Paul Linford

IN an election where the state of the economy is likely to be more central than ever to the outcome, it is not surprising that the identity ...

Opposition criticisms of the Pre-Budget Report as "electioneering" are fatuous and naive. Government denials that it is such are ...

There's an old saying in politics that Budgets look different a week after they are delivered than a day after - and I guess Pre-Budgets...

Do centre-left governments have any room for manoeuvre on tax anymore? Here's my column in today's Newcastle Journal. *** Aneurin B...

Nick Robinson posed an interesting question on the Today Programme this morning - for those who missed it, he has helpfully reproduced the e...

My initial verdict on last Wednesday's Budget - written in a hurry between finishing work and picking my wife up from a hospital appoin...

I had thought of doing a blog-boycott of this year's Budget , so narcoleptic was the content, but on reflection...there are some positiv...

This weekend's column in the Newcastle Journal naturally focuses on the political fallout thus far from the Northern Rock nationalisati...

Last night's Question Time from Newcastle was understandably devoted to Northern Rock. Perhaps the most interesting thing to come out ...

Not surprisingly, the Tories are trying to have it both ways over Northern Rock today. One the one hand, they criticise the nationalisatio...

A couple of weeks' back I asked readers on this blog who should replace Alistair Darling as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Such has been ...

To round off the week, two polls - one on the next Chancellor of the Exchequer , the other on the next England football manager . Steve McC...

Who runs the Treasury? asks Ben Brogan a propos of Downing Street's leaking of today's partial U-turn on capital gains tax. ...