Letters to the Editor – 04/03 – Ukraine crisis, Best of Twitter March 3, 2014 Ukraine crisis [Re: Russia’s Ukraine attack is end of Pax Americana, yesterday] A missile defence umbrella would represent a pointless and long-term burden, and is unlikely to restrain future Russian expansionism. The US and Europe are widely regarded as militarily incapable, and the expenditure of lives and money in Iraq and Afghanistan has proven a [...]
Why Britain’s new banking standards body needs your help March 3, 2014 REGULATORS can punish wrongdoing, but they find it much harder to legislate for what constitutes good behaviour. If they try to do so, they are likely to end up with massive rule books – and fail to meet their objectives. Rather than taking responsibility for their own actions and exercising their judgement, people will tend [...]
How technology has doomed the BBC licence fee March 3, 2014 WE SHOULD expect to hear much more about the future of the BBC in the next few months. Its Royal Charter is due for renewal in 2016, and there have already been murmurings about the sustainability of the licence fee model. Last year, Conservative party chairman Grant Shapps suggested the BBC needed to clean up [...]
There’s a cost to doing nothing in Ukraine March 3, 2014 IN RESPONSE to Russian forces entering the Crimea, the interim Ukrainian government called for UK and US intervention, invoking the undertakings we (and the French, and latterly Nato) gave to protect Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Yesterday, William Hague went to Kiev to tell the Ukrainians to their faces that we’re not coming – “no military options [...]
Five laws (and our brains) make one in a billion events happen every day March 2, 2014 YOU’RE thinking of a friend, and suddenly the phone rings and it’s them. You’re on a short break in Paris and you bump into your brother. Or, as happened to me, I go into BBC Broadcasting House to record an interview about the improbability principle, and on my way out they tell me I’m the [...]
City Matters: Tighter immigration controls risk London’s position as a global business hub March 2, 2014 IMMIGRATION is a sensitive subject at the best of times. So when figures published last week showed that net migration had climbed to 212,000 in the year to September 2013 – well above the government’s target of reducing it to below 100,000 by 2015 – it was inevitable that critics would attack the current system [...]
Crimea checkmate: Putin now has his Ukraine veto March 2, 2014 US SECRETARY of state John Kerry tends to reveal more than he ought to. In response to the Russian takeover of Crimea, he blustered, “you just don’t in the twenty-first century behave in a nineteenth-century fashion by invading another country,” as though the laws of human nature and geopolitics have been recently improved upon. In [...]
Letters to the Editor – 03/03 – Immigration, House building, Best of Twitter March 2, 2014 Immigration [Re: The coalition’s immigration policy has now lost all credibility, Friday] Obsession with immigration (and the EU) has distracted attention from implementing real reform to increase our country’s economic capacity. Few are prepared to so boldly announce their support of immigration, and it has become a real emotional rather than rational issue. Name withheld [...]
Letters to the Editor – 28/02 – Socialist Venezuela, SNP failings, Best of Twitter February 27, 2014 Socialist Venezuela [Re: How socialism has destroyed Venezuela, Wednesday] The problem with socialism is that economic decisions, and control of capital, are concentrated among a tiny ruling elite. Once this happens, the means and incentives exist for that elite to enrich itself. The pull is greater than any residual egalitarian ideals. History has shown that [...]
Forget invasion: Putin is just four steps from victory in Ukraine February 27, 2014 AS ITS currency collapses, protests flare up in Crimea, and Russia flexes its muscles on the doorstep, those in the West claiming triumph in Ukraine should remember the story of King Pyrrhus of Epirus. In 279 BC, this scourge of the Romans managed to best them at the Battle of Asculum, but at tremendous cost. [...]