The argument
Signed pieces. The other side gets stated first
The Economy
The Rate Stays in London
English mayors are to be handed a share of the income tax raised in their areas from 2028. They aren't to be handed the power to change it by a single penny, and that's the difference between devolving a tax and rebranding a grant.
Crossbencher · 03 Aug 2026 · 4 min read
The Economy
By Its Own Numbers
A third runway at Heathrow is sold as growth for the whole country. The government's own appraisal puts that growth at up to 0.05 per cent of GDP a year, and the reviewer it paid to check the work says the claim about the regions can't be made from the modelling.
Crossbencher · 30 Jul 2026 · 4 min
The Economy
The Invoice Comes Later
VAT off electricity on Monday, a £2 bus fare on Wednesday, a fifth off the pub's rates on Thursday. The new government's first week was a run of price cuts - and not one of them arrived with a bill attached. The relief has a date. The argument about who pays has been postponed.
Crossbencher · 28 Jul 2026 · 3 min
The Economy
The tax nobody voted for
A frozen tax threshold isn't a tax held steady. It's a rise that turns up every year on its own, unannounced, aimed at the people least able to see it coming - and it has quietly become the British state's favourite way to take more without being caught asking.
Crossbencher · 25 Jul 2026 · 3 min
The Economy
Off the Books
The private finance initiative built hospitals and schools that would otherwise have waited a generation. Its deciding attraction was never the buildings - it was which column the debt landed in.
Crossbencher · 21 Jul 2026 · 4 min
The Economy
Cheap Power, Expensive Country
British industry pays some of the highest electricity prices in the developed world. You can believe every word about the climate and still notice that most of the gap isn't physics. It's design.
Crossbencher · 19 Jul 2026 · 2 min
The Economy
The Veto Economy
The highest-leverage fix for British stagnation costs the Treasury nothing. It's the planning system - a machine built so that almost anything can be stopped, and so almost nothing gets built.
Crossbencher · 19 Jul 2026 · 2 min
The Economy
The Stagnation Machine
The reassuring story is that Britain is much like its neighbours - lower taxes, similar growth, cheaper in places. That story is how the disease hides. Britain isn't comparable. It's a low-investment economy that has been deferring the bill for fifteen years.
Crossbencher · 19 Jul 2026 · 2 min