Thatcher’s guru F.A. Hayek would have predicted the crisis April 14, 2013 FOR once, Ed Miliband had it right. In his surprisingly statesman-like tribute to Margaret Thatcher, the Labour leader explained the intellectual roots of her policies and political philosophy. It is, equally unusually, worth quoting him at length. “Before the end of the war”, Miliband recounted, “she bought a copy of Friedrich Hayek’s [a Nobel prize [...]
Five myths about Margaret Thatcher that must be refuted April 14, 2013 FAR too much nonsense is being spoken about Lady Thatcher’s time in office. Here is my take on five key myths. MYTH 1: POPULARITY Thatcher won 43.9 per cent of the vote in 1979, 42.4 per cent per cent in 1983 and 42.2 per cent per cent in 1987, landslide results that contemporary politicians can [...]
IMF warns of easy money timebomb April 14, 2013 PRINTING money for years on end risks long-term damage to the economy and parts of the financial sector, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned yesterday. After so much quantitative easing (QE), it will be very hard for central banks like the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve to even begin reversing the extraordinarily loose [...]
Margaret Thatcher: Revolutionary heroine of Britain’s working class April 14, 2013 SHUT your eyes and think of Margaret Thatcher (twin-set, pearls, hand bag, smells nice) and Fidel Castro (combat fatigues, bushy beard, revolver, smells of backy). Which one is the firebrand working-class revolutionary? The answer, of course, is Thatcher. The vile Castro enslaved and impoverished the many-headed in Cuba. Thatcher enriched and liberated them in Britain. [...]
The Old Lady’s staff – gamers and gold bugs April 13, 2013 BANK of England employees spend their worktime playing online games, planning trips to expensive shops and working out how to buy gold, according to data obtained by The Capitalist. We’ve got hold of a list of the top 500 websites visited by central bank employees over the last year – and it reveals their most popular [...]
There are still many lessons to learn from the financial crisis April 13, 2013 MANY of us still remember vividly the events of 19 March 2008, when HBOS’s share price suddenly collapsed early in the morning, triggering intense interest in newsrooms and trading floors, and prompting the bank and the authorities to issue almost unprecedented denials. Laughably, HBOS claimed that it had “an exceptionally strong balance sheet.” The episode [...]
Thatcher saved UK from slow decline April 12, 2013 When Margaret Thatcher won the 1979 election, Britain was a country on its knees, a discredited, impoverished post-imperial nation in seemingly terminal decline, with ruthless union bosses imposing their will on a gutless establishment, cripplingly high inflation, a tax regime that forbade entrepreneurship and ambition, and an antiquated class system still in full sway. Dozens [...]
Facts are vital to the debate on welfare and banking reforms April 9, 2013 HYSTERIA never makes for good law, in financial services, welfare or any other area. But while there have been many voices rightly pointing this out in recent days, as the government introduces a series of changes to the welfare state, it is a shame that so few appealed for calm during the height of banker-bashing. [...]
Britain isn’t classless but it’s time we all stopped worrying about it April 9, 2013 WHAT does a classless society look like? Is George Osborne its emblem – heir to a seventeenth baronetcy, but willing to drop his crystalline intonation to find common ground with a bunch of Morrison’s shelf stackers? Or is it only found in particular places? Perhaps class first died in London’s Docklands, gutted by war and [...]
Political meddling into RBS will hurt the taxpayer April 8, 2013 82 per cent state owned RBS is coming under continued assault from chancellor George Osborne. Our banking reporter Tim Wallace: Good performance in RBS’ markets unit ( investment bank) boosted operating profits. Yet it is cutting the unit under pressure from Osborne. — Tim Wallace (@Tim_Wallace) February 28, 2013 Osborne’s political ambitions are clashing with [...]