Why it’s time to focus on the real cause of the housing crisis April 7, 2014 THE housing crisis in London and its commuter belt can be blamed on one simple problem: there is an under-supply of property. All of the other explanations – interest rates remain low, the impact of quantitative easing or the government’s ridiculous help to buy subsidies – are merely secondary. It is certainly not the case [...]
UK’s debt burden is falling – but the crisis is merely postponed April 3, 2014 BRITAIN’S debt burden is falling. Yes, you’ve read that right: the UK is finally deleveraging. But there is a catch: debt hasn’t fallen enough even though we are already nearing the end of the deleveraging cycle. Over the next few years, we are likely to go on another borrowing binge. The end result could be [...]
The lessons that big business must learn from the EU debates April 2, 2014 WHAT a disaster for Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. They were slaughtered by Nigel Farage in yesterday’s TV debate on the EU and other matters, with a YouGov poll showing that the public thought the Ukip leader won it by 68 per cent to 27 per cent. Whether or not one agrees with them, [...]
No more double standards: The FCA must be held to account April 1, 2014 HARDLY anybody has heard of the Roman poet Juvenal these days, which is a great shame. He was the first, as far as we know, to ask one of the central questions of political philosophy: “Who will guard the guardians?” He was rightly paranoid, arguing that someone must watch the watchmen, those who are entrusted [...]
The days of out of control pay hikes are over for FTSE bosses March 31, 2014 WE all know that bosses keep awarding themselves bigger and bigger pay rises, right? And that FTSE 100 CEOs’ comp keeps on rocketing? Wrong. The facts paint a far more complex picture, and deserve a proper airing. PwC has crunched the numbers, and the outcome is striking. CEOs’ median bonus payouts for 2013 were one [...]
There are crucial lessons for Ed Miliband in Hollande’s defeat March 31, 2014 A DISASTER for Francois Hollande, France’s socialist president: that is the only way to describe the outcome of yesterday’s elections, which saw the centre-right sweep to power in towns and cities across the country. The one exception to the socialist meltdown was in Paris, where the leftist Anne Hidalgo grabbed 55 per cent of the [...]
Why both sides of the debate must up their game on Europe March 28, 2014 FACTS are often scarce in the great European debate. It is possible for fair-minded people to come down on either side of the question. But it is incumbent on everybody to be as precise as possible – and not to exaggerate too much – when debating the pros and cons of the EU. On the [...]
Price controls don’t work. It’s time to empower consumers March 26, 2014 CONSUMERS and politicians should draw very careful lessons from the news that SSE, the energy giant, is freezing its prices. This is hardly the victory that some on the left believe it to be. Ed Miliband’s attack on the energy industry last September came at a time of elevated wholesale costs in the energy markets. [...]
The only way to really cut spending is to reengineer the state March 25, 2014 A YEAR ago, the political establishment was still obsessed with the debate over austerity; today, hardly anybody cares any more. Labour has moved on to fresh territory, as has the coalition. The reason, of course, is that growth has returned: the anti-austerians only had traction when it was possible to argue that cuts were preventing [...]
Seven threats that could derail London’s position as a top city March 24, 2014 LONDON is at the top of its game. It is not only the commercial, financial, cultural and political capital of the UK but a great city-state, a global metropolis which attracts the world’s best and brightest. But here are seven risks to London’s supremacy; all must be tackled or avoided if we are to prevent [...]