Stimulus followed by austerity
Video: Chris Giles on the economics of the chancellor’s pre-Budget package
Pre-Budget report 2008
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Tax hit to fund £20bn fiscal stimulus
Taxpayers face six years of austerity, paying for the consequences of recession and a £20bn fiscal stimulus unveiled by Alistair Darling as he detailed the most dismal Budget outlook since 1993
Answers to five key questions
Has Pollyanna put Prudence in her place?
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Winners and losers
Video: Matthew Vincent, the FT’s personal finance editor, on how the PBR will affect individuals
A break from New Labour tradition
Video: Philip Stephens on Alistair Darling’s strategy and the politics of the pre-Budget report
What does the pre-Budget report mean for you?
Ask the expert: John Whiting, tax partner at PwC, will answer your questions
Comment and analysis
The government takes a huge gamble on investor confidence
It is unclear from the chancellor’s speech that the government recognises the scale of the structural challenge, says Martin Wolf
Extraordinary optimism for extraordinary times
The route back to financial sustainability was unconvincing – both as individual measures and taken as a whole. We must hope that Mr Darling’s extraordinary optimism about the economy is justified
Britain will pay for Brown’s fiscal boost
Monetary policy is more powerful, more timely and far less troublesome to reverse than tax cuts and spending increases, says Nigel Lawson
Recession Britain: Grim down south
London and its surrounds will be hit harder than usual as the whole country feels the pain, but pockets of resilience are likely to exist in this post-industrial downturn
Goodbye to New Labour
The government’s gamble is that the global hurricane has rewritten the rules of politics as well as economics. Hence Mr Darling’s promise to raise the top rate of income tax to 45 per cent, writes Philip Stephens
A struggle to save Christmas
Alistair Darling has delivered the festive prerequisites. Now the recipients of his largesse must throw caution to the wind too, says Jonathan Guthrie
Risky mini-Budget
The UK’s Labour government is taking a gamble on tax cuts to stimulate the economy. But it looks like the Tory gambit of opposing them is riskier
Recession Britain: Darkness descends
After a week that brought the fastest shedding of labour the country has seen since the early 1990s, weaknesses exposed in the economy mean the road back will be a grind
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