Bond sale flops – fears are growing on the financial markets that Britain may not be able to repay the billions of pounds in debt it is amassing to rescue banks and revive the economy. The Government admitted yesterday that, for the first time since 1995, investors had been unwilling to buy the full complement of its so-called gilt-edged bonds at one of its official auctions. Gilts are the...

Today, 25 March, is the Feast of the Annunciation. It is also a Quarter Day, when the rent must be paid. The British Retail Consortium is calling on the property industry to end the historic practice of quarterly rents.

We have been opposed from the start to the policy of trying to stimulate the economy using fiscal means to re-ignite a consumer boom and re-inflate the house price bubble. The notion is intellectually and morally bankrupt. It now seems to be approaching the end of the road. But things may now be rolling unstoppably towards the precipice of sterling collapse. A few commentators are forecasting a...

House values near the Channel tunnel rail link stations are predicted to rise by a total of £1.6bn after fast domestic services start to operate later this year.

The UK should spend £90bn on 750,000 new “shovel-ready” jobs to stop the unemployment rate rising to 10pc, according to Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) member David Blanchflower. Professor Blanchflower, the only member of the MPC to vote consistently for interest rate cuts, suggested that drastic fiscal stimulus measures were needed to prevent job losses creeping up to...

The other day I was approached by a ticket tout standing in the freezing cold – it was minus ten – as I was walking past a sports event venue. Unusually, the tout was trying to buy tickets rather than sell, but either way the subject raises a lot of emotion and the touts are regarded as a despicable breed. Ticket touting was in the news again today in connection with a forthcoming series...

Gordon Brown’s economic recovery plans “lack a coherent strategy and timeline” and have yet to offer noticeable help to most companies, the UK’s leading business organisation warned on Thursday.

By Henry Law We have been warning about the possibility of 1970s style inflation since last July and noted in October that the first pieces were being put in place for a Zimbabwean style hyperinflation. Subsequent actions have all been movements in the same direction. Fears about this are now being reflected in the rising demand for gold, the price of which has surged to an all-time high against...

Landlords are, seemingly, determined to pass the pain of the recession on to others. They have all the muscle needed. Hammerson, the property group, was accused last night of pushing Stylo, the owner of the Barratts shoe shop chain, into administration, putting 5,450 jobs at risk. Hammerson, whose assets include the Bullring centre in Birmingham, is understood to have led a rebellion by Stylo’s...

VoxEU.org, a policy portal set up by the Centre for Economic Policy Research, in conjunction with a consortium of national sites, today launches the Global Crisis Debate. The aim is “to broaden the discussion into a truly global debate, and to make the Global Crisis Debate the dominant intellectual forum on the crisis.” “The ambition is to broaden the discussion into a truly global...