Why prejudice cannot pay off in the long run January 17, 2012 OVER the last year, the number of executive directors of FTSE 350 firms who are women has decreased from 45 to 43, about 5 per cent of the total. The revelation of this fact on Monday prompted complaints about “under-representation”, “glass ceilings” and “boys’ clubs”. The Liberal Democrat peer, Lord Oakeshott, even claimed that “British [...]
RAPID RESPONSES January 17, 2012 The VAT morass On Monday, you mentioned the reduction of VAT were we to join EFTA [With the Eurozone tottering it may be time we signed up for some Norwegian lessons]. VAT is a typical bureaucrat’s way of raising a tax on sales. It is highly complex and applied to almost every transaction. We have [...]
The Deputy Prime Minister thinks we are irresponsible – the feeling is mutual, Nick January 16, 2012 NICK Clegg wants to give tax breaks to John Lewis style, employee-owned companies. This is just the latest salvo in the “responsible capitalism” debate. But when a government dictates which forms of capitalism are responsible, and which ones aren’t, it overrides the individual morality of its citizens – and not for the better. After all, [...]
The global battle for the internet is about to begin January 16, 2012 2012 is the year that freedom online will be challenged. In the UK and the US, proposals are being introduced for website blocking in the name of copyright and child protection. In America, the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) is already causing seismic protests. But in 2012 we will also see a push to [...]
Do not blame Opec for a rise in the price of oil January 16, 2012 WHEN discussing oil prices, it is common to encounter two views that are confused: the first is that Opec, the cartel to which many of the world’s oil-producing countries belong, sets the price of oil, the second is that it can cause inflation by increasing the price of oil through restriction of the quantity it [...]
RAPID RESPONSES January 16, 2012 Clubcards are gold I disagree with Richard Perks’s analysis of Tesco. [Tesco’s marketing strategy needs a new broom in 2012 to sweep away its Clubcard, last Friday] If Tesco invested in a cost-cutting exercise it would probably discover what most businesses using voucher/discount schemes are finding; that cheap customers pay at the cheap price and [...]
With the Eurozone tottering it may be time we signed up for some Norwegian lessons January 15, 2012 NORWAY is indeed a country of good fortune. Post World War II, the quality of living was relatively poor by Western standards, based upon the proceeds of an old-fashioned primary economy. Since the discovery of North Sea oil in the 1960s, this nation of only 4.9m has rocketed to fourth in the IMF’s league table, [...]
Shareholders are accountable for executives’ pay January 15, 2012 BONUS season is always a potentially politically explosive time and this year is unlikely to prove any different. Total bonus payouts across the City are expected to fall steeply this year from £6.7bn in 2010/11 to £4.2bn (roughly a third of the £11.6bn peak before the crisis) but – understandably – this will not prevent [...]
RAPID RESPONSES January 15, 2012 Disagree with Nick I very much agree with Allister Heath’s comments on Friday [Clegg’s latest nonsense] about Nick Clegg’s initiative regarding job applications. As you say, the key is improving education, and not coming up with idiotic proposals such as this. I come from a pretty humble background, and had a solid, redbrick grammar school [...]
Tesco’s marketing strategy needs a new broom in 2012 to sweep away its Clubcard January 12, 2012 THESE were bad figures, Tesco can’t get away from that. Britain’s biggest retailer reported its worst Christmas sales performance for decades on Thursday and warned it would see minimal profit growth next year. Down 1.3 per cent like-for-like (including VAT) in the UK was much worse than any other figures we’ve had from the major [...]