To The Point

The final result probably won’t differ much from what we expected a month ago. But even small differences matter.

Election results tend to leave out the people who didn’t vote. Here’s what happens when you leave them in.

Answers within this post. Unsurprisingly, old people receive the most.

This year’s payments will surpass the Transport, Home Office, Justice and Energy budgets combined.

Our own prison population is set to rise to new heights. Quite aside from the moral questions that raises, there are some tricky fiscal ones too.

Meanwhile, Scotland is perhaps the most disruptive force in modern British electoral history.

And what it means for now.

The Fixed Terms Parliament Act just adds to the questions swirling around the forthcoming election.

Which is why a rebalanced economy is still decades off… if it ever happens.

“The days over easy money are over,” said Osborne in 2009. Except they’re not. Debt is once again on the rise.

The number of poor elderly people has declined sharply over recent years and decades. The same can’t be said for those of working age.

Relative, absolute, before housing costs, after housing costs… the only way out of this madness is to embrace the complexity.

Brown did it too, and so did Chancellors before him. We ought to treat the official forecasts with greater caution.

Budgets can move the public opinion – but often in the opposite direction from what their authors were intending.

Social security spending on pensioners has risen by £10 billion over this Parliament. It’s declined by £2 billion for non-pensioners.