Lib Dem reversal on the bedroom tax should worry welfare reform supporters July 17, 2014 The Lib Dems announced yesterday that they are heavily watering down their support for the “bedroom tax” – or more accurately, the Under-Occupancy Charge. The policy cuts housing benefit payments by 14 per cent for households with one spare bedroom, and by 25 per cent for those with two or more. Perhaps the most controversial [...]
Why emotional investors drive markets – but reason usually prevails in the end July 16, 2014 Like the age-old debate of nature versus nurture, the question of whether markets are driven by emotion or reason elicits the age-old answer: a bit of both. In the long run, markets are driven by all sorts of non-emotional economic and political factors, such as GDP growth, productivity, political stability and all the things that [...]
We must recapture the power of long-termism to restore faith in the market July 16, 2014 Peter Lynch, the great American fund manager at Fidelity, returned an average of 29 per cent a year for his investors between 1977 and his retirement in 1990. An investment of $1,000 at the outset would have grown to $27,000 by the end of that period. That exceptional long-term record shows the huge power of [...]
The shareholder spring is back – but there may be worse to come for CEOs July 16, 2014 This is a rotten year to be a chief executive. The impact of new regulations introduced by the Department for Business has been to rekindle 2012’s “shareholder spring”, with a host of firms feeling the heat as up to 40 per cent of their shareholders opposed policies that could bind pay awards for three years. [...]
After growth picked up in the second quarter, is a Chinese hard landing now unlikely? July 16, 2014 Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital Economics, says Yes. The advantage of a state-led system like China’s is that policymakers have plenty of levers they can pull to prevent a slump in growth. We’ve had a little taste of that in recent months. There’s been a burst of spending on infrastructure such as railways, [...]
Risky projects like HS3 are the only way to rescue our languishing regions July 16, 2014 In London and much of the South East, the recovery has been well underway for a considerable period of time. House prices boom and restaurants are packed. The economic data for the UK as a whole looks just as encouraging, with employment now at its highest ever level. Yet there are persistent complaints that the [...]
Why Cameron thinks his tokenistic cabinet reshuffle will deliver him the election July 16, 2014 David Cameron’s last reshuffle before the general election is over and Westminster is still reeling from the shock of it all. Political heavyweight Michael Gove is out, demoted from education secretary to chief whip where he can be kept close to Cameron but away from the teachers he’s whipped into a frenzy with his controversial [...]
This is the start of a new democratic space race – and Britain is at its head July 16, 2014 Yesterday's announcement that the government has shortlisted eight potential sites for a UK spaceport, and enabled a regulatory regime for manned spaceflight, is a breakthrough moment for our £11bn space sector. While the industry has already enjoyed Bric-style growth rates in recent years, we are now on track to remove crucial blockages to UK leadership [...]
David Cameron’s Cabinet reshuffle freshens things up but keeps big-hitters in play July 15, 2014 The Prime Minister was widely expected to tweak his senior team with a small-scale reshuffle this week, keeping his most high-profile ministers in place. Instead, David Cameron has opted for a complete shift at the top of his party from which even his closet allies aren’t safe, as he readies his party for the 2015 [...]
The wrong renewables: Why relying on offshore wind will prove a costly error July 14, 2014 Politicians everywhere have to decide between satisfying long-term national needs and achieving short-term electoral rewards. It is hard to imagine a more worrying sign of this conflict – as a report from the National Audit Office (NAO) last month helped highlight – than the present policy confusion in the UK over renewable energy. On the [...]