George Osborne put small businesses at the heart of his plans to kick-start growth in the British economy. He outlined plans to make hiring and firing employees easier and indicated a new move to extend credit lines directly to businesses that are unable to borrow from banks.
Jonathan Freedland called it an intensely political speech: the chancellor mocked Ed Miliband's call for "predatory" businesses to be taxed higher than so-called "producers".
Mike Cherry of the Federation of Small Businesses welcomed measures to loosen the rules on unfair dismissals but called on the government to offer better National Insurance tax breaks for those companies able to hire new employees.
Tim Leunig, the chief economist at the think tank Centre Forum, was unconvinced that Osborne's growth plan added up to a coherent whole. He was sceptical that so-called 'credit easing' would differ substantially from the quantitative easing that the Bank of England tried last year.
Also this week: an extended interview with two new Conservative MPs whose book Masters of Nothing is proving popular at the conference book stall. Matthew Hancock and Nadhim Zahawi set out their analysis of the origins of the financial crisis and respond to criticism that their party was silent on the absence of proper regulation in the City until it was too late.
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