Christopher Bailey’s sky high pay is hard to justify as Burberry’s profits sink October 16, 2015 Burberry, the luxury fashion brand popular with Romeo Beckham and Yanis Varoufakis, must be getting pretty bored with criticism over the size of its executives’ pack packages. Annual eight-figure payments to former boss Angela Ahrendts attracted attention in the wake of the global financial crisis, while current chief Christopher Bailey faced a shareholder revolt before [...]
A short history of libertarianism (or how free will lost its way) October 15, 2015 State intervention in all aspects of life has reached a level that, just a few centuries ago, would have been almost unimaginable. Why then have libertarians, those who value the rights and free will of the individual, not been able to inspire people to reject this unprecedented encroachment of the state? To understand why, we [...]
Democratic debate 2015: The Democrats’ pot shots against capitalism are unlikely to win over American voters October 15, 2015 Brits tuning into the first Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday night would have been forgiven for drawing two conclusions: the 2016 US Presidential elections are finally underway, and Democrats want America to be much more like Britain. Neither is exactly true. In fact, it’s been “2016” for the better part of three years. In [...]
Job automation makes boosting social mobility vital for business October 15, 2015 It is an alarming and uncomfortable fact that the UK has one of the poorest rates of social mobility in the developed world. People born into low-income families, regardless of their talent or their hard work, do not have the same access to opportunities as those born into more privileged circumstances. Research from the Sutton [...]
Four steps to end the big banks’ market stranglehold forever October 15, 2015 We are now just days away from the start of what could be the biggest shake-up in banking for a generation. At least that’s what I am hoping. The Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) investigation into banking offers a golden opportunity to turn the industry on its head and put customers in control at last. [...]
As it backs the first one to open in 50 years, should the government shift its focus onto grammar schools? October 15, 2015 Phillip Bosworth, the honourable treasurer of the National Grammar Schools Association, says Yes David Cameron said the new Kent grammar school does not change policy. Well, England thinks it should do – as our polls from 2010, 2013 and 2015 clearly demonstrate. More than half of England not only wish to preserve the existing 164 [...]
Labour to City: We’re just not that into you October 15, 2015 This newspaper is not naturally sympathetic to Labour’s new policy direction. Plans for nationalisations, higher taxes and faith in a magical money tree have not gone down well in our editorial conferences. We have, however, kept an open mind. Maybe, just maybe, wiser heads were at work among the chaos of the opposition’s early days. [...]
My modest proposal to make petty regulation unenforceable October 14, 2015 The people of the United Kingdom, United States, and the European Union are all beset by armies of bureaucrats enforcing stupid, pointless rules. By “stupid, pointless rules,” I don’t mean regulations that prevent smokestacks from belching noxious smoke or ensure that coal mine tunnels are safe, but thousands of regulations that are petty in themselves [...]
EU referendum: The cost of the European Union has always outweighed its benefits – but fear could still kill Brexit October 14, 2015 This may surprise you. Right at the outset of our entry into the then Common Market, the economic assessment of UK membership was negative. Flash-forward to the present, and the academic evidence shows that the gains from the Single Market aren’t really sufficient to outweigh all the costs of EU membership. In the early [...]
The war on the driver is a war on freedom – and autonomous cars are part of the problem October 14, 2015 Freedom-hating municipal politicians have it in for the motorist: London has its congestion charge, Dublin is closing off ever more of its urban core, and Paris is now experimenting with sporadically banning all private transport. Young people, faced with turbo-charged costs, onerous restrictions and absurd taxation – not to mention rising housing costs – [...]