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With all the shenanigans in Westminster last week you could be forgiven for failing to register we had a Spring Statement at all – let alone clocked its finer points. Editor Simon Lambert, assistant editor Lee Boyce and host Georgie Frost fill you in on what you may have missed. It includes forecasts from the Office for Budgetary Responsibility on the UK economy, along with income growth, interest rates, the pound and house prices. We also have the true scale of the tax burden on families and businesses, with the overall tax take equivalent to 34.6% of Britain's economy, a level not seen since Harold Wilson was Prime Minister. Income tax receipts will rise nearly £54billion in the next five years, with steep rises forecast for National Insurance, VAT and Corporation Tax. A hike in probate 'fees' was waved through without a vote or debate in parliament by classifying it as a fee not a tax – but the ONS is now calling it a tax. The OBR also reveals that two flagship savings schemes have not been anywhere near as popular as planned, while boilers are out – as are feed-in tariffs from solar panels.

It’s hard to listen to the news at the moment without hearing some kind of warning about economy. Nearly all of those warnings focus on one thing – Brexit. It’s true that lots of people think Brexit is risky – but in the clamour to define what Brexit means, could we be blindsided by something else? Obviously it’s difficult to predict exactly how and when another shock to the economy might happen. But is there more we could be doing to get the economy ready for whatever might be around the corner? Guest host Hanna Wheatley is joined by NEF’s Head of Economics Alfie Stirling and Senior Economist Sarah Arnold.

Premiership rugby champions Saracens deny they breached salary cap regulations after recent allegations, while Manchester City are in the UEFA spotlight over Financial Fair Play. On the latest This is Moneyball podcast, assistant editor Lee Boyce and co-host Georgie Frost take a look at salary caps and whether they work in sport – with many top US sporting leagues having them. Christopher Stoner QC is our guest this week, as he helps navigate through the maze – and also helps take a look at what the FFP is, and whether it is working. Sir David Crausby, MP for Bolton North East joins us to tell us what is going on at the Trotters, with the future of the historic club in limbo – have the new potential owners been vetted enough? Elsewhere, we talk about the weekend of bad football 'fan' behaviour at grounds in England and Scotland, with Jack Grealish being punched in the Aston Villa vs Birmingham game – can more be done to protect players? The United States women's soccer team files a gender discrimination lawsuit and a bunch of 'cyber nerds' attempt to take over a Staffordshire football club – and fail.

27 years after the founding of the Premier League, it would be difficult for anyone to argue that it is anything other than a great success story. It’s the poster boy for a global, open, free-trading Britain. The beautiful game and the English league is an incredibly successful export business. But players’ enormous salaries, and transfer fees of hundreds of millions of pounds are variously described as obscene, ludicrous and even unsustainable. Each year the eyewatering amount of money spent in the business is not merely sustained, it zooms upwards year after year. In 1981 fewer than ten first division English footballers earned more than £175,000 a year. Now, the average player commands 15 times that. But there are many that long for the post-war era of English football - the so-called halcyon days of the game - when footballers were skint and players might have only received £10 as a signing-on fee from a transfer worth £35,000 to the club. Are they justified in missing the romanticism of the game? Or is this a bygone era best forgotten about in the age of hyperglobalisation? Joining the IEA's Digital Manager Darren Grimes to discuss is Mark Littlewood, Director General of the IEA.

Listen here Philip Hammond's Spring Statement speech.

Put on your party hats, it's Isa season! After years in the doldrums could we have a proper Isa battle on our hands in 2019? Santander and Coventry Building Society have launched two best-buy easy-access tax-free deals, and that appears to have put some wind in the sails of This is Money assistant editor Lee Boyce. Editor Simon Lambert and host Georgie Frost – along with Lee – talk all things Isa´s: whether they are worth it, the options and importantly, are the new top rates a potential catalyst for more competition? Elsewhere, we take a look at new fintech firm Dozens, offering a five per cent return spotted after a recent London Transport advertising blitz. There is a victory for This is Money readers, as Virgin Money refunds credit card customers stung by charges after unwittingly setting minimum payments rather than paying the full balance when changing card. Simon runs the rule over a 95% interest-only mortgage launched by Newbury Building Society.

The Green New Deal has rocketed to the top of the agenda in the US. It’s an ambitious plan, spearheaded by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to decarbonise the US economy and eliminate economic insecurity at the same time. But in fact the Green New Deal has some of its origins at the New Economics Foundation. So what’s the story behind the development of the idea? And how would a Green New Deal actually work, both in the UK and across the pond? Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined this week by: Ann Pettifor, director of Prime Economics and one of the co-authors of the Green New Deal report published by NEF in 2008; Miatta Fahnbulleh, chief executive of the New Economics Foundation; and Waleed Shahid, communications director of the Justice Democrats, who also worked on the campaign to elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

In this week’s episode of the IEA’s podcast, the IEA’s Associate Director Kate Andrews sat down with Francis Boulle, who recently took part in the BBC Two’s ‘Mastermind’, braving the black chair to win the coveted Mastermind trophy. What made this particular episode of Mastermind special was Francis’s choice of specialist subject for the interrogation-style question and answer session. Francis chose Friedrich Hayek as his specialist subject, one of the most important liberal thinkers of all time. Kate asked Francis to take him through his journey of becoming interested in Hayek’s work, why he decided to pick him as his specialist subject, if Francis believes Hayek is relevant in 2019 and how his body of work can help us navigate through our current political and economic woes – especially given that amongst young people socialism is now in vogue.

National Savings and Investments has launched Ernie 5.0 – its fifth generation machine that draws the Premium Bond numbers. It now takes just 12 minutes for numbers to be generated by the Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment compared to 10 days back in the early 1970s. This week, editor Simon Lambert, assistant editor Lee Boyce and host Georgie Frost answer the question – what would you do if you gained a windfall, big or small, either from the Premium Bonds or by other means? What does it mean to win big and what are the first things you need to think about if you’re lucky enough to come into some cash? We also discuss a 57-year-old reader who was the latest star in our regular Money Pit Stop series, who wants to make sure his own investment portfolio can withstand downturns and provide him with a good income at retirement.

Historically, economics as a discipline has been dominated by men – and despite increases in the proportion of female lecturers and professors in recent years, women remain under-represented. In this episode of Policy Matters, hosts Matt Dickson and Franz Buscha talk to Sarah Smith, Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol and head of the Royal Economics Society’s Women’s Committee. They discuss the need to change girls’ perceptions of what economists actually do, and to encourage more young women to take economics at A-level and at University. Sarah explains how within academia there remain barriers to career progression for women and that raising awareness of this amongst the male-dominated hierarchies is an important step in helping to level the playing field. The discussion closes thinking about what economics can learn from other disciplines that have made greater strides towards gender equality.