The PEF report by Jo Michell and Rob Calvert Jump has had significant coverage in the national media
Report by Andrew Verity on the BBC web site 11 11 22
It was discussed on the Radio 4 Today Programme 10 11 22
and on Radio 4 PM on 10 11 22 when Jo Michell was interviewed by Evan Davis
The Times 11 11 22
“The Progressive Economy Forum, which campaigns to end austerity, said the “fiscal hole” was merely the difference between an uncertain forecast (of how much the government will spend and borrow under current plans) and what it can afford to do if it is to hit an arbitrary target that debt starts to fall as a proportion of the economy three or five years from now.”
Larry Elliott and Heather Stewart in The Guardian on 15 11 22
” Economist Jo Michell, a co-author of a paper for the Progressive Economy Forum highlighting the “dangerous fiction” of a fiscal black hole, says the economic backdrop is highly uncertain, making this the wrong moment to draw up concrete plans for spending cuts.
“The sensible thing is to wait and see, for a little bit,” he says. “Things are changing so rapidly: we’re moving into recession, US inflation looks like it may be on the down-slope, gilt yields have come down substantially since the mini-budget and may continue to come down. These are all turning point signals.”
The Daily Mail : “Fiscal black hole of £50bn is a myth because it was calculated in ‘artificial and uncertain’ manner, economists claim”
James Meadway in Labour List ” New research from the Progressive Economy Forum shows that the effects of forecasts or rule changes affect the size of this so-called black hole far more than government spending or tax changes. Shifting the measure of the government’s debt back to the measure the Office for Budget Responsibility was using up to January this year, for example, not only eliminates the black hole entirely – it leaves the government with another £14bn to spare against its own target.”
James Meadway in the New Statesman : “Dystopian warnings of a “fiscal hole”, aided and abetted by supposedly reputable organisations such the Institute for Fiscal Studies, obscure the fact this so-called “hole” is nothing more than a product of the government’s economic forecasts, and its fiscal rule to reduce debt as a share of GDP within three years.”
