The UK Prime Minister may have the regal touch in northern England, but he’s been wrong-footed on the constitutional challenges posed by the Celtic Alliance of first ministers from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, argues KENNY MacASKILL
Latest editorial
A zombie budget from a dead-beat government
ROBERT GRIFFITHS reviews last Wednesday's Budget, outlining the obvious alternatives — that are not even radical let alone socialist — the government could have adopted to fix the sinking ship that is our economy
MUNICIPAL DREAMS THAT CAME TRUE: The Whittington Estate / Highgate New Town in North London was designed by Peter Tabori for Camden Council’s architects department and completed in 1979
NEIRLAY ANDRADE, a member of the Communist Party of Venezuela’s political committee, outlines her party’s position on the crisis facing the country
A look at Taylor Wimpey’s accounts shows why Labour’s market-led housing strategy won’t deliver more, cheaper homes, as promised, says SOLOMON HUGHES
DAVID HORSLEY remembers the remarkable life and death of US black revolutionary George Jackson, whose politically passionate prison letters were published as Soledad Brother
Cuban trade union federation CTC leader OSNAY MIGUEL COLINA speaks to Ben Chacko about life and work under a crippling US siege
A part of the British empire’s network of slavery, today the Caribbean island of Nevis faces a new form of exploitation in the form of crypto-colonialism, CLAUDIA WEBBE writes
Challenges from the unscrupulous misuse of AI to steal actors’ voice and physical likenesses is being met with a firm union response, writes LYNDA ROOKE
CHANCELLOR Jeremy Hunt has scattered some scraps before the electorate in the hope of saving Tory skins at the forthcoming general election. All the signs are that it’s not working.
Nor does this zombie budget deserve to work.
The headline-grabbing bribes are worth more to the rich than to the poor. Yet even the Chancellor’s remaining friends in the City are unimpressed, if not downright sceptical. And with good reason, as Wednesday’s economic and fiscal outlook suggests.
In an unusually blunt summary near the beginning of its report, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) highlights the serious risks that could derail almost all present-day assumptions, estimates and forecasts, including those of the Chancellor and of the OBR itself.
As the report admits: “Historically large changes in energy prices, interest rates, wage growth and population growth have driven significant revisions to our recent economic and fiscal forecasts.”
Similar stories
A sharp rise in public-sector investment is required to kick-start the economy, argues MICHAEL BURKE
Only an ambitious programme of state-led investment can restore growth and improve living standards, argues MICHAEL BURKE
The 2025 Budget shores up the PM’s political position with headline-grabbing welfare U-turns, but with no improvements on offer to declining public services or living standards, writes MICHAEL BURKE