This was salient for a number of reasons: for a start, that month followed one of the worst quarters on record for new private sector jobs, with just 5,000 posts filled between June and September 2011. From an economist’s perspective, that is as good as standing still. Err, no, from an economist’s perspective that would

The Sun reports a 5 point poll drop for the Conservatives which gives Labour a general election winning lead, were ballot held today. The short term cause of this is the banker and private sector/wealth creation bashing that master RedEd Miliband has been engaging in. You see he's getting the credit because instead of standing against him the Conservatives have tried to pretend they agree. Th...

Peers have been urged to support a move to let hospitals do more private sector work as plans to overhaul the NHS in England return to the Lords.

There are two fundamental problems with the analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies of the current negotiations on public sector pensions. Firstly, the IFS compares public sector pension provision with that of the private sector and implies that the inevitable disparity has to be rebalanced by cutting the public sector rather than improving private sector provision.

To summarise the current UK position, ‘demand management’ is out (no money left and anyway it didn’t work), so growth must come from supply-side measures (excluding subsidies or protectionism), and from ‘natural’ private sector growth (born of financial stability and debt reduction). With the peculiar separation in the UK which has evolved between ...

Public sector workers will be "dramatically" better off in retirement than those in the private sector, ministers are warned.

Some thoughts from Dave Parks on Housing Benefit and Housing . There has been a lot of fuss recently about high level benefit payments. One major component of high benefit payments is costs in terms of Housing Benefit for the unfortunate people stuck in private sector housing. I'm struck by the fact that you can often see "To Let" signs on the council estates around Exeter were I live. It str...

History suggests that any greater involvement for the private sector, contained in reform plans, would happen less quickly than imagined

London's transport infrastructure could get a boost from the private sector with corporate sponsorship and more commercial names appearing around the capital.

Delays to the Higher Education Bill will not stop the rise of privately-funded universities, insists Carl Lygo.