Is a hosepipe ban the best solution to the recent water shortages in the south east? April 16, 2012 YES Richard Aylard We’ve had two exceptionally dry years, with rainfall in March at less than half the long-term average. Stretches of the River Kennet in Wiltshire and Pang in Berkshire have completely dried up and some ground water levels are lower than they were as far back as 1976. With no way of knowing [...]
RAPID RESPONSES April 16, 2012 The debate goes on [Re: We need an open contest to decide who will run the Bank, Thursday] The three main objections to a possible cancellation of the QE gilts appear to be, firstly, that the Bank of England would become insolvent, secondly, that we would lose the ability to sell those gilts back to [...]
KPMG chairman: Four big ways we could really improve audit quality April 15, 2012 WHEN the European Union launched its plans to reform the audit market across 27 countries, the proposals referenced the word “quality” no less than 113 times. Robust audits were held to be the key to re-establishing trust and market confidence following the 2008 financial crisis. It seemed a laudable objective to ensure that auditors (alongside [...]
Should sanctions be lifted before Burma reforms? April 15, 2012 YES Derek Tonkin SANCTIONS are a potentially valuable tool but, unless they can be carefully targeted, their effects can be counterproductive. Burma is a case in point. The effectiveness of sanctions has been minimal because no country in the region agreed to support the West. Burma’s immediate neighbours, notably China and Thailand, have captured the [...]
Join the City Stress Test this May and get your Olympic plans in shape April 15, 2012 THIS Sunday’s Virgin London Marathon will signal the push off the starting block for many of us in the City in the sprint towards the 2012 Olympics. With little over one hundred days to go until the Games begin, many in the City will already find themselves wondering how their businesses are going to cope [...]
RAPID responses April 15, 2012 Unbreakable bonds [Re: We need an open contest to decide who will run the Bank, Thursday] Allister Heath argues that the £300bn plus held by the Bank of England in government bonds should be cancelled to reduce the government’s debt and interest bill. Cancelling the bonds would undermine the credibility and independence of the Bank [...]
Government fails the moral code it is now demanding of taxpayers April 12, 2012 IT IS difficult to think of an issue that has generated more self-righteous moralising by politicians of all parties than the recent furore over “abusive” tax avoidance. Some of the pronouncements emanating from Westminster would lead one to believe that tax avoidance is one of the great crimes of our age. Except it’s not a [...]
Publishing’s future hangs in the balance: This is no time to pick winners April 12, 2012 IN THE tradition of digital success leading to massive antitrust lawsuits, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) this week filed a suit against Apple and five publishers for allegedly conspiring to keep ebook prices artificially high. Apple’s epublishing rival Amazon rubbed salt on the wound by promptly cutting its Kindle ebook prices even further. But [...]
The pain in Spain has put its banks back on the rack April 12, 2012 WITH a sense of inevitability the spotlight has landed on Spain. Though the headlines proclaimed that the Eurozone crisis has returned with a vengeance, the truth is it never left. Spain is not Greece, but, many of the market fears surrounding the economy are still both well-founded and expected. There are three major causes of [...]
Should George Osborne reverse the cap on income tax relief for charitable donations? April 12, 2012 YES Sir Stuart Etherington This proposal needs an urgent rethink before it does irreversible damage. Major donors face at least six months of confusion and charities are already losing gifts as a result. High-level donations form a significant proportion of voluntary income, and framing tax relief on donations to charity as a tax avoidance measure [...]