Osborne’s recovery will not end the debate over the impact of austerity September 9, 2013 GEORGE Osborne yesterday presented his analysis of why the UK economy has turned the corner in recent months, arguing this demonstrated advocates of a “Plan B” had been proved wrong by events. He identified two candidate explanations for the slowdown of 2011-12. One school of thought he called the “fiscalist” analysis. According to this view, [...]
Only liberal economic policies will allow us to adapt to disruptive technology September 9, 2013 HOLLYWOOD producer Samuel Goldwyn once opined that “only a fool would make predictions – especially about the future.” It’s a wise view, but of little use to policymakers tackling big questions of the future. With this in mind, one of the more interesting outlooks on the current state of western economies is the “structural” explanation. [...]
Why capital rules could limit the impact of new competition in banking September 9, 2013 THE NEW TSB bank was finally launched yesterday. The spin-off of 631 branches and 4.6m customers from Lloyds means that the UK now has the first new major competitor to the existing banks since the start of the financial crisis. And when RBS spins off 315 of its branches, Britain will have a further mid-size [...]
Letters to the editor – 10/09 – Licence fee, Best of Twitter September 9, 2013 Licence fee [Re: Scrap the licence fee – and drag British TV into 21st century, yesterday] Surely the biggest scandal at the BBC is that, for an organisation with revenues of £3.5bn, the quality of programmes is so poor. A change in the way the BBC is funded would not only cut costs, but would [...]
A new breed of super-entrepreneurs could leave HS2 looking antiquated September 8, 2013 FOR A mode of transport that first arrived in the nineteenth century, railways have been remarkably resilient. All three major political parties currently support the creation of a new high speed rail network, High Speed 2 (HS2), a £43bn plan to connect London Euston, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, and the East Midlands in two phases. [...]
City Matters: Why the City’s buildings must adapt to suit a vibrant and commercial future September 8, 2013 THE STORY of the “Walkie-Scorchie” has taken the world by storm – following City A.M.’s revelation last week that a Jaguar had “melted” in the heat on Eastcheap. This brought global attention to the new buildings that are nosing skywards in the east of our Square Mile. It also highlighted the difficult and delicate process [...]
How to tackle Britain’s NIMBYs and end crisis in new house building September 8, 2013 THE STORY is familiar. Figures from Halifax show that house prices rose by 5.4 per cent in the year to August 2013 – the highest rate since June 2010. In 2010, Policy Exchange also published a report called Making Housing Affordable. It argued that housing was getting more expensive, largely because we were building too [...]
Letters to the Editor – 09/09 – Twitter complaint, AI developments, Best of Twitter September 8, 2013 Twitter complaint [Re: Twitter complaint signals the start of a revolution for corporate reputations, Friday] This is a wonderful story. So many companies, of which British Airways is one, do not dedicate sufficient resources towards dealing with customers. The resultant media coverage, not to mention the thousands who saw the comment on Twitter, should set [...]
Twitter complaint signals the start of a revolution for corporate reputations September 5, 2013 BRITISH Airways has just been exposed to the future of corporate communications. When one disgruntled passenger decided to complain about the quality of BA’s customer service, he ignored the traditional route of an angry call or email. Instead, he bought a promoted Tweet on Twitter – guaranteeing visual prominence for other users – to tell [...]
The Long View: We should honour the unknown UK economist who quietly changed the world September 5, 2013 BRITAIN has lost a giant. Ronald Coase, the brilliant economist who shone new light on how and why companies form, died this week at the age of 102. It was too soon: his most influential paper was published half a century ago, but Coase remained sharp to the end, fighting for his countercultural approach. He [...]