'The #fiscal black hole is really a function of which telescope you decide to pick up...it is very much in the eye of the beholder rather than some established fact.' Jagjit S. Chadha speaking to Ben Brown this evening ahead of this Thursday's #AutumStatement .

I want to engage with this claim that progressives are arguing for unrealistic demand expansion and ignoring the supply side. I don't think it's a fair representation. 1/n

We should ask why the media makes this error. I suspect it's not just partisanship but a bad attitude to statistics generally. Journos love fake precision, & rarely talk of confidence intervals or standard deviations.

Blogged: talk of 'fiscal black holes' is nonsense: spending cuts are a political choice, not a technocratic necessity: stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_…

Impressive how many of my colleagues and people at the Telegraph have zero interest in the working class unless they're invoking them to shore up their views on immigration.

How do you make voters feel better about their circumstances, without actually improving their lives? You performatively mistreat other people, who have no vote, to show your voters that someone sits below them in the pecking order.
That's what Manston, and Braverman, are about.

This bad-tempered account still shouting anonymously away and failing to back up its unsubstantiated claims that National Trust is “disappearing” artefacts for political reasons.

I've just voted on line in the National Trust Members AGM.
🚨Deadline today 🚨
I voted in support of the trustees recommendations: for a modern forward looking NT & not for the right wing Tufton St sponsored 'uprising'
If you are a member, protect the NT - & don't forget to vote!

Reminder: the National Trust has been independent & free of interference from political parties, private business and lobbying companies for 127 years. We mustn’t take our institutions for granted. If you’re a member please use your vote by this Friday bit.ly/3KHUGxi

Fascinating why a young Keir Starmer broke left and Rishi Sunak broke right in their formative years: In the end the Labour leader wanted to help society and those that cannot help themselves. Sunak wanted the power and the glory. That is the difference between us and them.

UK car production down -6.0% in September with 63,125 vehicles rolling off factory lines.

smmt.co.uk/2022/10/produc…

Martin Sandbu Most obviously, just raise taxes! As Martin points out, the UK is hardly overtaxed, compared to equally or more successful European economies..

Nephralgic Pie (Pie Growth Coalition) Austerity arises from financial crisis and ends in political crisis
Populism arises from political crisis and ends in financial crisis
When populism fails, austerity returns, and the cycle repeats. coppolacomment.com/2022/10/when-p…

I thought the media had come a long way in recognising austerity as a political choice & not an economic necessity

But it's been extraordinary to see the speed at which the public conversation (with honourable exceptions) has pivoted to spending cuts as difficult but unavoidable

Drawing Bayesian inferences after extensive sampling, I've determined that it's 99-percent certain that anyone who uses 'woke' as pejorative will turn out to be a fuckhead. Please don't blame me for pointing this out--it's just science.

Anyway, that was all absolute guff, as ever. Sunak better than Truss, but not actually good. Like someone doing an impersonation of what they think a professional politician looks like.

Our statement on the appointment of Home Secretary Suella Braverman.

Pippa Crerar One is an enormously wealthy man the public didn’t elect who took the job on Elizabeth’s demise.

The other is the King.

New post: The UK Treasury since 1976 mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-uk… This book is also an invaluable record of what some of the key political and official actors involved in UK economic policy thought they were doing at the time and how they view that in retrospect.

This is the point. The Bank of England refused to support Liz Truss's fiscal plans, and thus forced her to back down. Bailey's public confirmation that the Bank would exit the gilts market on Friday 14th October was the killer blow.