Britain’s angry voters are about to trigger a political earthquake May 21, 2014 VOTERS are very, very angry, as the political establishment is about to find out at its great cost. If the opinion polls are to be believed, Ukip will do remarkably well and could even triumph in today’s European elections, and the Greens will also outperform. It will be a political earthquake and the day that [...]
Now that banks are rationing loans, time to scrap Help to Buy May 20, 2014 SO the great crackdown on mortgages has started. With the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee uninterested in hiking interest rates, the only solution to contain house prices, sadly, is to ration credit. In theory, that is the job of the financial policy committee and its new-fangled macroprudential tools; but it has yet to act. [...]
There are no real winners from this botched Big Pharma saga May 19, 2014 SO IT’S all over for Pfizer’s bid for Astrazeneca – or at least that is what it now seems like. Some small possibility of a deal remains: angry shareholders could yet conceivably force the Astra board to reach out to Pfizer or the US firm could bid again at a later stage (increasing either its [...]
Governor is spot on: Housing market is holding London back May 19, 2014 SPOT on. That is the only way to describe Mark Carney’s analysis of the woes of the UK housing market, which he attributes primarily to under-supply. I have my differences with the Governor on many issues, but it is excellent news that he has decided to throw his weight behind this issue. We are getting [...]
London is booming. We must allow it to fulfil its true potential May 15, 2014 WE all know that London emerged from the crisis remarkably unscathed. But few realise just how well our great city has performed over the past 15 years, and how we have grown faster than almost all comparable metropolises since the recession. In 1997, London boasted 1.59m employee jobs in office-based sectors. Today, the number is [...]
The Bank of England is playing with fire by keeping rates so low May 14, 2014 INTEREST rates won’t be going up any time soon, even though the economy is now booming. The reason is simple: the Bank of England is deadly serious about using other tools to calm down the housing market if it feels that it is overheating; interest rates, or at least the Bank base rate, are now [...]
A very bad day for Britain’s reputation as an open economy May 13, 2014 WHAT a waste of time yesterday’s grilling of the bosses of Pfizer and Astrazeneca turned out to be. Many MPs made the most of the occasion to grandstand while displaying a shocking lack of understanding of how business works. Their tone was sneering and cheap, and they treated Astrazeneca far more indulgently than they did [...]
Why British politics has started to become interesting again May 12, 2014 TWO POLLS don’t make a trend. But something seems to be going on in British politics right now, and it’s not good news for the Labour party. For the past two years, opinion polls have consistently put the Tories behind Labour – until yesterday, when not one but two polls gave David Cameron’s party a [...]
Britain needs a monetary policy fit for a booming economy May 11, 2014 SO what, exactly, is going on? Why does the UK still have crisis-level interest rates at a time when growth is roaring ahead? When will the penny finally drop? Check out the evidence; it is pretty conclusive. The Confederation of British Industry believes that the economy will grow by three per cent this year and [...]
Job cuts in the City: A case study in political double standards May 8, 2014 IT’S amazing how fashions change. Just a few years ago, prior to the financial crisis, Big Pharma was demonised. It could do nothing right, and was blamed for many of the world’s ills. At the very same time, banks were lionised and lauded as the new saviours of the economy, with Alex Salmond, the leader [...]