Cost is key in the coalition’s brave decision to fire up nuclear energy October 28, 2012 IN 1956, the Queen flicked a switch and Britain’s first nuclear generated electricity surged into homes from the Magnox reactor at Calder Hall. This was the world’s first large-scale nuclear power station. A decade later, several Magnox stations were producing power, but investment in new electricity generating capacity was still insufficient. In the winter of [...]
The City must do more to support London’s young people into employment October 28, 2012 YOUNG people are the lifeblood of London, like any great city. They bring the ideas, innovation, and enthusiasm needed to drive our economy forward. Consequently, one of the most damaging legacies of the recent recession has been the growing number of young people not in employment, education or training (Neets). In the capital alone, there [...]
UK ministers are failing to support business tourism October 28, 2012 DAVID Cameron recently said that, in the global battle to win jobs and contracts, he believes in leading from the front. It’s fighting talk but, when it comes to winning work for our major export businesses, Cameron and his ministerial troops are regularly absent without leave. Tourism, and that includes business tourism, is a vital [...]
As the US presidential election nears, would a Mitt Romney victory be good for markets? October 28, 2012 YES Nancy Curtin A Mitt Romney victory would be a positive step for markets, given his opposition to capital gains tax increases, his support for immediate corporation tax cuts, and his business friendly, supply-side approach. We need to move away from a scenario where the government picks winners and losers in the corporate world, to [...]
Rapid responses October 28, 2012 Freedom to offend [Re: The public order act needs reform: It is an insult to free speech, Thursday] David Davis is right. If we’re going to fully adhere to this joke of a law, there’ll be more prisons in Britain than there are houses. People need to accept that they will sometimes be insulted. I, [...]
The Eurozone is doomed to unwind without radical liberalising reforms October 25, 2012 WHEN the euro was formed, the economic debate was marked by a paradox. Liberal economists on the continent were enthusiastic – they believed the euro’s adoption would force reforms on the EU. Free market economists in the UK were more pessimistic. They feared that economic shocks would result in complete social dislocation, due to inflexible [...]
The sky’s the limit: Why the humble checklist beats masterful intuition October 25, 2012 THOSE of us glued to the live feed of Felix Baumgartner’s jump from the edge of space last week were also incidentally witness to one of the most powerful – and underappreciated – performance enhancement techniques known. If you were watching, the chances are you didn’t even give it a second thought. But there’s as [...]
Challenging times lie ahead despite solid GDP growth October 25, 2012 SOME good GDP news at last! The UK economy is growing again. It’s official. In fact, the initial estimate of growth in the third quarter exceeded market expectations of 0.6-0.7 per cent growth by a long way. And – at 1 per cent of GDP – it now appears to be the strongest quarter of [...]
As more criticism emerges, has the BBC done enough to deal with the Jimmy Savile crisis? October 25, 2012 YES David Bowden The tenor of current accusations, built on a febrile atmosphere of rumour and suspicion, seems to preclude any reasoned debate over what we want from a public broadcaster. We’ve seen similar panics around the BBC before, most recently after Jonathan Ross’s prank call to Andrew Sachs in 2008. This has invariably led [...]
Rapid response October 25, 2012 Better than Labour [Re: Coalition must not become complacent on economic growth, yesterday] Although the coalition should avoid complacency over economic growth, it’s also important that it trumpets the advantages of its economic policy against Labour’s alternative. Yes, austerity has not been pushed as far as it should have been. But a continued reliance on [...]