The poorest will suffer if we ignore the real evidence on payday loans December 10, 2012 THE non-stop tide of new regulation from the government continues. It now appears to be preparing to accept an amendment to the Financial Services Bill, which will allow the Financial Conduct Authority to cap interest rates on payday loans. A recent intervention by the incoming archbishop of Canterbury (who is strongly in favour of the [...]
Immunising entrepreneurs from the market won’t plug the funding gap December 10, 2012 VINCE Cable’s business bank intends to invest £1bn in small to medium-sized enterprises. In 2011, Project Merlin sought to facilitate a further £76bn in loans. But with all the talk of national investment banks, it is important to consider some economic semantics. There seems an almost universal acceptance that entrepreneurs are being starved of credit, [...]
Monti steps aside for Berlusconi to wreak euro havoc December 10, 2012 MARIO Monti’s announcement that he will step down as Italian Prime Minister, as soon as the budget law for 2013-15 is adopted, caught many off guard. But things had got to a point where Monti had little choice – he had effectively lost his majority in parliament after Silvio Berlusconi’s party withdrew its support. What [...]
Should the news that jobs are being moved to other UK financial centres worry the City? December 10, 2012 YES Douglas McWilliams Investment banks are planning to move 3,000 jobs from the City of London to other regional centres, which will be mixed news for the City. Past success in London has sustained high salaries and property costs, making moves to other UK centres economically viable. This is historic – property costs are likely to [...]
Rapid responses December 10, 2012 Classroom politics [Re: Lessons from Finland: How we can reform maths teaching in schools, yesterday] While I respect professor Burghes’s work, I disagree with his opinion. The greatest threat to maths education in Britain is not poor teachers or a rigid curriculum. It is the huge scale of recent political involvement in how children are taught. Standards [...]
Lessons from Finland: How we can reform maths teaching in schools December 9, 2012 THE UK’s educational standards remain low. Our pupils have fallen behind those in Germany and have been overtaken by peers in Poland. The last round of OECD tests for 15 year olds showed that the UK’s position in literacy, science and maths has fallen again. The coalition has attempted to reverse this decline and has [...]
Christmas is the ideal time to revive the City’s tradition of charitable giving December 9, 2012 FEAR that the UK could slip into a triple-dip recession heightened last week, as the services sector posted an unexpected slowdown. Yet remarkably, over half of us are still giving to good causes, despite the challenging economic outlook. This encouragingly high proportion of the population, includes many in the Square Mile. Contrary to myth, City [...]
A French scheme that could boost British innovation December 9, 2012 TODAY the UK government will lay before Parliament its future strategy for UK life sciences. It will rightly highlight the success of the Biocatalyst Fund, an initiative which is already helping bioscience small businesses to accelerate the development of future therapies. But existing government support is not enough. That is why we are calling for [...]
As Britain’s economic indicators worsen, are we heading towards a triple dip recession? December 9, 2012 YES Chris Williamson The likelihood of a triple-dip recession has risen. It may still be avoided, but much depends on developments overseas. Official data confirms the disappointing indicators, meaning a contraction in the fourth quarter looks inevitable. Retail, exports and manufacturing all fell sharply in October. To constitute a recession, GDP would also have to [...]
Rapid responses December 9, 2012 Austerity forever [Re: Careful chancellor: there is good austerity and bad austerity, Friday] George Osborne does appear to be slowly realising that his measures aren’t working, but my worry is that it’s now too late. All the international evidence shows that fiscal retrenchment only works if cuts happens quickly, take place across the board, and [...]