UK labour productivity falls in ‘very weak’ quarter January 9, 2019 UK labour productivity decreased 0.4 per cent in the third quarter of last year, while annual growth was at its weakest in two years. Output per hour fell 0.4 per cent compared with the previous quarter and grew just 0.2 per cent on the third quarter of 2017, according to the Office for National Statistics. [...]
DEBATE: Should the government cut the number of university courses and places to ensure value for money? January 9, 2019 Should the government cut the number of university courses and places to ensure value for money? Gillian Keegan MP, parliamentary private secretary to the Treasury and co-author of the foreword to the Onward report, says YES. The government should cut the number of low-value university places and steer people towards better options. Analysis of government [...]
Europe has suffered from the stultifying impact of the euro – just ask the Greeks January 9, 2019 One of the entertainments of the holiday period was reading Adults In The Room, the book by Yanis Varoufakis. It describes his time as finance minister of Greece, and his negotiations with the IMF, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission. Varoufakis was only in the job between January and July 2015. He had [...]
There’s only one way to fix the housing crisis: build more January 9, 2019 From free marketeers on the right to proponents of central planning on the left, cries to fix Britain’s broken housing market have become deafening. The solutions, of course, differ greatly depending on where along the political spectrum you stand. Yesterday, for example, Shelter issued its latest call to action, proposing three million new social homes [...]
Government commits to maintaining ‘triple lock’ state pension uprating for UK expats in Europe in the event of no-deal Brexit January 8, 2019 The government has allayed concerns it may stop increasing the state pension in line with inflation for hundreds of thousands of expats retiring to countries in the EU. Currently, UK expats who have retired to the bloc receive the so called triple lock uprating, meaning their state pension rises in line with the highest of [...]
Eurozone sentiment falls markedly and German industrial output suffers biggest fall in two years January 8, 2019 Economic sentiment in the eurozone decreased “markedly” in December, the European Commission said, and poor German industrial data added to the currency bloc’s woes. The commission’s economic sentiment indicator fell to 107.3 points in December from 109.5 the previous month, dropping in all twelve months of 2018. German industrial output also suffered its biggest decline [...]
A Brexit negotiated by Trump would have been a wild ride January 8, 2019 How would Donald Trump have approached negotiating Brexit? A few months ago, several commentators mused over this exact question. The current game of chicken between the President and Democrats in Congress, resulting in a partial US government shutdown, is perhaps the best insight we’ll get. And it shows the wild ride that a Prime Minister [...]
DEBATE: Should we celebrate the fact that car sales are down for the second year running? January 8, 2019 Should we celebrate the fact that car sales are down for the second year running? Benedict Spence, a freelance writer, says YES. For all the talk of a fall in car sales in the UK, well over two million new vehicles were registered in Britain last year. It’s a staggering number, and it was only a [...]
Yet more sugar-taxes will leave consumers with a bitter taste January 7, 2019 It's been claimed that Brexit has taken up so much political energy that the government has lost its focus on other areas of policy. But fear not – the slack is being taken up by an army of bureaucrats and campaigners who seek to exert ever more control over our lives. With relentless energy the [...]
UK car sales fall for the second year in a row as Brexit uncertainty dampens demand January 7, 2019 UK car sales have fallen for the second year running, according to figures from an industry trade body released today. Dealerships sold 2.37m new cars in 2018, 6.8 per cent fewer than it managed in 2017, and 12 per cent below 2016’s peak of 2.69m, The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said. The [...]