Fishburn Hedges

A Coalition Budget

Tough but fair, goes the mantra and George Osborne made it clear at the outset that today’s ‘emergency’ Budget was ‘unavoidable’. Not surprisingly, we heard a lot about the scale of the economic challenge facing the Government which borrows one pound in every four that it spends.   We were assured that the coalition would bring the structural deficit into balance by 2014, through “ea...

The race to Number 10 continues

As at 3.15 pm After a weekend of political negotiation – where are we now?After three days of fevered speculation and intensive media scrutiny, things are only just starting to become a little clearer on what the shape of the next government will be. It is to the credit of the negotiating teams around the leadership of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats that there has not been a single ...

Background It's midway through the election campaign and both the bookies and the pollsters agree that there is a high chance of a hung Parliament, thereby conferring ‘kingmaker’ status to the Lib Dems.  This prospect has caused mild panic in some quarters – largely because it’s so unprecedented in recent times.  But to help calm nerves and answer some of the ‘what ifs’, we’ve prod...

As the Government faces its own political mortality and Alistair Darling ponders moving out of No 11 in just six weeks, it’s not surprising today’s Budget was a political event. Although the Chancellor was able to define some political dividing lines for the forthcoming campaign, this was no giveaway Budget.  Instead, the Chancellor’s pitch to the nation is that the Government made the ri...

In a surprising move today, ex-Government Ministers Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt called for a secret ballot on Gordon Brown’s leadership.The two backbenchers issued an open letter to Labour MPs directly after Prime Minister’s Questions, stating that “the Parliamentary Labour Party is deeply divided over the question of the leadership”.The letter called on Labour members to support a secr...

The Pre-Budget Report presented Labour with one of its last opportunities to frame the economic debate ahead of the general election campaign. In a widely predicted move, Chancellor Alistair Darling avoided announcing any widespread cuts, arguing that this would hamper recovery. Instead he focused on securing investment and growth and raising revenue from the wealthy, claiming that the majority of...

Well down in the polls, with the country heavily in debt and still in recession, Alistair Darling is faced with an unenviable task on 9 December. With a general election on the horizon, he must try to turn around the Government’s political fortunes and set the tone for the economic debate that better favours Labour. This PBR could turn out to be Labour’s last roll of the dice.So, what will the...

Alistair Darling doesn’t look like the type to phone in sick, but few could blame him if the thought had crossed his mind last night, as he prepared to present one of the most difficult Budgets of post-war years. Darling tried to make the best of a dire combination of rising debt and reduced revenues by asserting Labour’s plan to invest to grow, rather than cut its way out of the recession. H...

Alistair Darling faces one of the most difficult economic scenarios that any Chancellor has had to face in the last 40 years, as he prepares for his second Budget. With the UK in the depths of recession, and Labour consistently trailing the Conservatives in the polls, nobody will envy the Chancellor his task of trying to convince the public that this Government is best able to steer the country to...