266 items found
Economics correspondent Faisal Islam describes interviewing Conservative leader David Cameron, who says his party would start cutting the deficit this year, even if Britain relapses into recession.
Jon Snow
Have I just witnessed the death of party politics? If so the general election could be dull, blogs Jon Snow for Channel 4 News.
Jon Snow
If you shut your eyes during the debates here in Pontignano you cannot distinguish which nationality the speaker represents. A generation ago that would not have been true. For a start, fewer of the Italians would have spoken fluent English. Secondly globalization has harmonised much of the discourse. That said, there is no celebration of…
Jon Snow
Jack Straw the Justice Secretary talked here about the “granulisation” of politics, the fragmenting of voters’ preparedness to carry on with voting for conventional old order politics. How serious is it? I have blogged before about the disenchantment of younger voters in Ireland with their leadership and how it may come to deliver a No…
Lehman’s bankruptcy changed the world. It sent world economy into a precipitous decline that’s matched the Great Depression. It arguably changed the course of the US election. It was a violent economic event that will be debated for decades. Much of the mystery surrounds the events of the weekend of the 13th/ 14th September 2008,…
The biggest surprise today was not the extra £50bn of Mervyn’s magic money to be created for the purposes of fertilising the embryonic green shoots spotted by stock market traders. Forget Barclays’ remarkably strong results, and Lloyds’ further revelation of the devastation wrought upon its balance sheet by the purchase of HBoS.
The world is in an era of epic economics. So huge are the challenges, they will define domestic politics for years. Forget about the right answers, politicians are only just beginning to come up with the right questions. And in this strange new world there often is no right answer. The international aspects of the…
Jon Snow
I’ve just been down to RBS to interview the new chief executive, Stephen Hester – an excellent interview, on Channel 4 News tonight (see extended interview below).
Jon Snow
There’s nothing like a quick visit to America to remind you of the interesting contrasts between our two nations – divided as they are by a common tongue. In the United States President Obama tells bankers to show responsibility and forego bonuses because “there are people who are a lot less well off, who are…
Within a week in October 2008 the US and UK governments were forced to bailout their banks in order to save the economic system as the credit crunch began to bite.
The collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 triggered financial turmoil around the world. Economics Editor Faisal Islam reveals the inside story of how close Britain came to a costly bailout.