Ann Pettifor

British Chancellor

A Reckless Economic Experiment

  The following article appeared in the Church Times on 20 September, 2018 “The Government is unprepared for a hard Brexit, says Ann Pettifor. The financial impact could be devastating” The Brexit referendum provided conclusive evidence that economics is inherently political. There was nothing scientific about any of the campaign promises or economic forecasts. Instead, […]

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UK Budget 2017 and OBR Forecast for British Economy: PRIME Evidence to Treasury Select Committee

On Wednesday 29 November 2017, PRIME’s director, Ann Pettifor, gave evidence at the Committee’s invitation to the UK Parliament’s Treasury Select Committee, together with Professor Jagjit Chadha, Director, National Institute of Economic and Social Research and Paul Johnson, Director, Institute for Fiscal Studies. A verbatim report of the discussion can be found on the Select Committee’s

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Fiscal Charter Hoopla* obscured big concessions to the City

* Hoopla: “speech or writing intended to mislead or to obscure an issue.” October has been an eventful month. In Britain, politics is back in fashion. After years of Blairite vacuity, the media have juicy political red meat to plunge their teeth into.  The new Labour leader’s announcement that he would not press the nuclear

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It’s not the public, but the private finance sector, stupid.

The Autumn Statement reveals but one thing: the Chancellor and his advisers are both ill-advised and dangerously ill-prepared for the forthcoming prolonged Depression. (And if you think I exaggerate, let me remind you that 20 years after the Japanese debt bubble burst, Tokyo house prices are still falling, and the stock market is worth 60% less

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Osborne: Speaking truth to wealth and power? Really?

George Osborne was presumably aiming at himself and his friends, when he vowed “to speak truth to power and wealth” at the Tory party conference this week, but dare he speak economic truth to the rest of us? – simultaneously published on Left Foot Forward > On the narrowest of bases, he might still claim

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Is George Osborne a radical Chancellor? – far from it

I was on Newsnight last week, to comment on the Budget. (You can watch it with the BBC’s iPlayer..our slot is about 35 minutes into the show.) Newsnight’s Jeremy Paxman posed a question to the panel, which included Lord Lamont, ex-Chancellor, and Irwin Steltzer. He asked: is George Osborne a radical Chancellor?” Radical, according to the dictionary definition

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Bankers tighten their grip

13 May, 2010 With a backdrop of bankers looting the EU’s Treasuries (via a bailout that rivals George Bush’s TARP) let us consider one of the most significant Dem-Con appointments (and a non-appointment) to the British cabinet. That of someone who until now was invisible: David Laws the new Chief Secretary to the Treasury. His

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A fair deal for Iceland

8th January, 2009 This piece appeared on the Guardian’s Comment site: “Today the people of Iceland, a country whose population, at 317,000, is somewhat smaller than Leicester’s, are required by the British political, financial and economic establishment to carry the full burden of the losses suffered by Landsbanki’s depositor programme Icesave. We consider this to

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York Minster EBOR lecture

12th December 2009 At the end of last month I delivered the prestigious EBOR lecture at York. My address was entitled: “Credit, usury and political power: chasing the moneylenders from the temple that is our democracy” Click on the link below to read a PDF version of the full lecture: EBOR Lecture November 25th (PDF)

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The pre-budget report: bullies in the playground

9th December, 2009 It has been an extraordinary day this day, and something to witness: this frenzy of pre-election fisticuffs. Extraordinary because Conservatives, like mindless bullies, are fighting a phoney war against the victims of this crisis. The fact is the Tories are spineless scaredy cats, too timid to take on the perpetrators, who have

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