Is Ukip dead? October 18, 2016 Harriet Maltby, head of policy research, Prosperity Index at the Legatum Institute, writing in a personal capacity, says Yes. Ukip has long been a confused combination of Nigel Farage with his middle-class Eurosceptic Tories and disgruntled working-class Labour voters. It was Nigel, and the personality cult that followed him, that held the party together. Now he has [...]
Inequality doesn’t matter if we’re all paid according to the value we create October 18, 2016 Log on to Netflix and you can catch old episodes of Dirty Jobs, where you can watch host Mike Rowe visit plumbers, pig farmers, and steel mill workers and try his hand at some of the less sexy but utterly fascinating jobs that help make the world around us possible. All of these people work incredibly hard, [...]
Thank competition – not magical central bankers – for years of moderate inflation October 18, 2016 Tempers are fraying at the highest levels of economic policy-making in the UK. Theresa May, at the Conservative Party conference, emphasised the “bad side effects” for savers of the Bank of England’s policy of near-zero interest rates, a position reinforced by former Tory leader William Hague in the Telegraph this week. A few days ago, Mark [...]
There’s no room for complacency about the value of passporting rights to UK financial services October 18, 2016 For almost three decades, Brits have been wandering around the globe with small burgundy books in their pockets and purses. Since the June referendum, however, the colour of these travel documents has become a bone of contention for Brexiteers. In fact some have begun campaigning for the return of the old dark blue passport used until 1988 [...]
Government’s Brexit dance is maiming the pound October 18, 2016 Inflation is coming to eat the pound in your pocket. Today, data for September is expected to show that prices in the UK rose by an annual 0.9 per cent rate, up from 0.6 per cent in August, driven by energy and food prices. However, the full impact of the recent plunge in sterling will [...]
The EU’s maddening, opaque, confusing and illogical import tariffs must be scrapped October 18, 2016 As you sit down to read City A.M. today over a perfectly smooth coffee from one of London’s ubiquitous coffee shops, you’re probably well aware that we don’t grow coffee in this country, never will and don’t care either. So why does coffee need seven different types of import tariffs set by the EU? Today we [...]
Five ways government can cut the soaring cost of car insurance for honest drivers October 18, 2016 The rising cost of insurance understandably concerns many motorists. The average comprehensive motor insurance premium has risen by 10 per cent over the last year. Today we lift the lid on what is driving up the costs of motor insurance, and what is needed to give hard-pressed honest motorists a break. Lifting the Bonnet on [...]
No, Nick Clegg: A true liberal knows Brexit should slash UK food prices October 17, 2016 So Brexit means more expensive breakfast! Or so Nick Clegg believes. Hanging onto the coattails of last week’s Unilever-Tesco row over who would bear the cost of a falling pound raising food import prices (so-called Marmite-gate), the former Deputy Prime Minister now warns us that milk and cheese will be more expensive as a result [...]
With a government decision expected next week, should Heathrow and Gatwick both get new runways? October 17, 2016 Paul Wait, chief executive of the Guild of Travel Management Companies, says Yes. Absolutely yes. Approval to expand both Heathrow and Gatwick would be the most positive economic step-change in recent times for the UK. Businesses either based in our island nation, or wanting to operate in the UK, need greater air capacity. Without the routes [...]
Samsung will bounce back from its Galaxy Note 7 PR disaster October 17, 2016 Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 fiasco has been top of the headlines for the past six weeks, with the world’s largest smartphone maker finally deciding to stop making the highly combustible phablet. The result was an expected $5bn-plus hit to the company’s profit from the third quarter of this year to the first quarter of 2017. [...]