Robert Peston

2 months ago | itv.com | Robert Peston

The world has become a much more unstable place, with growing risks to our prosperity. So said the Chancellor and she was right. She could not bring herself to name the cause - which is Donald J Trump and his actual and threatened tariffs. Clearly she got the memo from Keir Starmer that Trump is never to be criticised for anything, even if he starts drowning kittens.

2 months ago | itv.com | Robert Peston

I have a few more reflections to share on Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Spring Statement that we’ll hear on Wednesday. The first is that the Office for Budget Responsibility is bound to make a gloomier forecast for real household disposable income - a proxy for our living standards - than even the pretty gloomy forecast it made in October. Back then, it said Real Household Disposable Income (RHDI) would rise in this parliament a paltry 0.5% a year on average.

2 months ago | itv.com | Robert Peston

I have a few more reflections to share on Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Spring Statement that we’ll hear on Wednesday. The first is that the Office for Budget Responsibility is bound to make a gloomier forecast for real household disposable income - a proxy for our living standards - than even the pretty gloomy forecast it made in October. Back then, it said Real Household Disposable Income (RHDI) would rise in this parliament a paltry 0.5% a year on average.

2 months ago | itv.com | Robert Peston

Arguably there is a looming economic event of far greater long-term consequence than next week’s Spring Statement by the chancellor and the public spending cuts she is set to announce. It is the revealed assessment on 2 April by Donald Trump of the discriminatory tariffs he believes the UK and other countries are respectively levying on the US, and his imposition of new retaliatory tariffs.

2 months ago | itv.com | Robert Peston

As a challenging background to Rachel Reeves Spring Statement next week, the OECD yesterday highlighted the UK government as one of four developed countries facing significant and painful increases in debt costs over the next two years, as a consequence of having to refinance large stocks of maturing debt at significantly higher interest rate. It talks about the UK’s “heightened vulnerability” because that maturing debt is equivalent in value to more than 15% of GDP.