Showing posts with label ONS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ONS. Show all posts

Tuesday, 25 January 2011

PMQs Preview - 26th January 2011

This is not going to be a long post. In fact I wrote that sentence just to beef it up a bit. Because PMQs tomorrow is only going to be about one thing: today's shock 0.5% GDP contraction. Balls has already launched a pretty effective broadside on Osborne tonight, claiming that the 0.7% GDP growth in the previous quarter was a legacy of Labour's spending plans and that these are the first set of figures that reflect the Conservatives' economic policies.

Surely even Ed Miliband can make this stick tomorrow. For all their bluster Cameron and Osborne know that the weather did not cause all this damage alone - and that blaming the snow is a line that won't play well in the House. Expect their VAT hike to take a beating. Despite this, Balls' record under Brown and the resignation of Alan Johnson late last week should give Cameron something to hold on to, even if Miliband can just point to Coulson and previous Tory calls for more financial deregulation. It should be fun... 

Wednesday, 15 September 2010

Press Perspective

Headlines are great, aren't they. One can make you feel good and another can make you feel crap. Even when they are about the same thing. Today we had new data out from the Office of National Statistics about unemployment, which was given very different treatment by the BBC and the Guardian: