What Brexit would really mean for financial services April 30, 2014 TWO fallacies are common in the EU debate. One is the “nirvana fallacy”, the idea that, if we leave the EU, we will have optimal policy at home. In financial services, for instance, while many are rightly angry about the European Court of Justice’s rejection of the UK challenge to a EU financial transaction tax [...]
Letters to the Editor – 30/04 – Army reservists, Best of Twitter April 29, 2014 Army reservists [Re: Small firms fear effects of rise in army reservists, Monday] In your article, The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) calls on the Ministry of Defence to understand business concerns about the rise in army reservists. That is exactly what we are doing. With reservists set to play an expanded role in defence, [...]
Sport economics: Why the next Ashes are England’s to lose April 29, 2014 THERE are two theories for the relationship between sport and the economy. The first is that prosperity drives sporting performance. The evidence to support this generally comes from Olympic medal tables, which show that the largest and most successful economies win more medals. The second is that sport is one of the few routes out [...]
We do need fresh economic thinking – just not more public spending April 29, 2014 THE ANNUAL Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) conference was held in Toronto earlier this month. Launched in the autumn of 2009, INET was created by George Soros in response to the economic crisis. Mainstream economics certainly bears a heavy responsibility for building an intellectual climate prior to the crash that asserted that the problems [...]
How the Goldilocks recovery will trigger a sharp inflation rise April 29, 2014 THE UK economy is going gangbusters, and has been doing so for about a year. GDP in the first three months of 2014 was up a solid 0.8 per cent on the last three months of 2013, and up a cool 3.1 per cent since the first three months of 2013. Gone now are the [...]
Letters to the Editor – 29/04 – HS2 alternatives, Super-billionaires, Best of Twitter April 28, 2014 HS2 alternatives [Re: Why MPs need to vote against the expensive folly that is HS2, yesterday] There is a “taxpayer free” alternative to HS2. The private sector solution is to build a new freight rail line to increase capacity on passenger lines. By transferring freight trains from the West Coast Mainline to the new line, twice the [...]
HS2 backers have completely failed to make a convincing case April 28, 2014 YESTERDAY saw the House of Commons give the green light to HS2 at second reading, with the bill now heading into Committee stage. And as the debate has twisted and turned over the years, so the justification for this huge taxpayer-funded rail project has mutated. At first, the reduction in journey times was considered the [...]
Business can help save the UK – but politicians must take Scotland’s vote more seriously April 28, 2014 THE CBI’s decision to withdraw from active participation in Scotland’s referendum is a major blow to the pro-union campaign. Scottish voters’ perceptions of whether they’ll be richer or poorer with independence will heavily influence how they vote, and what businesses say matters. There isn’t much room for error. The latest ICM poll shows the pro-union [...]
The government is right to tackle unconditional welfare April 28, 2014 THE GOVERNMENT has just taken an important step in the reform of Britain’s welfare system. It may have a cringeworthy name, but Help to Work, which came into effect yesterday, will have significant and beneficial consequences for both the long-term unemployed and UK taxpayers. While its roots can be traced back to the reign of [...]
Free trade can defuse Asia’s powder keg – but Obama risks blowing it all April 27, 2014 TRUST the “Big Dog” to have Barack Obama’s number. Bill Clinton, one of the shrewdest political operators ever, is reported to have complained about the current occupant of the White House. Obama, Clinton tellingly opined, has done almost all the hard things right: intellectually he has a coherent rationale for almost every major project he [...]