Are we a 'high welfare' country where we pay people too much not to work, meaning the government could save billions by slashing welfare, no harm done? Erm - not exactly. This chart compares us with other countries. Of 34 advanced economies, we're 3rd from the bottom. As highlighted today by the think tank founded by John Maynard Keynes and others - the National Institute of Economic and Social Research - the poorest regions of the UK are now worse off than the poorest in countries such as Malta or Slovenia:

In the midst of this cost of living crisis, what matters more to you - the government's deficit - or your own? Surely it can't be that households are being taxed more now so there's room (for either major party) to offer big pre-election tax cuts next year? Perish the thought... While there was huge government support for households with the cost of living last year, plummeting energy prices mean the measures are now much cheaper - projected by the OBR to cost just £20 billion in this financial year 2023/24 and to actually raise money next year:

Here's an under-reported fact. While both major parties declare sympathy with cash-strapped households - but suggest it would be irresponsible to spend public money helping them - the government is taking much more off households in income tax than it did last year. In June 2023, His Majesty's Revenue & Customs collected £18,855m from individuals in income tax. That compares to £16,856m in June 2022. That's a rise of 11.9 per cent.

The @bankofengland's latest Financial Stability Report sounds another warning this morning about pension funds, insurers and hedge funds - saying 'vulnerabilities remain' following the episode last autumn where the bank had to step in to rescue LDI pension funds. 'These could crystallise in the context of the current interest rate volatility, amplifying any tightening in financial conditions.' Couched as it is in economists' language - that's quite unsettling. Translation - it could make the effect of interest rate rises worse.

Here's something the review of the BBC's coverage of issues like tax and the public finances said recently: “Too often, it’s not clear from a report that fiscal policy decisions are also political choices;' /1 '...they’re not inevitable, it’s just that governments like to present them that way. The language of necessity takes subtle forms; if the BBC adopts it, it can sound perilously close to policy endorsement.'

The following extracts from two phone calls 16 years ago point to illegal activity – kept secret ever since from Congress, Parliament and the public. It's evidence of a cover-up by government agencies on both sides of the Atlantic. Not for delicate ears: shorturl.at/gxzJN Don’t worry if you don’t have a clue what they’re talking about – all will be explained, including why top bankers and government agencies didn’t want you to hear those tapes. The voice is that of former Barclays cash trader Peter Johnson.

Tuesday in parliament was an extraordinary evening. I'll never forget it. The book launch of Rigged is today. If you haven't checked it out (either free through the radio series or through the book), please don't miss out on the most shocking story I've ever come across.

https://twitter.com/TransparencyTF/status/1666189435694637063

A cover-up at the highest level - of evidence of state-led involvement in illegal activity. A whole series of miscarriages of justice, addressed now in the United States - but not the UK - now the only country where defendants' conduct is seen as a crime.

After both the Bank of England and Barclays told parliament they'd known nothing of the illegal practice of lowballing until 2012, Barclays Capital's just-resigned president Jerry del Missier told MPs the truth. But there were questions he wasn't asked. In lowballing, banks post artificially low estimates of the interest rates they'll pay to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars. They've paid billions of dollars in fines for it. It meant Libor - the benchmark rate that tracks the cost of borrowing cash - was clearly false.

I’m exhilarated to say Rigged is published today @flint_books. In an unsettling true crime horror-comedy, the Shawshank Redemption meets The Big Short. But someone like @Aiannucci has messed with the screenplay.

https://twitter.com/flint_books/status/1661751491273818122

37 traders have been prosecuted, 19 convicted and 9 jailed in what the US courts now say was a misconceived case - prompted not by complaints from victims (prosecutors never produced one) but by a political firestorm of misdirected public anger following the 2008 banking crisis.

Just in case you missed this extraordinary speech earlier this week, here is @DavidDavisMP outlining in parliament the real interest rate rigging scandal: an establishment cover-up of international Libor and Euribor manipulation ordered from the top: rb.gy/onu3p In terms of the injustice that flowed from it - 37 traders and brokers wrongly prosecuted for nothing more than doing their jobs - it was a cover-up like no other. @johnmcdonnellMP say that ‘there is no doubt the House was misled’.

'The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 8.7% in the 12 months to April 2023, down from 10.1% in March; on a monthly basis, CPI rose by 1.2% in April 2023, compared with a rise of 2.5% in April 2022.' - ONS. So far so (more or less) expected. But markets will be unsettled by the following, which may well spell further interest rate rises: 'Core CPI (excluding energy, food, alcohol and tobacco) rose by 6.8% in the 12 months to April 2023, up from 6.2% in March, which is the highest rate since March 1992'.

Here’s part 3 of the serialisation by ⁦@thetimes⁩ of my book, Rigged, about an establishment cover-up that’s led to a whole series of miscarriages of justice. The headline doesn’t overstate it: thetimes.co.uk/article/book-e… Here’s @thetimes picking up what was said last night in parliament about it. Senior backbench MPs are concerned about ‘serial miscarriages of justice’ and want the Supreme Court to look at it. thetimes.co.uk/article/mp-dem…

Before we accept it when we're told the government 'can't afford' something that might be to the public good we should remind ourselves of facts like the following from the Office for National Statistics this morning: Total central government receipts were £929.0 billion in the full year to the end of March 2023, an increase of £88.0 billion (10.5%).

Public sector borrowing in the financial year ending March 2023 'was initially estimated at £139.2 billion (or 5.5% of gross domestic product (GDP)), £18.1 billion more than in the FYE March 2022 and the fourth-highest FY borrowing since records began in 1946.' - ONS. The Office for National Statistics points out that this was £13.2 billion less than forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Dear politicians, left, right and centre. The public don’t want spin. They want integrity. They don’t want to be told what politicians think they want to hear. They want to be told the truth. They want leaders to be brave enough to take difficult decisions because they’re right. Even if they’re unpopular. They need leaders with vision beyond the next election.

This is the most worrying thing I've read in the Financial Policy Report from the Bank of England - which gives its view of financial (in)stability: 'There remain vulnerabilities in certain parts of market-based finance (MBF), which could crystallise should there be further volatility or sharp movements in asset prices, amplifying any tightening in credit conditions.'

The Bank of England's Financial Policy Report today is a lot more interesting than it used to be: 'Riskier corporate borrowing in financial markets is likely to be particularly vulnerable to tighter financial conditions... 'In aggregate, the global high-yield bond, leveraged loan and private credit markets have almost doubled in size over the past decade. Within that, estimates suggest that private credit has tripled in size over the same period. The opacity of the private credit market...

This is why fiscal drag is a drag:
1.7m people brought into tax system who currently don't pay any
1.2m paying higher rates than would have done
(IFS Budget analysis). Those dragged up above the basic rate threshold will pay £500. Those dragged above the higher rate will pay £1,000 more in tax. But that's just over one year.

The @OBR_UK has said higher net immigration will boost economic growth. But does that mean higher net migration is an economic benefit for the whole country? Not necessarily... The OBR's forecasting that immigration will settle at 245,000 a year (an increase of 40,000 from its November forecast and up substantially from the 129,000 forecast a year ago) and that that will boost growth. But what does that actually mean?

According to @resfoundation analysis, the decision to scrap the lifetime limit on pension savings would give someone with a £2 million pound pension pot a tax break worth a quarter of a million pounds. resolutionfoundation.org/press-releases… It welcomes the record boost to childcare support, which means a single parent of a one-year-old on the national living wage who wanted to boost their working hours from 25 to 35 hours a week would see their income rise by £700.

This, to use an objective economic term, is a 'giveaway' budget (rather than a takeaway) meaning it's spending more than it's raising in taxes - of nearly £22bn in tax cuts and spending rises. So who's it giving money away to? The biggest measure - 100% capital allowances so businesses can write all capital investment off against tax in the current year - benefits businesses looking to invest. £8bn in the next financial year, rising to £11bn.