Samuel Brittan



Profile: Timeline
Full name: Samuel Brittan

Area of interest: Economics, Government and Politics Journals/Organisation: Financial Times

Email: [mailto:samuelbrittan@hotmail.com samuelbrittan@hotmail.com]

Personal website: http://www.samuelbrittan.co.uk/

Website: http://www.ft.com/comment/columnists/samuel-brittan

Blog:

Representation:

Networks:



Biography:
About:

Education:
 * Cambridge University - taught by Peter Bauer and Milton Friedman. Honorary Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge; Hon. Doctor of Letters (Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh); Hon. Doctor of the University of Essex. Was also a visiting Professor at the Chicago Law School, Visiting Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, Honorary Professor of Politics at Warwick

Career: Economics editor at the Observer (1961-64). Economic commentator with the Financial Times since 1966

see: SamuelBrittan.co profile

Current position/role: Commentator

Other roles/Main role: Author
 * also writes/has written for:

Other activities: Author
 * Advisor, Department of Economic Affairs (1965)
 * Peacock Committee on the Finance of the BBC (1985-86)

Disclosures:

Viewpoints/Insight:
 * Explosive issue of right versus left - Financial Times, 14th July 2006

see: SamuelBriattan.co Interviews

Broadcast media:

Video:

Controversy/Criticism: Defended Margaret Thatcher's economic policy when, in March 1981, 364 leading economists wrote to The Times in criticism

Awards/Honours: Awarded the George Orwell, Senior Harold Wincott and Ludwig Erhard prizes. Knighted for “services to economic journalism”, 1993; Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur, 1993

Scoops:

Other: Brother of Leon Brittan, the Lord Brittan of Spennithorne



Books & Debate:
Latest work: Against the flow: reflections of an individualist OCLC 56912653, 2005 (reviews & articles about)
 * The Treasury under the Tories, 1951-64 OCLC 4814953, 1964
 * Left or Right: The bogus dilemma OCLC 42471, 1968
 * Capitalism and the permissive society OCLC 672650, 1973
 * The economic consequences of democracy OCLC 3880896, 1977
 * A restatement of economic liberalism OCLC 59097116, 1988
 * Capitalism with a human face OCLC 30780120, 1995
 * Essays, moral, political and economic OCLC 40340204, 1998
 * Towards a humane individualism OCLC 52895671, 1998
 * Subsidising a deadly trade OCLC 52654010, 2001

see also: SamuelBrittan.co Books | Speeches

Speaking/Appearances:

Debate: http://www.intelligencesquared.com/people/b/sir-samuel-brittan



Financial Times:
Column name:

Remit/Info: Economics, Government and Politics

Section: Comment

Role: Commentator

Pen-name:

Email: [mailto:samuelbrittan@hotmail.com samuelbrittan@hotmail.com]

Website: FT.com / Samuel Brittan

Commissioning Editor:

Days published: Friday

Regularity: Fortnightly

Column format:

Average length: 1000 words



Articles: 2014

 * The greenbelt can fix the property market - Let us build garden cities – but we cannot build enough to prevent a housing bubble - 19th June
 * UK’s gear shift reminiscent of 1970s boom - Samuel Brittan considers parallels in pre-election growth under chancellors Osborne and Barber - 2nd May
 * UK economy gear shift is reminiscent of 1970s boom - There are obvious similarities between the present and the Barber boom of 1972-74. In both cases the economy was shifting -
 * Brittan on Britain - The FT economics commentator recalls pivotal moments in the British political economy - 28th March
 * Samuel Brittan on almost 50 years at FT - After almost five decades at the Financial Times, economic commentator Samuel Brittan is retiring. In a rare VIDEO interview, Samuel sits down with FT editor Lionel Barber to reflect on the biggest stories in the period, and his time at the newspaper.
 * Osborne’s last chance to leave his mark - UK chancellor will have to balance his austere instincts against political pressure to ‘do something’ - 13th March
 * A cult that gives growth a bad name - Diane Coyle’s ‘GDP’ is as good a simple guide to the subject as we are likely to see - 10th March
 * Swift lesson in principles of economics - Science and technology influence living standards but government still has a role - 21st February
 * State should come with a clear price tag - We do not know whether the chancellor, after delivering the Budget, has made us richer or poorer - 6th February
 * Banish talk of inequality from economics - True equality may not not even be possible in death – Mozart was buried in a paupers’ grave - 24th January
 * Economic soothsayers have no crystal ball - There are not many easily falsifiable theories in macroeconomics, so some prefer the micro side - 9th January



Articles: 2013

 * Cattle look poor investments - If one analysis is correct, the continued existence of cows disproves the main tenets of capitalism - 27th December
 * This is no time for a UK stimulus - The current period is reminiscent of 1937, when Keynes said the time was wrong to boost spending - 13th December
 * Tories and the cult of home ownership - Promoting house-buying is a form of stimulus that does not overtly add to the fiscal deficit - 29th November
 * Inflation is a side effect, not the cure - It makes no sense to aim deliberately for a high rate to create jobs - 15th November
 * Don’t worry about too much easy money - The most serious concern is that it may create asset bubbles which it might be difficult to deflate - 1st November
 * A moderate outlook with a chance of  a new crisis - The fiscal policy deadlocks in Washington are a price worth paying for checks and balances - 18th October
 * An argument about two numbers - The figures that matter are how fast the economy is growing and how much spare capacity there is - 4th October 2013
 * Snags in forward guidance start to show - The monetary policy fad is being undone by the element of surprise - 20th September
 * Why taxi cab drivers cannot put down their smartphones - Every Silicon Valley buzz-phrase, from the app economy to the internet of things, has converged on the industry - 20th September
 * Politics is awash with quack policies - Such proposals usually start with a real concern, exaggerate it and assume that citizens cannot be trusted - 6th September
 * The growth engine - Edmund Phelps’s book is a call to keep the faith in markets. The FT columnist reviews ‘Mass Flourishing’ - 23rd August
 * Productivity is not everything - There is nothing wrong with the US economy a measure of redistribution would not put right - 23rd August
 * Why the eurozone will come apart - The single currency has failed to become the harmonising force that it was supposed to be - 9th August
 * Go for growth, inflation is not imminent - For policy purposes it is best to assume there is quite a lot of spare capacity in the UK economy - 26th July
 * The real target that Carney should aim for - Forward guidance is fine, but central bank lending rates are only a means to an end - 12th july
 * Britain let down by its bean-counting politicians - Ministers treat the economy as if it were a small shop writ large - 28th June
 * Cease this talk of competitiveness - The word makes much of trade, economic and even foreign policy sound like a zero-sum game - 14th June
 * Modern economics for truth seekers - I now believe Keynes’ criticism of mainstream policy to be mistaken - 31st May
 * Britons want more work – let’s help them - There is very substantial spare capacity in the British economy - 16th May
 * Beware the spell of magic numbers - Better to see if several pieces of research say much the same thing - 3rd May
 * Thatcher was right – there is no ‘society’ - Aid for the poor, or distressed regions, must come from the citizens of the country concerned - 19th April
 * Forget trying to change any country - Germany turned its back on the conventional wisdom and did quite well - 5th April
 * It’s the monetary policy that matters - Serious macroeconomic consideration should centre on the monetary review - 22nd March
 * The British Budget is not as great as it was - The chancellor’s showpiece had its heyday in the 1960s and has never regained its economic eminence - 15th March
 * A not-so-secret sterling devaluation ploy - The antics of a rating agency are a sideshow to the adventures of the pound - 1st March
 * A proposal for the Bank’s new mandate - Dogged pursuit of highbrow theories leaves little room to manoeuvre - 15th February
 * The folly of beggar-my-neighbour policies - Japan needs to watch that its campaign for a lower yen does not go beyond talking - 1st February
 * A funny way of firing up the locomotive - Austerity policies make depressions and unemployment worse - 18th January
 * decline of western dominance'' - Developing countries now account for about half of total world output - 4th January



Articles: 2012

 * A case remains for economic liberalism - The philosophy’s basic tenets hold sound despite the financial crisis - 21st December
 * Britain’s policy echoes Habsburg decline - Indicators suggest that conditions are hopeless but not desperate - 23rd November
 * A call to the west in its last-chance saloon - A refreshing perspective on the economic decline of advanced countries and the origins of the crisis - 16th November
 * America must be doing something right - The UK and Europe could learn from US experience - 9th November
 * Explanation for Britain’s economic puzzle - Employment has held up but output is 3 per cent below the 2008 peak - 26th October
 * The harmful myth of the balanced budget - The common sense approach is not as simple at it might appear - 12th October
 * A liberal case for scepticism of the EU - Beware the language of intolerance and authoritarianism - 28th September
 * The Lib Dems need to be more liberal - Left libertarianism seems the right way to go for the junior coalition party - 14th September
 * Come on Bernanke, fire up the helicopter engines - QE will work through the banking system. Helicopter money is available for those fit enough to pick it up - 31st August
 * The pursuit of happiness is no job for government - Any measure of human development inevitably reflects the personal values of those who draw it up - 3rd August
 * An ancient Greek approach to modern economics - If your flute-playing and my poetry improve, that is growth - 20th July
 * The Price of Inequality - In this new book Joseph Stiglitz proposes how to curb the wealth of the top 1 per cent. But does he go too far? - 14th July
 * The fight against crony capitalism - At their best competitive markets have an equalising tendency - 6th July
 * Enough of the bookkeeping, Mr Osborne - Why is it better to encourage investment projects than to finance them directly? - 22nd June
 * You don’t need to be a lefty to support Krugman - Finance ministers must realise the folly of their deficit obsession - 8th June
 * A new Europe of competing currencies - Unused needs and unused hands cannot exist side by side indefinitely - 25th May
 * A real alternative to austerity economics - We should target nominal GDP to leave room for real growth but limitinflationary take-off - 11th May
 * The BoE needs neither a bureaucrat nor a dictator - On present evidence I would award the palm to Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of Canada - 27th April
 * The bogus distinction between left and right - The concept of a spectrum obscures more than it illuminates - 13th April
 * Robbing selective Peter to pay for collective Paul - George Osborne should have cut the top rate of income tax all the way back to 40% - 23rd March
 * This time they really may be ‘green shoots’ - It should not escape notice that Plan A has been substantially modified - 9th March
 * Tax England’s green and pleasant land - The case for a land tax is one of the oldest and least disputed propositions in economic thought - 24th February
 * Why the world economy still splutters away - Ideas on economic stimulation and intervention - 10th February
 * Diogenes was right to value more than happiness - Ordinary language loses its meaning if stretched to extreme situations - 27th January
 * The market still has no rivals - My central case for the competitive capitalist system is that it promotes both personal and political freedom - 13th January



Articles: 2011

 * Now is the time to eat, drink and be merry - Do not feel guilty about indulging yourself amid all the austerity - 30th December
 * ‘More Europe’ is a mindless slogan - Blaming Brussels for what has happened is just a shorthand. Often the worst decisions were made by governments - 16th December
 * A chancellor still wedded to wrong dogma - George Osborne sees public finances as akin to those of a corner shop - 2nd December
 * The Dictator’s Handbook - Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith take a reader-friendly look at dictatorships and imperfect democracies such as Russia and Iran - 20th November
 * Five simple steps to curing Britain’s new depression - Controversial estimates of the UK’s reduced capacity eventually become self-fulfilling - 18th November
 * Why I would have voted no in a Greek referendum - It is adjustment that Greece needs, not financing - 4th November
 * The splintered opposition to fiscal austerity - what the economy is short of is demand; and if that is too abstract to grasp, call it the flow of spending in the economy - 20th October
 * Call off the misguided crusade against ‘inequality’ - The issue of equality has become topical once again - 7th October
 * Use the UK’s state bank holdings to speed a recovery - What we need is a Treasury directive to the three state-owned banks telling them to replace profit maximisation with a requirement to promote economic recovery - 23rd September
 * Where an Augustinian fiscal policy falls short - The aim should be to balance the economy, not just the budget - 9th September
 * Marxist moments'' - He never saw the mass of artificial money rushing across frontiers - 26th August
 * First of all do no harm, then start thinking - The Fed’s undertaking to hold rates until the middle of 2013 seems a pretty cack-handed way of reining them back - 12th August
 * The euro is still far from out of danger - A look at the likelihood of a federal future for the eurozone - 28th July
 * It is time for Britain’s economy to buck up - Since the 1970s, the UK has caught up with its trading partners, even as academics made ‘British declinism’ an industry - 8th July
 * Economics of Good and Evil - Tomas Sedlacek navigates through four millennia of economic thought from the perspective of various cultures - 25th June
 * Greece’s euro exit can now only be a matter of time - The common currency gamble has failed and the question is how to clear up the mess - 24th June
 * Good servants can make bad masters - Finance is not a good master – how to save capitalism from the bond market - 10th June
 * The follies and fallacies of our forecasters - Imagine adding sand to a pile until it crumbles. The foolish blame the last grain rather than the structure of the pile - 27th May
 * Who is winning in the race for recovery - The obsession with inflation is a case of generals fighting the last war - 13th May
 * Ancient Greek lessons for bank reform - We should create state banks that could avert threats to the credit system - 15th April
 * For good or ill, rentiers resist euthanasia - A look at UK fiscal policy, John Maynard Keynes and the rentiers - 1st April
 * Another growth strategy; politics as usual - For decades the UK has followed the same irregular cycle - 18th March
 * Why there are two kinds of conservatism - Cameron clearly sees himself as a Tory philosophic than free-marketeer - 4th March
 * Flat-earthers cannot see around the squeeze - Why pile Pelion on Ossa with VAT increases? - 18th February
 * Still they are fighting for dead men’s shoes - The great thinkers of the past cannot be enlisted in our contemporary economic debates - 4th February
 * The ‘inflation nutters’ are only half right - Rising commodity prices should not lead us to depress our economies - 21st January
 * Look behind the myth of global imbalances - The present debate is marred by treating countries as if they were individuals - 7th January



Articles: 2010

 * Brown’s is a message that we need to hear - When somebody who has been at the heart of international financial negotiations for 13 years says that the world is not out of the economic woods yet, we should take notice - 17th December
 * Budgetary lessons for our age of austerity - The OBR has done a Herculean job in its report on the Economic and Fiscal Outlook - 3rd December 2010
 * Conventional wisdom, the royals and the Republic - Nobody knows if the euro will survive a debt default – but its supporters hardly want to find out - 19th November
 * The futile attempt to save the eurozone - ‘That which is unsustainable will not be sustained’ - 5th November
 * Deficit should be a policy variable - This is not as seismic as Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries - 22nd October
 * The impoverished fiscal debate - It is not so urgent to cut the deficit when recovery is far from assured - 8th October
 * Guzzle for the sake of the world economy - We will achieve little by exhorting surplus countries to consume more - 24th September
 * The secret of Osborne’s popularity - The arguments used to justify cuts strike a chord with the public in a way that earlier Budgets never did - 10th September
 * The return of beggar-my-neighbour policy - The evidence of resurgent mercantilism is all too abundant - 27th August
 * Thoughts on the troubles of banks - If there is a shortage of viable lending propositions, it is because of the recession the banks created - 13th August
 * We do not prosper by income or happiness alone - It is worth removing specific injustices on a piecemeal basis even if it is impossible to construct a perfectly just society or even agree on what such a society would look like - 6th August
 * Take central banks down a notch - It can hardly be said that they have achieved distinction in recent years - 30th July
 * Anglo-US relations are no longer so special - No one would suppose that UK troops would be in Iraq if America had not been in the lead - 16th July
 * What comes after inflation targets - Nominal GDP offers monetary policy a sense of direction - 2nd July
 * Are these hardships necessary? - The real argument should be on whether we need unparalleled fiscal austerity or not - 18th June
 * A plan to live with ‘imbalances' - People should make up their own minds how much to save - 4th June
 * Now is the time to ask: ‘What crisis?’ - There is an incipient crisis in the air, but it is an international one - 21st May
 * A credo for a revived capitalism - Shorn of extremism, the basic case for competitive markets is still Adam Smith’s invisible hand - 7th May
 * The sad return of state worship - British liberties have been steadily eroded by recent governments - 23rd April
 * The case for a written constitution - A viable constitution should contain rules for its own amendment - 9th April
 * Headroom for economic recovery - Samuel Brittan considers the breakdown of inflation targeting regime - 19th March
 * The pitfalls of Britain’s confidential civil service - Advice to ministers could be improved with greater openness - 5th March
 * Greek light on an over-hasty project - Athens holds more bargaining cards than generally realised - 19th February
 * Britain has been hit harder than you think - Any British citizen who bases his or her vote on the “flash” official national income figures showing that output rose by 0.1 per cent in the final quarter of 2009 ought to be disenfranchised - 5th February
 * The Great Piggy Bank of China - China’s savings rate is phenomenal, but it is no use lecturing the country’s leaders to consumer more, says Samuel Brittan. We must find a way to offset the savings - 22nd January
 * Taking a fresh look at liberalism - We can apply a Keynesian principle to rule off areas of life where the state has no business intruding. It is the refusal to recognise any such limits which is the real crime of New Labour - 8th January



Articles: 2009

 * Patterns in the eye of the beholder - Is there such a thing as regular business cycles? Or are all fluctuations just an irregular wave-like movement - 11th December
 * Changing government is never easy - The problem when the ruling party might be voted out is how much contact the civil service has with the opposition while continuing to serve the government - 27th November
 * Simple truths about the economy - Cutting deficits can wait - 13th November
 * Freedom for Sale - John Kampfner studies the US, Italy, Russia, China and India as he attacks the thesis that capitalism leads to personal and political freedom - 6th November
 * Goodbye to the pre-crisis trend line - The latest IMF World Economic Outlook points out that much of the loss of output in a severe recession is permanent - 30th October
 * Whatever happened to imbalances? - In dollar terms the sums seemed huge. In relative terms they are less frightening. At their 2008 peak, on IMF estimates, global imbalances amounted to 2½ per cent of world gross national product - 16th October
 * A cool look at the current deficit hysteria - In the early Victorian period the debt ratio was nearly 200 per cent and almost reached that level again in the early 1920's - 2nd October
 * Worse evils exist than corruption - Politicians and officials in emerging economies are estimated to receive bribes of between $20bn and $40bn annually - 18th September
 * We do not prosper by income or happiness alone - It is worth removing specific injustices on a piecemeal basis even if it is impossible to construct a perfectly just society or even agree on what such a society would look like - 4th September
 * Why the case for assisted dying is unanswerable - The main reason it is so difficult to reform the law on assisted dying is that those on the fundamentalist side will be prepared to base their votes on this issue, while humanist utilitarians will see it as only one of many issues - 8th August
 * Economists shuffle the deckchairs - What matters is whether economists can identify significant turning points and systemic failures in good time - 7th August
 * How the budget hole developed - There is now more danger of economic stimuli being reversed too soon than of their being continued too long - 24th July
 * A new guide for the perplexed - Attempts to make sense of the financial crisis often lead to even more confusion. Here is an attempt to outline the main issues - 10th July
 * ‘Green shoots’ debate misleads policymakers - It is highly likely that we will have before long a quarter or two of stable output. The interesting question is where we go from there - 26th June
 * It is time to put Europe on hold - Institutional deepening must be halted - 12th June
 * Inflation can act as a safety valve - As Keynes and others have observed, workers accept more readily a real wage cut arising from a rise in the general level of prices than an actual reduction in what they are paid - 29th May
 * Green shoots and dud forecasts - New mathematical theories provide insights but no alternatives. We just have to accept that the future cannot be foreseen in the way many governments and businessmen would like - 15th May
 * A catechism for a system that endures - The Future of Capitalism: The assumption that the pursuit of self-interest within the rules and conventions of society will also promote the public interest may be succeeded by a mushy collectivist pseudo-altruism, in which jealousy and envy are given a free ride - 1st May
 * A long cool look at budget deficits - In 1992 the strategy of the then-chancellor Norman Lamont was a parody of St Augustine’s “Let me be chaste but not yet”. Could it work again - 17th April
 * Why UK should not fret about national debt - The more reluctant people and corporations are to spend, the greater the case for the state to spend to fill the gap - 27th March
 * It seems not all recessions are created equal - The authors of an IMF working paper found one out of six recessions was associated with a credit crunch, one in four with a house price bust and one in three with an equity crash - 13th March
 * Demand matters, not animal spirits - To be induced to expand output, businessmen require an improved market and not a rush of optimism - 27th February
 * Economic dominoes are still falling - Obama’s fiscal package contains favourite pork barrel projects. But a non-ideal stimulus is better than nothing - 13th February
 * Deflation is the wrong enemy - A sustained period of falling prices has sometimes been associated with falling output, but not always - 30th January
 * Where the bishops have gone wrong - If they only would step back from their grandstanding, religious leaders could find opportunities in the downturn - 16th January
 * The problem with all this economic doom and gloom - It is a logical absurdity that there should exist unsatisfied wants side by side with idle workers willing to supply them - 2nd January



Articles: 2008

 * Lessons from the original New Deal - When fighting a slump concentrate on demand and output. Do not interfere with prices and wages - 19th December 2008
 * ‘A framework for economic stability’ - The biggest error was to take too seriously voices clamouring for a path to sound finance once the recession is over - 5th December 2008
 * Why the Brown critics are wrong - The pre-Budget report package is likely to be received with cries of ‘It won’t work’ by many City analysts - 21st November 2008
 * This ‘bold’ cut is barely adequate - The ultimate weapon would be a fiscal stimulus financed by money creation – the equivalent of the helicopter drop - 7th November 2008
 * The big myth of taxpayer cost - The burden on the citizen is little if anything over the next couple of years and perhaps not much looking further ahead - 23rd October 2008
 * Keynes, thou shoulds’t be living . . . - Maxims about debt that might be prudent for families can be the height of folly for governments - 10th October 2008
 * Make the world safe from crusaders - We could be always at war against cruelty if we did not judge whether our intervention might not add to the sum of misery - 26th September 2008
 * Capitalism and the credit crunch - There will be no ‘glad confident morning’ for free-market principles for a long time to come - 11th September 2008
 * The wrong kind of Third Way - The political process, far from correcting the distortions of unbridled capitalism, has made them worse - 29th August 2008
 * Why those ‘expectations’ matter - If the main economic actors expect the policy to be abandoned, any monetary squeeze just reduces output - 15th August 2008
 * Conditions for a rebalanced economy - What matters is that demand rises fast enough to support growth but not so fast as to generate runaway inflation - 1st August 2008
 * The fallacy of the 'choice agenda' - Ideas popular with politicians that aim to empower users to select from among public service providers do not provide enough choice - 18th July 2008
 * What drives the race to the top - A safer way of helping the poor would be through increases in taxes at all incomes or targeted cuts in spending - 3rd July 2008
 * Why the Irish were right to say no - If you are looking for examples of nonsense on stilts you could hardly find a better instance than the reactions of the European political establishment to the Irish No vote in the referendum on the Lisbon treaty - 20th June 2008
 * A limited defence of Gordon Brown - 6th June 2008
 * Augeries for a 'vile' decade - It sometimes pays to look beyond the headline statistics. The increase in the UK annual inflation rate, measured by the consumer price index, from 2.5 per cent in March to 3 per cent in April - way above the official 2 per cent target - caused quite a stir and a spate of pessimistic comment about the prospects of bank rate reductions - 23rd May 2008
 * The financial crises of capitalism - 9th May 2008
 * A third way on immigration - On October 25 2001, in a column entitled Let the huddled masses go free (reprinted in my book Against the Flow), I proposed abolishing the tenuous distinction between economic immigrants and asylum seekers and conducting a five-year experiment in which anyone who wished could come and go - 25th April 2008
 * The case for a 'dual mandate' - The world's main central banks have lived up to their reputations - 11th April 2008
 * When inflation comes from abroad - The discussion of world credit problems has concentrated too much on the trees and not enough on the wood - 28th March 2008
 * Budget's diminished role - British Budgets are not what they were. Much of the job of steering the economy has shifted from fiscal to monetary policy and therefore to the Bank of England - 14th March 2008
 * The pressure on UK living standards - While the army of investment analysts has been trying to guess whether the Bank rate will be cut by a quarter per cent, a half per cent or not at all - it could even rise - the governor of the Bank of England said something much more important and interesting in his press conference on the Bank's February inflation report - 29th February 2008
 * The British budget conundrum - How did the UK move from Gordon Brown's initial "prudence" as chancellor to a state where, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, 19 out of 21 comparable countries have done more to improve their structural budget balances? - 15th February 2008
 * High time for us all to 'buck-up' - Many years ago we had a family friend of Lithuanian Jewish descent who had picked up a smattering of idiomatic English expressions. One of these was "buck up" - 1st February 2008
 * We have defences against a slump - A theme heard among financial analysts is that governments and central banks are running out of "ammunition" to fight a setback in economic activity - 18th January 2008
 * Business growth is not an end in itself - The beginning of a new year should be a good time for business leaders to reflect on how they are seen by the educated but non-specialist public, for instance the arts community - 4th January 2008



Articles: 2007

 * It is time to jettison the forecasts - 21st December 2007
 * That old stagflation dilemma again - 7th December 2007
 * Please spare us this 'vision thing' - 23rd November 2007
 * All hail the new establishment - 10th November 2007
 * Are the imbalances on the mend? - 9th November 2007
 * How to put money in the bank - 26th October 2007
 * The tragedy of the pre-Budget report - 12th October 2007
 * Fixed parliaments would be fairer - 28th September 2007
 * Challenge facing the 'academic' - 14th September 2007
 * 'Competitiveness' rears its ugly head - 31st August 2007
 * The crooked path of capitalism - 17th August 2007
 * The case for a top-down approach - 3rd July 2007
 * Summon the ghost of LLoyd George - 20th July 2007
 * Two and a half cheers for tax credits - 6th July 2007
 * The power of expectations - 22nd June 2007
 * Towards the true price of energy - 8th June 2007
 * An economist on Fantasy Island - 25th May 2007
 * From a Nice decade to 'not-so-bad' - 11th May 2007
 * Democracy is far from everything - 27th April 2007
 * Almost a new economic miracle - 13th April 2007
 * Why this should be the last ‘Budget’ - 23rd March 2008
 * Regime change at the Bank 10 years on - 9th March 2008
 * The mediocrity of circumstances - 23rd February 2008
 * On climate change and good sense - 9th February 2008
 * A pregnant bump in British inflation - 26th January 2008
 * A semi-hard landing faces America - 12th January 2008



Samuel Brittan.co articles: 1999/2006
1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006



News & updates:

 * An ode to Sam - Off Message: Former comment editor, John McDermott, looks back over conversations with the FT economics commentator Samuel Brittan - 31st March 2014



References:


Links:

 * Prospect magazine articles
 * New Statesman articles
 * Wikpedia bio