Top Ten: Economic pundits

Here in no particular order are my top ten economics commentators.

Howard Davies
Martin Wolf
Anatole Kaletsky
Philip Booth
Vince Cable
Hamish McRae
Irwin Steltzer
Nigel Lawson
Norman Lamont
Kenneth Clarke
Tim Congdon
Roger Bootle
Will Hutton
Geoffrey Robinson

(OK that’s 14, but who’s counting?)

This does not list the most prescient commentators. (I am attempting something related to that in another post, due soon. Meantime this blog may amuse.)

The people on this list may not particularly want to be there. It does not include many full-on economists, whose writings I tend not to be able to understand. In that category I put Sir Samuel Brittain, who is obviously brilliant but way over my ahead much of the time.

It is a list of readily-accessible commentators. I mean that they often pop up on the media. Indeed, whilst this list is personal it is also close to the list which seems to be in the mind of most media editors. That is especially true if you add Will Hutton. I do, as an afterthought. He is having a “good” crisis though I have thought his books on the British economy rather poor.

It is quite interesting that various retired Tory chancellors of the exchequer are included. What does that say about Labour’s chancellors? Well, partly that there aren’t many in the age group required for punditry. That’s a kind way of putting it, anyway. A crueller way of putting (which is mine) is that with the exception of Dennis Healey one doesn’t think of Labour as having produced chancellors of interest. And that includes all those shadow chancellors (chancellors-in-oppositon) who have come and gone.