare, but just over a month from now Boris Johnson could be mayor of London with the biggest personal mandate of any western European politician other than the...
  • Public Finance
    21 Mar 08
    MIKE THATCHER | Gordon Brown had plenty of time to prepare for being prime minister, but it would be hard to tell given the dearth of new ideas that has characterised his time in Number 10.
  • Public Finance
    21 Mar 08
    TONY TRAVERS | Many pints of ink have been used in explaining how last autumn’s Comprehensive Spending Review would reduce the growth in public expenditure.
  • Public Finance
    14 Mar 08
    MIKES THATCHER | They may appear to be dour Scots, but both Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown share a rosy, if not rose-tinted, view of the economic prospects facing the country.
  • Public Finance
    14 Mar 08
    ROBERT SHRIMSLEY | At some point most afternoons I find myself flicking through galleries of photos for possible inclusion in the next day’s newspaper.
  • Public Finance
    7 Mar 08
    MIKE THATCHER | Gordon Brown’s cherished sustainable investment rule is clinging to life, Rasputin-style, despite repeated attempts to kill it off. The rule, requiring that public sector net debt...
  • Public Finance
    7 Mar 08
    PETER RIDDELL | The most tempting submission that Alistair Darling has received ahead of the March 12 Budget has come from Richard Lambert, director-general of the CBI.
  • Public Finance
    29 Feb 08
    VICTORIA MACDONALD | On a very busy news day last week an important story was buried. Not deliberately, of course. Although this was no Jo Moore moment, it was nevertheless convenient.
  • Public Finance
    28 Feb 08
    JUDY HIRST | It’s that time of year again, when finance managers – faced with embarrassing underspends – suddenly discover an urgent need for new laptops, ergonomic chairs and away days. March is a...
  • Public Finance
    22 Feb 08
    MIKES THATCHER | Gordon Brown had a welcome fifty-seventh birthday present this week, when the government published better-than-expected public finance figures for January.
  • Public Finance
    22 Feb 08
    DAVID LIPSEY | Whoever wins the Democratic nomination in the US, the opinion polls will be the losers. Primary after primary, poll-based newspaper headlines have announced that Barack Obama is in...
  • Public Finance
    15 Feb 08
    MIKES THATCHER | Overflowing rubbish bins, picket lines, sackings and strikes. Things are suddenly cutting up rough on the public sector pay front, and you don’t have to look far to see why.
  • Public Finance
    15 Feb 08
    PETER WILBY | I was in Washington in 1981 a few days before Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as president. The sense of a new era being born was palpable.
  • Public Finance
    8 Feb 08
    MIKE THATCHER | For Liverpool City Council, it was ‘grossly unfair’. But for the majority of unitary and county councils, this week’s Comprehensive Performance Assessments were something to...
  • Public Finance
    8 Feb 08
    MELISSA BENN | So the party that has objected to the nanny state for so long is now proposing it in quite literal form — Cameron and Co announced last week that they want to provide a maternity...
  • Public Finance
    1 Feb 08
    MIKE THATCHER | Tory MP Derek Conway isn’t the only public figure facing scrutiny over the management of their finances. Finance directors will have been waiting nervously this week to hear the...
  • Public Finance
    1 Feb 08
    PHILIP JOHNSTONE | Parties in opposition are often encouraged to develop lots of policies. ‘What are you going to do about it?’ is the most common question thrown at a Conservative spokesman who...

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