People say the government lacks ambition. But they’ve just announced flying taxis by 2026…

gov.uk/government/new…

The £8.9 billion margin in our central forecast against the debt falling target is lower than the average of £26.1 billion that Chancellors have set aside against their fiscal rules since 2010, and is a small fraction of the risks around any fiscal forecast.

#Budget2024

Big macro policy picture: inflation and rates fall a bit quicker than expected back in November in the near term. That gives a short term boost to public finances. CHX using that to cut taxes a touch in the short run. Medium term picture broadly unchanged.

Getting ready for the OBR website to crash.

A public sector productivity plan?
That’ll sort it.

Honestly, £25,000 of potential tax free savings per adult (ignoring children’s ISAs) is *a lot*.

Always get the sense that Jeremy Hunt is torn between quite sensible long term good policy making - lots of the investment tax treatment stuff, modest planning reforms, etc - and counter productive short term political driven measures. Today looks to continue that trend.

I've written a new personal post - and it's kind of timely for once. It's about why the UK economy is such a mess.

What if raising productivity growth is not about big ideas, but doing lots of little things better?

acjsissons.medium.com/lots-of-little…

Happy budget day to all those who celebrate it.

Two quarters of contraction of real GDP will get headlines, but maybe this is the real story 👇

💥 GDP per person dropped every quarter of 2023. It hasn't grown since Q1 2022
💥 That's 7 quarters - longest unbroken run without per capita GDP growth since records began in 1955

GDP is estimated to have fallen in October to December (Quarter 4):

▪️ services fell (-0.2%)
▪️ construction fell (-1.3%)
▪️ production fell (-1.0%)

➡️ ons.gov.uk/economy/grossd…

NEW: we often talk about an age divide in politics, with young people much less conservative than the old.

But this is much more a British phenomenon than a global one.

40% of young Americans voted Trump in 2020. But only 10% of UK under-30s support the Conservatives. Why?

I’ve semi-seriously often wondered if the real threat to terminals is just WhatsApp.

This week the Kent A. Clark Center for Global Markets polled its European and US panels on western support to Ukraine and the impact of sanctions on Russia.
Some thoughts. kentclarkcenter.org/filterable-cat…

Interesting piece. cepr.org/voxeu/columns/…