A Good Start But The Markets May Take Fright Again On Halloween

20th October 2022

Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies writing in the Time and with the article reproduced on the IFS site.

"Only a reversal of direction on that scale was ever going to be enough to reassure the markets and start to get fiscal policy back on track."

Thank goodness for that. Only a reversal of direction on that scale was ever going to be enough to reassure the markets and start to get fiscal policy back on track. Nearly all the big tax cuts have been abandoned and the government can start again with something close to a clean sheet. The government and the Bank of England are no longer pulling the economy in opposing directions.

The decision to review the energy support package was as welcome as the about-turn on long-term tax cuts. A huge, expensive, unfunded, untargeted intervention may have been just about excusable as an emergency intervention this winter. It was always inexcusable to announce that it would still be in place next year, by which time something far better, cheaper and more targeted could surely have been designed and implemented.

Read the full article HERE