Executive pay debate: Not all measures of inequality are equal – The City View September 21, 2015 Few areas of public policy have provoked more debate, hand-wringing, tweets and tomes in recent years as the issue of inequality. It turned a French economist, Thomas Piketty, into a global superstar and has provided a seemingly undeniable intellectual foundation to the pontifications of the contemporary left. But like all areas of social and economic [...]
Greek debt crisis: Greece’s banks could still tip the fragile country into disaster September 21, 2015 When the Eurozone crisis first erupted five years ago, it was a crisis of confidence in the ability of peripheral countries (Greece, Spain, Portugal) to pay back the debt incurred in financing their swollen government deficits. Those countries, including Greece, have since virtually eliminated their fiscal deficits and, following the re-election of Alexis Tsipras [...]
London’s next mayor must be unashamedly in favour of airport and housing expansion September 21, 2015 I feel sorry for the Conservatives’ London mayoral candidates. With the political landscape transformed by the election of a “pre-1970s socialist” to the Labour leadership, voting in the current Tory primary feels a bit “after the Lord Mayor’s Show”. In such a centralised country, regional politics will always play second fiddle to stories about [...]
UK house prices: One million homes by 2020 will be yet another failed target if we don’t change policy radically September 21, 2015 This week, research by property website Rightmove predicted that the average price of a house in London could easily hit £1m by the end of 2020. Yes, you heard right: one million pounds – in five years. So, while it’s welcome news that Brandon Lewis, the housing minister, wants England to build 1m [...]
As George Osborne announces a £2bn guarantee for the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant, is this a good deal for the taxpayer? September 21, 2015 Amber Rudd, secretary of state for energy and climate change, says Yes Nuclear power is a good deal for the British taxpayer. And more than that, it is essential if we’re going to keep on providing secure, low-carbon energy into the future. Our £2bn guarantee to the new site in Somerset sends a clear signal [...]
Greek results September 2015: Greece’s election king Alexis Tsipras still has it all to prove – The City View September 21, 2015 Hats off to Alexis Tsipras. In hindsight, we should not have believed that the Greek PM was facing a tough challenge in his bid for re-election. True, polls showed Syriza neck-and-neck with its nearest rival – the New Democracy conservatives – but the lesson from recent history is that Tsipras has a remarkable ability to [...]
Labour’s EU contortions miss the point: It’s the world’s sick man not socialism’s saviour September 20, 2015 Let the gormlessness begin. After horrifying his own party – and the rest of the country besides – over his utterly moronic refusal to sing the national anthem at the Battle of Britain memorial ceremony (of all the things I thought everyone might agree on, brave resistance to Hitler would be it), new Labour leader [...]
China may have stumbled – but the UK still has much to gain from closer links September 20, 2015 Next month, there is an immensely important event on the diplomatic calendar. The Chinese President Xi Jinping will pay us a state visit and, as a result, the eyes of over 1bn people will be on us. I for one relish the prospect – it’s an opportunity for the City to pull out all [...]
The Thames is both an asset and a liability – due to the lack of East London road crossings September 20, 2015 After decades of post-war decline, the Thames has undergone a renaissance and is once again at the economic heart of London. However, if it is one of the capital’s greatest assets, it is also one of its greatest liabilities – because of the inability to get across the Thames by road in most of [...]
Punitive tax hikes jeopardise UK banks’ competitiveness September 20, 2015 Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States, wisely noted that only two things are certain in life: death and taxes. Unfortunately, his observation – or at least half of it – no longer holds true today. When it comes to banking, uncertainty on tax has become a serious concern. [...]