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The ‘grown-ups’ have all but ensured that UK debt will exceed 100% of GDP, and that the only way from there is down

Introduction

Underline 21st July 2024 in your diaries.

This will be the publication date of the Office for National Statistics data for the UK’s public debt in June 2024.

Barring a turnaround in the direction-of-travel, the debt will exceed 100% of GDP.

UK public finances between January and May 2024

Debt was 99.8% of GDP in May, although for some […]

Callable capital of the European Stability Mechanism (the ESM)

Callable ESM capital

The ESM has a different legal mechanism for calling for more funds compared to the European Financial Stability Facility.

It is part-paid shares.

All Eurozone member states – including Croatia – are shareholders in the ESM, and they have subscribed to €708.5 billion of capital and paid in €80.6 billion of that. The guarantee […]

Why the European Financial Stability Facility was downgraded to AA-

Member state guarantees behind the EFSF and the resulting percentage of the EFSF’s bonds that are covered by guarantees of member states with different levels of credit rating

The EFSF’s credit rating was recently lowered to AA-. This is due to the interplay between the credit ratings of the EFSF and of the EFSF’s guarantors, who […]

Remainers admit that Labour’s economic growth plans are pie-in-the-sky

Labour’s plans for the economy

Labour’s plans for growing the UK economy have been highlighted as being based on fresh air by a group of prominent Remainers and Rejoiners:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jun/22/starmer-growth-plan-doomed-access-eu-markets-economists

Their argument is that Labour’s plans for growth are unachievable without a shot-in-the-arm from somewhere. That we can agree on. They contend that rejoining the EU is this […]

How the bill of £800bn for Labour’s Net Zero plan was worked out

Headline in the Daily Express of the article in which the £800bn appeared

Labour’s Green Prosperity Plan will be based around Great British Energy, the new entity which will have equity of £1.7bn according to the Fiscal Plan in the Labour manifesto.

Labour were stating until some months ago that they planned to borrow £28bn per annum […]

De-coding Rachel Reeves – Labour is the no-risk economic option as the outcome is certain: it’s disaster

Cover of Global Britain paper

Labour’s plans for the economy once they are in power have been dressed up in words like ‘stability’, ‘investment’, and ‘security’. They represent a great leap forward – over the precipice on the edge of which the UK already teeters.

This is laid out in the Global Britain paper ‘De-coding Rachel Reeves […]

Rachel Reeves – stripping away the jargon: the full analysis of the 2024 Mais Lecture

Analysis of Mais Lecture

Labour is the no-risk economic option as the outcome is certain: it’s disaster.

This is the message of my analysis of Rachel Reeves’ Mais Lecture delivered in March 2024.

The full, final version of this research can be downloaded here.

Now that a General Election has been called, it is of importance that the veil […]

Analysis of the 2024 Mais Lecture by the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer

You can download here the rough, first-draft version of my analysis of the 2024 Mais Lecture given by Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.

This summary has just been published by the Conservative Post website so I have decided to make available the current, not-totally-polished version of the full paper behind it.

In her lecture […]

The Celtic Paper Tiger

Published by Global Britain

Global Britain has released my report on the degree to which the economy of the Republic of Ireland is dominated by activities that reduce the tax bills of foreign multinationals.

You can download the report here.

The report dissects the two elements of tax-sparing activities:

the re-invoicing through Ireland of goods made elsewhere and services […]

Increasing debt imposed on EU citizens and businesses by EU institutions

Title of article in the Journal des Libertés

This is the article that has been published in the Winter 2023/4 edition of the Journal des Libertés and which is based on my address to the IES-IREF Summer University in Aix-en-Provence.

You can download the full article here.

Its major topic is InvestEU, the scheme arranged by the European […]