The Foreign Office is being undermined by a "ludicrous" decision to stop protecting its overseas budget from changes in exchange rates, according to MPs

THE "ludicrous" decision to stop protecting the Foreign Office budget from fluctuations in exchange rates has caused an "unacceptable risk" to its ability to f

The decision to stop protecting the Foreign Office budget from exchange rate changes has risked efficiency, MPs say.

The BoE has cut interest rates again by 0.5% to a base rate of 1.5%. Now I may be showing some economic ignorance here, but isn't this below where the ideal rate should be? It was a good move to start cutting the interest rates last year, in fact to my mind the cuts started a little late. However, what benefit does the person on the street get from rates much below 3%? Not much unless you are on

Here's the table included in my earlier post, which I have now expanded to include the total marginal tax/benefit withdrawal rates faced by basic rate taxpayers who are entitled to Working Tax Credits and hence face the first and second withdrawal rates (i.e. withdrawal rates above and beyond 'normal' tax rates):I have highlighted the rates for basic rate employees entitled to Worki...

Two things thing we have learnt from the Foreign Office Pope memo fiasco are: There is now a very low standard of personnel employed in the foreign office ( and perhaps in the rest of the civil service ). Anyone with half a functioning brain cell could have figured out the damage that memo could cause - let alone someone employed in the Foreign Office. This must be seen a as direct result of Labou...

A rise in the CGT rate would be a far better way to raise cash from rich taxpayers than raising the top rate of income tax – abolish special rates or reliefs rather than raising headline tax rates

Politicians really are all the same: Throughout his first term, President Franklin Roosevelt paid taxes at the rates in effect when he took office, even as statutory tax rates increased. His position was that paying tax at a rate higher than that in effect at his inauguration reduced his salary, which violated the Constitutional provision that states that the president's compensation "shall be nei...

Conventional wisdom suggests that in a resscession you slash intrest rates to pick things up again. But this isnt a conventioal rescession, and I've said it before and I will say it again, reducing interest rates in the current climate can do more harm than good. For starters we know that the rate cut is not passed onto borrowers - even bank rate ‘trackers’ have small print catches that preven...

One of the things, as well as its old underwear and our civil liberties , that Labour’s thrown out during the current recession that it is largely responsible for is Bank of England independence. Labour’s great policy is no more and conveniently today the Bank is likely to cut interest rates further. But they did not cut