Reform UK
At a fringe event in the Birmingham NEC, under conference-hall strip lighting, Robert Jenrick promised £80bn of spending cuts over five years and pledged to do it "in a careful way, not a cack-handed way." The number breaks down like this: £50bn from welfare, £10bn from net zero,
fiscal policy
On Tuesday morning the yield on a 30-year UK government bond hit 5.89 per cent, the highest since March 1998. That is a niche instrument, mostly bought by pension funds, rarely touched by the Debt Management Office in a single auction, and it is also, this week, the reason
public finances
July is supposed to be the good month. Self-assessment taxpayers settle up by the 31st, HMRC banks the windfall, and for four weeks a year the public finances look almost respectable. This July, provisional ONS figures put self-assessment receipts at a record £17.1 billion, the highest July haul since