Does China’s superb medal haul reflect its determination to compete with the West? August 5, 2012 YES John Hawksworth China topped the medals table in Beijing with 51 golds and, despite no longer having home advantage, it again looks set to contest first place with the US in London. China’s success reflects two key factors: a huge potential talent pool of 1.3bn people and a well-funded government sports system for finding [...]
RAPID responses August 5, 2012 Political failings [Re: Fantasy economics: Nationalising RBS would be an epic nightmare, Friday] It’s worrying to think that, even after sub-prime, politicians are still calling for RBS to be nationalised. They are either playing to the electorate (the vast majority of which will argue that anyone in finance is immoral) or they are totally bereft [...]
Fantasy economics: Nationalising RBS would be an epic nightmare August 2, 2012 HOW many investors would lose £26,000 on a £45,000 investment and then come back for more? That is the kind of investment strategy which only makes sense when you are gambling with someone else’s money. And apparently the government is considering playing the same game on a million times this scale. “Senior government figures” are [...]
We no longer have the vision to celebrate artists’ Olympic achievements August 2, 2012 ONE hundred years ago, the first Olympic medals were awarded for cultural achievement. In the summer of 1912 in Stockholm, exponents of architecture, literature, music, painting and sculpture were celebrated alongside the runners and the jumpers. The tradition continued for decades, with a final hurrah at the London Games of 1948, when the medallists’ work [...]
Forget G4S: The UK is hosting the safest Games ever August 2, 2012 WITH Great Britain basking in the golden hue of success in the Velodrome and beyond, you might be forgiven for forgetting that just a few weeks ago the Olympics was mired in serious safety concerns. But we have been able to rest easy, safe in the knowledge that the British armed forces have risen to [...]
Was the Bank of England correct to leave monetary policy unchanged yesterday? August 2, 2012 YES Adam Chester We believe that the decision of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee to keep interest rates on hold at 0.5 per cent was the right one. Having announced a range of measures to stimulate growth last month – including an increase in quantitative easing and the Funding for Lending Scheme – [...]
RAPID RESPONSES August 2, 2012 Many hues of Boris [Re: After calls for Boris Johnson to stand for the Tory leadership, could it happen before 2015?, yesterday] The Olympics has provided Boris with an opportunity to allow his exuberant personality to be let rip. There are even more stages to be centre of than normal, which suits the mayor’s longer-term [...]
How Olympic organisers can get shot of the West End ghost town August 1, 2012 WE’VE scared them off. Somewhere between Boris Johnson’s ominous ode to overcrowding, and TfL’s weird posters of diligent Londoners in their underwear, planning routes to work, the city’s attempts to keep moving during the Games have frightened droves of tourists into barely venturing out of the confines of the Olympic Park. If organisers don’t act [...]
Londoners may not love Romney but he is trying to woo American voters August 1, 2012 AGREAT deal of column space has been dedicated to Mitt Romney’s Olympic-sized faux pas this past week. Democrats have called Romney’s utterances over London’s preparedness for the Olympics “embarrassing” and have launched advertisements questioning his suitability to succeed Barack Obama. Will this impact November’s elections? One Republican strategist was blunt: “The London stuff? Voters don’t [...]
France’s Tobin Tax will make a little but damage a lot August 1, 2012 WHEN Napoleon Bonaparte’s regime executed an aristocrat on trumped-up charges of treason, stirring up bloody memories of the Revolution, his chief of police is said to have remarked that it was “worse than a crime; it was a blunder”. The same could be said of this week’s introduction of a Tobin Tax in France. The [...]