George Osborne or his deputy are either completely misleading us on axing middle-earners’ tax credits, or they’re each pursuing different policies.
Philip Hammond has promised to save £400 million from cutting back tax credits. But George Osborne said this morning, Tory plans won’t affect families on incomes of as little as £31,000.  Given its impossible for [...]

Two new bits of new today.
First, some strong Index of Production figures, which surprised on the upside. The ONS reported; ‘Total production output increased by 0.5 per cent between November and December’.
The other big news was the Governor of the Bank of England’s press conference setting out the Bank’s Inflation Report. The Governor said it [...]

As Alistair Darling predicted, we got the news today that the UK exited recession at the end of last year.
But, what today’s figures also show is that we were right to be cautious about the pace of growth – and that now is absolutely the wrong time to slam on the brakes as the Tories [...]

I was out and about in Hodge Hill yesterday, so didn’t get time to blog about Question Time, broadcast from the Milton Keynes shopping centre (where the centre manager was telling me they had an absolutely bumper Christmas). Here’s the link if you want to watch it. You’ll forgive for me saying this, but I [...]