Faisal Islam
Wonganomics: the role of student debt and housing costs
Wonga boss Errol Damelin tells Channel 4 News his payday lending firm is benefiting from a “generational shift” away from credit cards and unauthorised overdrafts.
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FactCheck: Does a cap on payday loans work?
Payday loan companies argue that a cap on interest rates would force people to turn to loan sharks. But Stella Creasy says it has worked in other countries – is she right? FactCheck investigates.
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Alex Thomson
Barajas: overlit, overheated, underused, underwhelming
Barajas Airport itself, one giant folly to Euro-borrowing on a grand scale against a dream that has never come true. Quite probably never could.
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Faisal Islam
Can the Treasury blame borrowing figures on North Sea platform?
Faisal Islam questions Chloe Smith’s claim that shocking borrowing figures from the government were down to the closure of a single platform in the North Sea.
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Faisal Islam
Britain the low interest ‘safe haven’, or growth laggard?
George Osborne’s new communications mantra is that Britain is a “safe haven in a storm”, that Britain is “stable”. To my occasionally cynical mind this seems to be a tacit admission that the Treasury recognises it has little to boast about so far as regards the economic numbers. The best that can be hoped for is stability. Stability is better than chaos. And if stability means austerity and that means low growth, than for the moment, so be it.
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Why did the UK have to borrow so much?
The claim “Labour’s leadership candidates say that spending was not the problem. It was taxes. Nonsense. In just two financial years up to the election, public spending rose by 10 per cent in real terms. That’s a rise after inflation of £59 billion.” Chris Huhne MP, Climate Change Secretary, press conference attacking “Labour’s legacy”, 11…
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Faisal Islam
Is Britain going bankrupt? Inside the DMO
For ordinary Britons, and companies, the credit bubble is as much a matter of history as the Tulip bubble. For governments, however, the credit boom is only just beginning. And Robert Stheeman is about to start running the biggest overdraft in British history. Mr Stheeman is the chief executive of the Debt Management Office, the…