So now it seems everyone is calling for a fiscal growth strategy. Conservative backbenchers are pushing tax breaks for entrepreneurs; Ed Balls wants a reversal of last year’s VAT cut; and the Lib Dems are agitating for the acceleration of the £10,000 personal allowance manifesto pledge, in pursuit of growth.

It’s welcome to see people across the political spectrum starting to take the growth agenda more seriously. But it’s not for nothing that the Chancellor points out the perils of a loss of deficit-cutting credibility if he goes borrowing more. You can make a good case for a discretionary fiscal stimulus, but you must also acknowledge that the risks involved for UK government debt are unknowable and the consequences catastrophic.

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Some are unhappy about the prospect of OFFA, the equal access body for higher education, making universities accept more state school students. Why? Because they argue universities will be made to take poorer quality students. So this will lead to ‘levelling down’, with more equal intakes but poorer overall outcomes. Read More

Ian Mulheirn examines some of the common misconceptions of the SMF's proposed scheme to offer income contingent loans for childcare. Read More

Ryan Shorthouse discusses the results of a YouGov survey of parents with children under the age of five looking at their views on the SMF's proposed childcare funding scheme. Read More

Ian Mulheirn examines new figures on the performance of the Work Programme and shows why still more data is needed to assess the scheme's progress. Read More

Ryan Shorthouse looks at why we shouldn't be concerned about the fall in university applications despite the headlines. Read More

Ian Mulheirn looks at new data on people expected to use the Work Programme and explains why the deteriorating economic outlook is bad news for the scheme's finances. Read More

Ian Mulheirn shows why the freeze in the working tax credit and new benefits reforms mean that Nick Clegg’s much trumpeted tax break will not help hard pressed families Read More

John Springford looks at the strange irony that Keynesians have ended up arguing that financial markets are efficient, while free marketeers have ended up arguing the reverse Read More

SMF Director Ian Mulheirn takes a look at today’s National Audit Office report into the Work Programme and explains why the overoptimistic expectations of the Department for Work and Pensions mean trouble at the front line. Read More