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So far Bob has created 238 blog entries.

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 […]

Ofgem to allow suppliers to surcharge paying customers so as to subsidize non-paying ones

Consultation announcement on Ofgem’s website

Published on 21st December 2023

Ofgem has put a proposal out to consultation until January 24th 2024 to permit a supplement to energy prices to compensate suppliers for customers’ bad debts. This will be the first widespread example of differential pricing based on a customer’s financial resources: good payers on metered supply […]

Treasury Select Committee report on the digital pound

TSC report headline

Published on 9th December 2023

The Treasury Select Committee has issued report about the Bank of England’s digital pound project, also known as ‘Britcoin’, and a UK ‘central bank digital currency’ or ‘CBDC’.

You can download the report here

Its headlines are:

‘Britcoin’ must be introduced via primary legislation that is subject to full Parliamentary scrutiny, and […]