With no fiscal leeway for stimulus spending, a bold supply-side programme will be crucial for the UK.
Ministers can carry on trying, through the British Business Bank or directly, to push on this Gordian Knot – or slice through it.
With the bazooka being well-wielded by Sunak, it seems almost churlish to suggest some further things the Treasury could do. But here are three.
The Treasury often fails to recognise the potential benefits of lower taxes, because they don’t properly factor in how behaviour changes.
The author of the final piece in our mini-series identifies corporation tax, stamp duty, national insurance and investment allowances as targets for action.
My answer would be “maybe, provided the spending or tax cuts significantly improved our growth potential.”
Ministers have been asked to push the Government’s priorities – tackling crime, funding the NHS, “levelling up”. How can these be effected without faster growth?
They support raising the threshold by two to one – a useful reminder that the Prime Minister cannot ignore his Party’s base.
The scale of his domestic ambitions and the legacy of the Iraq War suggest that his ambitions will be limited – for the moment at least.
In this new political battle, the greatest tension will not be left v right or even fiscal
doves v economic hawks. It will be a battle between creativity and convention.
The tax burden isn’t a full measure of the size of the state. But it’s arguably the pre-eminent factor and certainly that which most concerns the TaxPayers’ Alliance.
For me, the most concerning thing wasn’t being behind among the very young, but being behind among everyone under age 47.
Ever since the EU referendum, there’s been renewed focus on how to help poorer places. Helpfully there is decades of evidence about what does and doesn’t work.
The Government should abolish stamp duty entirely for all purchases of a main home under £500,000.
Exactly a decade after forming a government with the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats are languishing on the political fringes – where did it all go wrong?