Forget baby boomers and millennials, it’s Generation X that’s shaping the fate of companies in Europe August 26, 2016 Sandwiched between the headline-grabbing millennials and baby boomers, Generation X is sometimes overlooked. But according to Hugo Scott-Gall of Goldman Sachs Research, understanding what drives the decisions of the group born between 1965 and 1980 is essential, not least because the cohort has hit its peak spending power and accounts for over 25 per cent [...]
How the latest Clinton email twist lays bare the miserable choice Americans have to make August 26, 2016 Hillary Clinton’s email scandal just can’t seem to die. Good; it shouldn’t. On Wednesday, the Associated Press (AP) broke news that “more than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money – either personally or through companies or groups – to the Clinton Foundation.” [...]
We should regionalise immigration decisions – starting with a London visa August 26, 2016 Londoners voted if not resoundingly, then certainly confidently, for remaining in the EU. And in the wake of the result, a determination has emerged to assert that London is open – a statement at once defiant and optimistic, and grounded in culture as much as in economics. Around 850,000 Londoners were born in another EU [...]
With GCSEs being graded one to nine from 2017, are these latest reforms the best way to drive up standards? August 25, 2016 Rachel Cunliffe, deputy editor of CapX, says Yes. You cannot raise academic standards simply by changing the metric, but you can signal that the spiral of grade inflation is over. A numerical system that bears little resemblance to familiar A*-G models does just that. More variations across the spectrum will help differentiate between students, while [...]
Seven reasons why it’s the perfect time to ditch the office job and become an artist August 25, 2016 Right now, it's the perfect time to leave behind the day job and pursue a more creative path. The online art market is growing at an unprecedented rate. From sales of Old Masters to poster art, the art sector is moving online with a vengeance. According to a leading trade report for 2016, global online art [...]
School reform’s biggest winners are the poor August 25, 2016 At the height of the last government, an online petition was launched calling for the then education secretary to resign. “Remove the elitist Michael Gove from office” it screamed. “Gove who has experienced private school education and Oxbridge is completely out of touch”. Like so much cyber activism, it was nonsense. For as today’s GCSE results [...]
GCSE results: The biggest winners from education reform have been the poor August 25, 2016 At the height of the last government, an online petition was launched calling for the then education secretary to resign. “Remove the elitist Michael Gove from office” it screamed. “Gove who has experienced private school education and Oxbridge is completely out of touch”. Like so much cyber activism, it was nonsense. For as today’s GCSE results will [...]
Option Zero: Why Britain should embrace unilateral free trade post-Brexit August 25, 2016 Sherlock Holmes said that, when you’ve exhausted all other possibilities, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. In last week’s column I explained why the assumed roads forward for Brexit (the Norwegian, Swiss, Turkish and conventional World Trade Organisation tariff models) all had major stumbling blocks and should be seen as non-starters. This week [...]
GCSE results: Why a laser-like focus on grades is damaging the UK’s economy August 25, 2016 This morning, hundreds of thousands of teenagers will be opening their GCSE results, accompanied by the usual attention on grades and whether As and A*s are up or down. But this relentless focus on just one metric is contributing to a pressing skills crisis that could be profoundly damaging for the UK’s economy. It’s clear [...]
Free movement is gone – but business can still persuade the public of the benefits of migration August 25, 2016 Britain may have a new home secretary and a new PM, but the quarterly immigration figures, out today, look set to tell the same old story. The government remains nowhere near meeting its “tens of thousands” net migration target and new polling shows the public doesn’t think it’s likely to. But business voices hoping Amber [...]