Against the Grain: It’s official: Why the statistics show even England could win the World Cup September 3, 2013 AUTUMN is fast approaching, and the focus of the nation’s sporting interest is switching. No sooner have our boys humiliated the Australians at cricket than a new challenge emerges in the shape of two important qualifying games for the football World Cup. The comedian Bob Doolally articulated the views of many when he said: “If [...]
Vodafone isn’t avoiding UK tax on the sale of its stake in Verizon Wireless September 3, 2013 THE screams of rage, as the statists realise they’re not going to get any money from the sale of Vodafone’s stake in Verizon Wireless, have become deafening. We’ve even seen UKUncut insist quite seriously that £84bn of tax is being avoided (£84bn is the total transaction size, not the profit or the tax). But the [...]
Letters to the editor – 04/09 – Walke Scorchie, Best of Twitter September 3, 2013 Walkie Scorchie [Re: Walkie Talkie has few design solutions as beam warms shops to 70 degrees Celsius, yesterday] Someone has built a giant parabolic mirror and, unsurprisingly, it’s melting cars and burning bars. Archimedes reputedly used the same technique to set fire to an enemy fleet. The remedy is obvious: refit the window panes to [...]
It’s time we ended the pretence that planning rules come without a price September 2, 2013 MOST agree that the UK housing market has long been stuck in an affordability crisis. Despite a fall in prices since 2007, Nationwide recently calculated that the typical house now costs 5.1 times average earnings, up from 3.9 a quarter of a century ago. In London, the ratio has risen from 5.7 to 7.7. And [...]
Entrepreneurs sit at the heart of a battle over how economies should operate September 2, 2013 FOLLOWING the financial crisis, an intellectual battle about the role of the state in “managing the economy” is opening up. The most recent evidence is The Entrepreneurial State, a new book by the economist Mariana Mazzucato. This contends that the big inventions and breakthroughs that determine prosperity and productivity growth are often produced by the [...]
Why UK recovery could rescue the great British banking sector sell-off September 2, 2013 ROLL up, roll up. Britain’s banks are up for sale. This month and next, the Lloyds privatisation will compete for attention with Barclays’s £5.8bn rights issue. Then there’s the initial public offering triplets: Williams & Glyn, Virgin Money and TSB – all set to hit the market with aplomb. And that’s before RBS has turned [...]
Letters to the editor for – 03/09 – UK risk disease, Help to Buy, Best of Twitter September 2, 2013 UK risk disease [Re: Both Left and Right should fear the threat to medical research in the UK, yesterday] London has the capacity to build a world class cluster for biomedical innovation. But John Hulsman highlights a stark example of a risk averse culture in this country – a disease we need to treat if [...]
Both Left and Right should fear the threat to medical research in the UK September 1, 2013 RARELY has an issue in the UK managed to unite such odd bedfellows as the Thatcherite Right and the Guardian-reading Left. But the curious case of the interim refusal of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to recommend Bexsero (the first approved vaccine for limiting Meningitis B) for inclusion in Britain’s immunisation programme [...]
City Matters: The City should be proud to support aspiration regardless of background September 1, 2013 AFTER a long summer, this week students across London are heading off to work and university for the start of a new academic year. Many of these talented young people will have gained invaluable insight by spending part of their break preparing for the world of work through summer placements across a range of industries, [...]
US debate on Syria may be a watershed for the West in the Middle East September 1, 2013 A WEEKEND is long time in politics. Since Thursday, we have discovered that the UK will no longer be involved in any military strike on Syria. Barack Obama, meanwhile, despite concluding that military intervention is needed, has delegated responsibility for any action to the US Congress. Mindful of the political disaster that befell David Cameron [...]