Gary Gibbon
Looming election brings Labour together
Channel 4 News political correspondent Gary Gibbon reveals how Lord Mandelson is showing unity with his labour colleagues with a general election imminent.
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Gary Gibbon
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Faisal Islam
AAA rating safe for now but is there a trap for the Tories?
Alistair Darling’s pre-budget-report: there are some remarkable facts in the maths, blogs economics correspondent Faisal Islam for Channel 4 News.
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Gary Gibbon
The pre-budget report is like an unfinished painting
The pre-budget report task Alistair Darling seemed to have devised for himself was to look like he “gets it” on the deficit while preserving dividing lines between Labour and the Conservatives.
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Faisal Islam
So what did the pre-budget report mean?
Faisal Islam tweets his reaction to the Chancellor’s pre-budget report.
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Faisal Islam
The City eyes changes in the budget
It was during New Labour’s first budget back in 1997 that Gordon Brown’s special advisers gathered around a Reuters terminal, fearful of the market reaction to the first Labour budget in two decades. It barely registered a flicker, and that was seen as the great success of the “prawn sandwich” offensive on the City. Well…
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Jon Snow
Time to call a halt to ratings agencies?
What a strange world we live in. The economics team I work with – Faisal and his backroom wizard, Neil Macdonald, tell me, and you, that today’s UK pre-budget report will stand or fall on the whims of a handful of economists across the world. Not any old economist but largely those who work for…
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Faisal Islam
UK tests the limits of its AAA credit rating
On the eve of the chancellor’s pre-budget report, the three main credit ratings agencies are raising concerns about the UK’s AAA status, blogs Faisal Islam.
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Gary Gibbon
Straightforward approach through raid on bankers’ bonuses
I get the impression that going after bankers’ bonuses through national insurance is not the option the Treasury is going for in the PBR. The approach will be a more straightforward though unprecedented raid on one group of workers – employees of banks trading in the UK who get chunky bonuses.
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Gary Gibbon
Pre-Budget Report: Darling’s alternative Christmas bonus
Pre-Budget report: it will not be a windfall on the banks but some sort of tax hit directly on the bankers’ bonuses, blogs Gary Gibbon for Channel 4 News.
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Gary Gibbon
Brown speaks on efficiency in government
Gordon Brown is about to lecture on efficiency in government, just one day beforee the pre-budget report goes to the printers.
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Gary Gibbon
Brown, Darling, and public spending cuts
There will be more tomorrow from Alistair Darling on the government’s plans to outline cuts in public services, in the James Callaghan lecture in Cardiff. The Chancellor wanted to go further on balancing the books than No. 10 allowed him to at the Pre-Budget Report last autumn. Now he feels – after some lengthy conversations…