Ed Balls

Austerity versus borrowing? Plan A versus plan B? Osborne versus Balls? In light of Moody’s decision to downgrade the UK’s AAA credit rating, who is right about the best way forward for the economy?

The ring-fence between Britain’s high street and investment banks is not effective and needs to be strengthened, say MPs in a highly critical report.

Chancellor George Osborne is expected to unveil a wealth tax on the rich and a revised welfare cuts package in a mini-budget he says is designed to hit both ends of the pay scale.

David Cameron is defeated in the Commons; Labour votes with the Tories and Nick Clegg has had a go at them all. Where next for the UK in the EU?

On the heels of George Osborne’s request for a first class upgrade, new figures show that more than a quarter of MPs use first class rail travel – sometimes at five times the cost of standard tickets.

The chancellor and the shadow chancellor have now made their conference speeches. What do they tell us about their different views of the current economic crisis?

For a new perspective on shadow cancellor Ed Balls’s address to the Labour conference, we took a copy of his speech and fed it through the patented Channel 4 News Snowcloud word-grinder.

The shadow chancellor Ed Balls tells the Labour Party conference he has a “clear and costed programme” to kick start the economy and get the country back to work.

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls tells Jon Snow at the Labour conference that it “is obviously not the most important job if you want to be popular – but it’s important to be able to be tough”.

Business Secretary Vince Cable announces plans for a business bank to increase lending to businesses, but shadow Chancellor Ed Balls says it is time for an alternative economic plan to boost growth.

The coalition’s economic plan has failed: now families are crying out for change. That’s the view of the shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, who’s warning the UK economy could face long term damage.

Lord Stephen Green, the UK trade minister who ran HSBC when the bank facilitated criminal money laundering, faces calls to reveal what he knew and when.

The committee investigating the Libor rate-fixing scandal questions Jerry del Missier, Barclays’ ex-chief operating officer, who reportedly earned £40m a year when the bank was rigging interest rates.