of the institute for fiscal studies on whether the numbers add up, in any budget, or what these days we have to call fiscal event, can be devastating for a politician. that verdict is treated like the word of god, not least by broadcasters like the bbc who have experts from the ifs on our programmes all the time. my guest this week is the director of the ifs, pauljohnson. welcome to the programme. if the ifs is the word of god, that makes you god. how does that feel? very strange. he chuckles all we are, as it were, we are a research institute who happen to work on fiscal things, which means public spending and tax, and when the government or the opposition make big announcements on tax and spending, we analyse it and we analyse it off the back of decades of experience we ve got. with the numbers, with understanding of what this stuff means. so we are able to say, do these add up? will it achieve what the chancellor says it will achieve? and what are the risks? when martin le
in trafalgar square. i reckon this year s is better. feels a bit sort of plumper around the waist, which seems to be the more classic, conical christmas tree shape. anyway, that s about as much analysis as anyone wants on my christmas tree. the problem is, though, the mayor of london, sadiq khan, his visits are getting earlier every year. so you missed him last week. so, he s not here to hear that praise, which he ll be desperate to hear, no doubt. yeah. anyway, let s see what we ve got in store on this episode of newscast. hello, it s adam in the studio. and it s chris in the studio. and keeping us company this week are ayesha hazarika from times radio and former labour adviser. hello. hello, hello. do you have a christmas tree? i do. is it girthy? it s plump and full of girth! glad to hear. and also here is will waldon, who s former director of communications for borisjohnson. hello again. hello, everyone. hi, adam? and also when boris was mayor of london. so did you ever h
Today. Be it medicare, tricare, private insurance, fehpb for those federal employees and when they dropped that they would immediately go into the va system for two years. I want to ask you to stop and think about that for just a second. To a veteran on medicare, theyre going to drop their medicare, go into the va for two years . And then pay the penalty to get back into part b medicare . For an employee who has private insurance, theyre going to drop their insurance and leave their spouse uncovered because they see some advantage to being on va . Its estimated that 90 of those veteran who is are eligible but not enrolled in va have less than 50 disability rating. The threshold to where its va care comes without a copay. These are individuals who have already made a determination that the coverage theyre under is the best coverage they could have. If not, they would be enrolled in the va today. So, the fact that cbo now says with just the execution of this minor reform legislation it w
I am sorry. This was the wrong decision. But i think its right that weve had a Public Inquiry in this country that is right that we have proper investigations. Yesterday, once again showed that no one is above the law in our country. Miliband . Mr. Speaker, today we know that for four years, the Prime Ministers handpicked closest adviser was a criminal and brought disgrace to downing street. We anyhow also know that the Prime Minister willfully ignored multiple warnings about him. On the 8th of july 2009, the guardian published evidence of phone hacking on an industrial scale when coulson was editor of the news of the world. At that time coulson was his director of communications. What action did he take . As i said a moment ago, the assurances i sought and received were the same assurances received by the press complaints commission, by select committee of this house and by police investigations. They were also thoroughly gone into by the leff levison inquir. Specifically, he talks ab
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