Why the Bank of England slashed its growth forecasts February 6, 2025 The Bank of England delivered Chancellor Rachel Reeves a mixed blessing on Thursday. Alongside cutting interest rates by 25 basis points, Bank officials halved the UK’s expected growth rate in 2025 to 0.7 per cent from a previous estimate of 1.5 per cent. This will come as a blow to Reeves, who has staked her [...]
Is Reeves heading for a fiscal car crash? February 6, 2025 Rachel Reeves has a deep respect for officialdom and institutions and was aghast at the way Liz Truss simply ignored the Office for Budget Responsibility when putting together her doomed ‘mini Budget.’ Cast your mind back to the early days of the Truss administration (which, as it turned out, weren’t very far from the final [...]
UK fund investors give government’s growth plans a ‘clear thumbs down’ February 5, 2025 British investors continued to flee London’s stock market in January in a “clear thumbs down” to the government’s growth agenda, according to a closely watched funds survey. UK-focused equity funds shed some £1.07bn through January in the sixth worst month on record despite the FTSE 100 hitting an all-time high, according to data from funds [...]
Tax or cut? Rachel Reeves faces fiscal headache before OBR forecasts February 5, 2025 The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) will publish its latest assessment of the UK economy on 26 March.
UK economy: Services firms’ new orders fall for first time in over a year February 5, 2025 The survey showed that incoming work for services firms decreased in January, ending a 14-month period of continuous growth.
UK voters want ministers to prioritise growth over net zero, poll finds February 5, 2025 Voters in the UK say they want the government to prioritise economic growth over net zero, pollsters have found. Exclusive polling for Morning Wire by Freshwater Strategy found seven in ten people said they would rather the government prioritise economic growth over achieving net zero by 2050. It comes after pollsters yesterday revealed a majority [...]
Bold action and optimism! Let’s hope the Chancellor’s confidence is contagious February 3, 2025 Promises of bold action from the Chancellor are gratefully heard in the City. Let's not let this opportunity for growth pass, writes Chris Hayward.
Five policies the Chancellor hopes will fire up the economy January 31, 2025 Chancellor Rachel Reeves committed to going "further and faster" on kickstarting economic growth.
The Week in Business: is Reeves right to be an optimist? January 31, 2025 Rachel Reeves has been reset, but should we buy into this new optimistic Chancellor?
US economy grows less than expected but households remain resilient January 30, 2025 Figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) showed that the world's largest economy grew at an annualised rate of 2.3 per cent in the final three months of the 2024.