UK Budget 2006 - Economy
Resources
More on FT.com
Boxed in chancellor presents holding Budget
Gordon Brown rounded off his Budget with a plethora of education initiatives, designed to make a big impact, but even the most cursory look at the numbers underpinning the speech tells a very different story, writes Chris Giles.
Optimistic outlook at odds with the figures
Public finances, Gordon Brown insisted in his speech, were no impediment to his ambitions. But the figures presented in the accompanying Budget papers painted a different picture.
Martin Wolf: Enough of Soviet tractor planning
The chancellor remains a man obsessed with quantitative targets for inputs and outputs rather than someone who has internalised the role of incentives and the extent of our uncertainty about the future.
Experts unconvinced by productivity message
With output per worker growing at a 15-year low and output per hour rising at the slowest rate since records began in 1993, the chancellor might have been expected to sound a cautious note on productivity.
Increased volume of long-dated debt fails to reassure
Gordon Brown announced a sharp increase in the supply of very long-dated gilts but indicated that supply of all bonds in the coming year would be lower than expected.
