Borrowing

  • 3 Oct 2013

    Payday loan companies argue that a cap on interest rates would force people to turn to loan sharks. But Stella Creasy says it has worked in other countries – is she right? FactCheck investigates.

  • 3 Sep 2013

    Wonganomics: the role of student debt and housing costs

    Wonga boss Errol Damelin tells Channel 4 News his payday lending firm is benefiting from a “generational shift” away from credit cards and unauthorised overdrafts.

  • 29 Sep 2012

    Barajas: overlit, overheated, underused, underwhelming

    Barajas Airport itself, one giant folly to Euro-borrowing on a grand scale against a dream that has never come true. Quite probably never could.

  • 21 Aug 2012

    Can the Treasury blame borrowing figures on North Sea platform?

    Faisal Islam questions Chloe Smith’s claim that shocking borrowing figures from the government were down to the closure of a single platform in the North Sea.

  • 2 Aug 2011

    Britain the low interest ‘safe haven’, or growth laggard?

    George Osborne’s new communications mantra is that Britain is a “safe haven in a storm”, that Britain is “stable”. To my occasionally cynical mind this seems to be a tacit admission that the Treasury recognises it has little to boast about so far as regards the economic numbers. The best that can be hoped for is stability. Stability is better than chaos. And if stability means austerity and that means low growth, than for the moment, so be it.

  • 11 Aug 2010

    The claim “Labour’s leadership candidates say that spending was not the problem. It was taxes. Nonsense. In just two financial years up to the election, public spending rose by 10 per cent in real terms. That’s a rise after inflation of £59 billion.” Chris Huhne MP, Climate Change Secretary, press conference attacking “Labour’s legacy”, 11…

  • 21 May 2009

    Is Britain going bankrupt? Inside the DMO

    For ordinary Britons, and companies, the credit bubble is as much a matter of history as the Tulip bubble. For governments, however, the credit boom is only just beginning. And Robert Stheeman is about to start running the biggest overdraft in British history. Mr Stheeman is the chief executive of the Debt Management Office, the…