The Greenbelt sacred cow: It pens in the poor for no environmental gain November 10, 2013 GREENBELTS combine the qualities of sacred cows and juggernauts. To question their benignly green and fair credentials is to invite abuse: yet the unstoppable damage they do to societal fairness, housing affordability, the economic efficiency of our cities, even the environment, is devastating. Greenbelts have a mystical quality, in that almost everything we believe about [...]
City Matters: We need to unlock London’s full diversity to tackle its future challenges November 10, 2013 I TOOK my seat in the golden state coach on Saturday, to join the world’s oldest street pageant and be shown to the world as the 686th lord mayor of London. It’s a role that’s over 800 years old, and comes imbued with a huge amount of history. Every lord mayor brings something different to [...]
Maths teaching has been stuck in a vicious circle to our economy’s detriment November 10, 2013 IF YOU’RE gloomy about the UK’s economic future, some recent additions to YouTube might cheer you up. One features a girl icing and re-icing a cake in red, white and chocolate. Another has 15-year olds sporting big fake Poirot moustaches. And in a third, a collection of battered buckets pours water in, and out, of [...]
Letters to the Editor – 11/11 – Interest rates, House building, Best of Twitter November 10, 2013 Interest rates [Re: The UK’s hawks are right – but so are the Eurozone’s doves, Friday] Interest rates at 2.5 per cent would restore real returns to those with savings and pensions. At the same time, it would kill the corrosively damaging house price bubble – itself the product of supply rationing by the state, [...]
Europe ignores its relative decline – the UK could have a different future November 7, 2013 A NEW strain of gormlessness is infecting Europe. Despite the temporary distraction of a European Central Bank rate cut, it’s the problems besetting America and the Brics that have been noisily and gleefully recounted in European newspapers on a daily basis. These difficulties are certainly real, but their prominent coverage belies the intellectual blind alley [...]
The Long View: Governor Christie could be the straight-talking heavyweight his party needs November 7, 2013 A NEW kind of presidential run may have just got underway in America. With Hillary Clinton the likely Democrat nominee in 2016, the Republicans are in desperate need of a challenger who can stand up against her campaigning heft. Chris Christie may be the literal and figurative heavyweight his party needs. The New Jersey governor, [...]
How ending the letting free-for-all could save our failing high streets November 7, 2013 THE RECENT purchase of much of the retail property along London’s Queensway by Meyer Bergman and a Brunei family was a keynote deal. As all successful retail property investors know: control the mix of shops, and you control the fortunes of the area. Control the Queensway mix and you can restore a down-at-heel shopping offer [...]
Letters to the Editor – 08/11 – Rail competition, Ryanair grounded, Best of Twitter November 7, 2013 Rail competition [Re: It’s time to fight the claim that consumer choice doesn’t improve public services, Wednesday] Paul Ormerod’s support of train operating companies is laughable. There is almost no true competition: I can wait all day on Greenwich platform, and only Southeastern trains will go by. There is no choice: train operating companies are state-subsidised monopolies, [...]
Nationalisation of development land is hindering home building in Britain November 6, 2013 THE Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) regulations quietly dropped on the doorstep of land owners on 6 April 2010, with the property industry greeting the arrival with a weary “here we go again”. Taxes on the development of land, to pay for infrastructure needed as the result of development, have failed dismally on three previous occasions. [...]
The devil is in the detail in the government’s plan to ringfence UK banks November 6, 2013 HOW often have you heard executives chuntering on about “red tape”? Sometimes, however, regulations affect people who don’t voice their concerns quite so loudly – customers. This is because the implications of such regulations are not always obvious, not least to the consumers or small businesses that would be affected. I have a few concerns [...]