Letters to the Editor – 21/01 – EU reform, Heathrow debate, Best of Twitter January 20, 2014 EU reform [Re: EU reform is possible – and it can safeguard the position of the City of London, yesterday] Mark Boleat is too quick to praise a “reformist agenda” without considering the alternatives. We should not dismiss leaving the EU based on the results of a CBI survey of just 406 businesses across the [...]
More competition would be good but Miliband is proposing little that’s new January 19, 2014 ED MILIBAND appears to be in the process of reinventing the Labour Party as the consumer party. His central theme is the “cost of living crisis”. He tells us how he is on the side of consumers in gas and electricity, freezing prices, in banks forcing competition, and in general by having consumer bodies report [...]
City Matters: EU reform is possible – and it can safeguard the position of the City of London January 19, 2014 GEORGE Osborne has made it his New Year’s resolution to reform the European Union to reverse the continent’s economic decline. His remarks, made in a speech last week, highlight the high stakes in Britain’s membership debate, and he is fundamentally correct in his assertion that “it is in no-one’s interests for Britain to come to [...]
UK companies will suffer if we remain complacent on electronic spy reform January 19, 2014 FOR THOSE who say reform of surveillance law isn’t needed, Barack Obama’s speech on Friday, in which he outlined plans to reshape the National Security Agency’s (NSA) electronic spying practices, should have come as a wake-up call. While Obama made few specific proposals, and touched on just a handful of the 46 recommendations made by [...]
Letters to the Editor – 20/01 – Bank competition, Heathrow noise, Best of Twitter January 19, 2014 Bank competition [Re: Banking competition is already fierce – but technology will intensify it further, Thursday] Competition is hardly “fierce” in British banking. America has 7,000 banks: we have five, controlling four-fifths of the market. Even supermarket banks use their systems. Splitting them, and the introduction of new technology, will help. But regulation remains a [...]
UK banks risk financial meltdown if the long-term IT crisis remains unresolved January 16, 2014 ON THE busiest online shopping day of 2013, Cyber Monday, RBS faced an embarrassing IT system outage that left more than 1m customers unable to access their accounts for three hours. This wasn’t the first time. In 2012, an IT meltdown at RBS and its subsidiaries locked 17m customers out of their accounts for days, [...]
The Long View: Our digital technologies prove that freedom is more than just a rallying cry January 16, 2014 FREEDOM isn’t just a rallying call, it is a practical way to transform the world for the better. Letting people make their own choices scorns the arrogance of narrow elites, preferring instead the riches found in every individual’s contribution. That seismic shift opens huge, untapped reserves of human potential. And since it starts by recognising [...]
Letters to the Editor – 17/01 – Readers respond to our criticism of France’s failed socialist experiment January 16, 2014 Although I now live in China, I worked in France for 26 years, and have a lot of affection for the country and its people. Like Allister Heath, I feel sad to see the country going down the drain because it cannot rid itself of socialist dogma. The problem is that France is paralysed by [...]
It’s time to embrace the free thinkers who recognise the EU isn’t the future January 15, 2014 GEORGE Orwell would have had the EU’s number. As he memorably noted, “Political language is designed …to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” That is just the strategy the EU’s cheerleaders have been using since the start of the euro crisis. Barely a month passes without some European potentate telling us that Brussels [...]
Banking competition is already fierce – but technology will intensify it further January 15, 2014 FOR ALL the talk of competition in banking, ask yourself: have you ever felt that there is not a product for you on the market? Or that your choices are constrained? I have a current account with the same bank my family has used for years. But when it comes to my savings, I shamelessly [...]