Hints and tips:
FT analysis underscores PM’s liability, with treatment lists twice as long as 2010 when the party came to power
Citadel Securities attacks Devin Nunes after letter to Nasdaq raises concerns over naked short selling
Uncertain executives are favouring share buybacks over tapping buoyant markets to fund investment
Belief grows in further gains with recession fears abating and improved corporate earnings
Heavy trading in company behind Truth Social fuels talk of a new cycle of ‘meme stock mania’
S&P 500 ends week 1.5% lower despite gains on Friday
...jennifer.hughes@ft.com...
Rosier picture of jobs market comes on top of upgrades to GDP but statistics agency urges caution
...George Steer...
...But Hughes on Tuesday called November’s estimate “a tiny number compared to the risks you face”....
European central bankers warn it is too soon to declare victory over inflation
S&P 500 has best day in six months after dovish messages from central banks
...“People have maybe forgotten that this is what the repo market does — it sends signals about financial liquidity,” said George Pearkes, macro strategist at Bespoke Investment Group....
...James Bowler, Treasury permanent secretary, took exception to Hughes’ remarks, telling MPs on Wednesday: “I don’t agree with that. I don’t agree with the language used.”...
...Hughes told the BBC: “In some ways, by not changing the level of public spending in this Autumn Statement, that has given him £20bn to spend on tax cuts.”...
...Richard Hughes, OBR chair, said this week that the £13bn estimate in November was a “tiny” amount, given the huge uncertainty around such analysis and incoming borrowing data....
...Additional reporting by George Parker...
...Some Tories yearn for the days before the OBR, created in 2010 by the then Tory chancellor George Osborne to provide transparency to the public finances and to end the days of dubious economic forecasts...
...Richard Hughes, chair of the OBR, last month said the government’s forecasts for public spending after 2025 were beyond “a work of fiction”, saying ministers had not written down how they could be achieved...
...His spending plans are already deemed unrealistically tight by economists and the OBR’s head Richard Hughes described them as beyond “fiction”, because the government had not said how they could be achieved...
...Richard Hughes, the chair of the OBR, has criticised the lack of detail underpinning those spending assumptions....
...Hughes told the BBC’s Today programme: “In some ways, by not changing the level of public spending in this Autumn Statement, that has given him £20bn to spend on tax cuts.”...
...Real-terms cuts of that scale are not necessarily impossible, argues Ben Zaranko, a researcher at the IFS, who points to the austerity imposed by former chancellor George Osborne back in 2010....
...Additional reporting by Kate Duguid and George Steer...
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