uk economy

BBC News: Half of UK cash in black market or overseas, says Bank "At least half of all UK banknotes in circulation are held overseas or used in the black market, a Bank of England report suggests. The Bank, which is the main issuer of banknotes in the UK, said only about a quarter of cash in...

The UK government continues in its quest to sell off, well, apparently everything that's not nailed down. The government's profit making share in Eurostar is for sale. As well as: "Other state-owned assets being lined up for sale include the legacy Royal Mail pension assets, the uranium...

The coalition government's response to the economic crisis has been a programme of real and imagined austerity where the responsibility for paying the price of austerity is increasingly being transferred from the rich (whose marginal tax rates have been reduced) to the poor (whose benefits have...

It is reported that Lloyds Bank is increasing its provision for payment of compensation for mis-selling payment protection insurance by £1.8 billion to nearly £10 billion: I have two questions about this, one moral and one economic: 1 how many people have been or will be sent to jail for...

The UK conservative party has been split over EU membership for as long as I can remember and the issue periodically re-emerges to plague the party leadership. The recent success of UKIP in the local elections has brought the issue front and centre once again. David Cameron (the UK Prime...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/24/dear-iain-duncan-smith-thanks-nothing "Dear Iain Duncan Smith, thanks for nothing After 15 months trying to live on £30 a week, I have a job. But I am worried about those your government continues to persecute" "Dear Iain, I've got BIG...

From today the benefits cap is being rolled out over the country http://www.dwp.gov.uk/adviser/updates/benefit-cap/ "From April 2013 a cap will be introduced on the total amount of benefit that working age people can receive. This will mean that workless households should no longer receive...

So as George Osborne is set to announce a multi-billion pound development package building up the rails, bridges and roads in order to avoid the OECD's prediction of a double dip, can this be seen as his Plan B? Sounds awfully like a stimulus package to me.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-11141264 Actually I sure this won't come as a surprise to us that can remember the 80s and the 90s.

This could possibly go in the Finance section, but as a number of our Brit friends post here I thought it would be a better place. I just attended a conference where one of the keynote speakers was a senior person with the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. She spoke about the UK's...

Seems like that incompetent, stoic, one-eyed Scottish dunce wasn't all that bad after all: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11107415 Construction sector, one of the first things that the coalition government scaled back on funding (Forge-masters).

Rising star here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/17/chuka-umunna-letter-george-osborne

This is a vote-winner in the UK: Banks hit by 50% tax on bonus payouts Darling unveils super-tax plans for bankers' bonuses No response yet on whether the Tories would keep it, though they are very likely to. Darling believes it may raise GBP 0.5 billion. I think it is smart ("rebuild...