The Conservatives want to brand Burnham’s administration as a ‘traditional tax and spend socialist government’

In a news release issued ahead of his speech this morning, Andrew Griffith, the new shadow chancellor, gave details of some of the questions he wants the experts he has asked to review small business regulation to address. (See 8.58am.) He said:

[Craig Mackinlay and Robert Colvile] will produce a report taking evidence from small business and self-employed organisations. While they will have a wide remit, they will consider in particular these key questions, and report in December:

-Why have past attempts to reduce the regulatory and compliance burden on small business and the self-employed failed, and what specifically should be done to reduce the burden successfully?

This is staggering. Our socialist Chancellor has dished out a big Bank of England finance job to a socialist union boss who knows nothing about finance.

Clearly, trade union donations not only buy your way into government policymaking, but also onto the Bank of England’s board. This is cronyism in plain sight.

Welcome boost for chancellor with unexpected rise put down to rapid growth of AI in services sector outweighing Iran war fallout

The UK economy grew in July as the rapid expansion of AI appeared to outweigh the economic damage from the Iran war, in a welcome boost for John Healey.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed a surprise 0.4% increase in gross domestic product (GDP), compared with 0.3% growth in June. City economists had forecast zero growth.