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Chaitanya Kumar @chaitanyakumar.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

On a q about the Greens just wanting to print money, he suggests his tax policies will raise a lot of money. Also says borrowing for investment is good. He loves the idea of fiscal multipliers and goes back to it again and again.

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Chaitanya Kumar @chaitanyakumar.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

@zackpolanski.bsky.social giving his first major speech on the economy at @neweconomics.bsky.social 's 40th anniversary. Starts off with a call to freeze the price cap at current levels and willing to shield consumers up to a £300 bill rise.

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Chaitanya Kumar @chaitanyakumar.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

2. Martin Lewis has been campaigning against standing charges and the govt. has listened, by moving ~£34 off SC on to unit rates (with a bit more from April '27). This again is welcome and useful to see this acknowledged as a progressive move... which it is. But..

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Chaitanya Kumar @chaitanyakumar.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

1. Given the complex ways we split costs across gas/elec; unit/standing charges; the distribution effects of today's announcement is varied and relatively regressive. This is useful for those who are asking why the govt. claims a £150 reduction when the price cap saving is only £117.

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Chaitanya Kumar @chaitanyakumar.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Recreated this for Britain, no job displacement (yet)!... and besides, too soon to make broad brush statements on losses.

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Chaitanya Kumar @chaitanyakumar.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Consistent fiscal tightening over the years, to meet these rules, has neither reduced the stock of debt nor enabled much needed investment. The PSNFL rule change from Oct '24 was indeed welcome was Britain remains weak on public investment compared to other OECD nations.

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Chaitanya Kumar @chaitanyakumar.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

@neweconomics.bsky.social have shown how these rules have changed multiple times over the past 2 decades. Since 2021 alone, 3 more rule changes were introduced. All the while the stock of debt has only gone up. These rules have largely failed on their own terms, over and over again.

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Chaitanya Kumar @chaitanyakumar.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

I ❤️ this analogy from the report. "You cannot assess road safety by just looking at the speedometer." Fiscal sustainability too cannot be judged just by looking at Debt/GDP or such metric. Economies are complex systems and distilling it to 1 figure makes for good headlines but bad policymaking.

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Chaitanya Kumar @chaitanyakumar.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

However, these projects will lock in prices for 20 yrs. While the longer term security helps lower bids, the clearing prices still reflects a high risk premium due to the current cost of capital. These numbers are in the same ball park as previous rounds but still represent an 'avoidable' premium.

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Chaitanya Kumar @chaitanyakumar.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

also pleased to see several reccos from our work @neweconomics.bsky.social reflected here. We produced a blueprint for home retrofit last Jan with 5 key recommendations and almost all of them are being delivered. See our report here- neweconomics.org/2025/01/a-bl...

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Chaitanya Kumar @chaitanyakumar.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

The clearing price of £91.20- you can see a U-curve of sorts on how offshore wind prices have gone up in the last couple of auctions. The reality is that we are also comparing it with a new gas plant in 2030 which some estimates say will come in higher than the OfW clearing price (debatable)

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Chaitanya Kumar @chaitanyakumar.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

The budget for offshore wind has effectively doubled from £900mn at the start to ~£1.8bn! that is a huge jump which managed to secure such a large capacity. Is this targetism over cost effectiveness? tbd. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/696689...

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Chaitanya Kumar @chaitanyakumar.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

5. On a side note, the energy bill package has the most meaningful reduction on inflation estimates. But this is such a meager intervention when compared to more significant savings that could have been achieved from cutting interest rates on renewables. (see here- neweconomics.org/2023/11/its-...)

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Chaitanya Kumar @chaitanyakumar.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

4. OBR confirms North Sea oil and gas receipts are set to plummet from £2.7bn today to £0.3bn by 2030-31, reinforcing the fact that the fields are in terminal decline and new licenses won't undo the clear trend.

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Chaitanya Kumar @chaitanyakumar.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

Thoughts on the Chancellor's big, hugely consequential budget. The fiscal headroom chatter will be put to rest for a couple of years (despite the arbitrariness of these targets) but some key energy and cost of living decisions in the budget. Thoughts below 👇

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Chaitanya Kumar @chaitanyakumar.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

Some useful diagnosis that sets the context: ❌ Past policy was too short-term ❌ Market signals alone didn’t build resilient supply chains ❌ UK industry has been hamstrung by high energy costs The latter has captured all the headlines and rightly so as elec prices are highest in UK for industry.

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Chaitanya Kumar @chaitanyakumar.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Looks like GB energy is a public finance institution after all! Oh well, that is disappointing. The vision was to have a publicly owned generator of mature tech, now it will offer loans and buy equity. The OG vision deferred to the 2030s or beyond.

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