Write for us!Fiscal responsibility debate
Welfare in the 21st Century: From Hand Down to Hand Up
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The total welfare bill in the UK, has risen from approximately £100 billion in the early noughties, to £333.6 billion in 2025-26, a more than a threefold increase in just over twenty years, It now comprises 10% of our total GDP. It is expected to hit £400 billion by the end of the decade, according to a recent report by the Centre for Policy Studies. This unsustainable growth in welfare spending needs tackling. In this article, I am going to advocate a welfare system which is simpler, fairer and ensures that working pays better than welfare dependency. Simplification Currently there…
Time for a Liberal Approach to Fiscal Policy
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Fiscal policy in the UK needs a massive overhaul and indeed a fresh pair of eyes – a liberal, specifically Keynesian approach, would I believe, be a successful approach to treating the ills of the decaying UK economy. Taxation in the UK has become synonymous with overcomplexity and opaqueness: it’s time for a rethink. The British tax code is an incredible 24,000 pages long. To put that into perspective, Hong Kong’s is a mere 350 pages. Ironically, the complexity of the UK Tax Code appeals to the very rich, who can afford to employ advisers who help them to exploit…
A Plan for Young People
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In this I want to propose an approach to two issues – youth unemployment and pensions for younger people. Youth unemployment has recently hit the news. As of the final quarter of 2025, the unemployment rate for 16-24-year-olds stands at 16.1%, the highest in a decade and now exceeding the EU average of 14.7%. Total UK unemployment is at 5.2%, a five-year high, but young people are disproportionately affected, with entry-level hiring stalling amid higher payroll costs from the 2025 National Insurance (NI) hike to 15% and minimum wage increases. Meanwhile given the UK’s declining birth rate, England and Wales…
This Stupid Tax Rule is Harming the Country and Needs to Go
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The Labour Government from 1997 to 2010 did many harmful things to the tax system. Although Gordon Brown when Chancellor of the Exchequer had a stellar reputation with much of the media, I always considered him a poor Chancellor. The reason is that he kept endlessly tinkering with the tax rules by introducing stealth taxes that he hoped people would not notice, but which had harmful side effects. However, blame for possibly the worst such stealth tax must be shared between Gordon Brown as Prime Minister and the late Alistair Darling who was the Chancellor of the Exchequer who announced…
Eyes right for the centre left
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For well over a century, centre-left politics has been the engine of progressive change in Britain – building the welfare state, championing civil liberties, advancing social equality, and managing the economy with both competence and compassion. Yet today, many who hold these values find themselves politically homeless, watching as the very ground beneath their feet shifts inexorably rightward. The centre has moved. And if you haven’t noticed, you might be standing further right than you think or indeed want. Consider where we are. The Labour Party, once the champion of social democracy, now operate within a narrower fiscal envelope than Gordon…
