La Belle France is voting for some beastly politics May 3, 2012 IT’S the stuff Gallic political dramas are made of. A highly polarised campaign; a lively eleventh-hour debate between the candidates; a sense of emergency; a country cut in two as on the fringe of civil war. Incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy will face his socialist challenger François Hollande and France’s very fate is at stake. But compare [...]
Is Mervyn King justified in saying that he was powerless to stop the financial crisis? May 3, 2012 YES Bill Blain The financial lynch-mob seems determined to bury Mervyn King. It’s easy to blame a lame duck. Even if Northern Rock had been more aggressively addressed, would that have left the UK banking system intact? No. That leaves the charge he failed to rein in banks before they nearly sank themselves. But from [...]
RAPID responses May 3, 2012 Clueless Bank [Re: Mervyn King should have hiked rates to deflate the bubble, yesterday] I agree with you. Mervyn King has joined the long list of revisionist historians. To say he spotted the looming crisis is just not borne out by the facts and the Bank of England’s actions at the time. The loss of [...]
Fail to manage airport queues and see Britain’s future growth depart May 2, 2012 HEATHROW’S immigration queue crisis is already a national embarrassment, but the true scale of the damage it is doing has yet to be recognised. Inevitably, the coverage so far has focused on the Olympics. With hundreds of thousands of extra tourists flooding into the capital, and the attention of the world’s media and sporting establishments [...]
A war-weary America forces both parties to reconsider their plan of attack May 2, 2012 HAVING evaded Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, it’s unsurprising that Barack Obama is reminding the public that it was his decision that led to the daring raid which killed Osama bin Laden. With elections in November, that’s all very well. But is this a case of kill overkill? The main controversy surrounds a video [...]
Why I’m voting for Boris Johnson as mayor today May 2, 2012 THE City has taken its fair share of stick lately. Criticism from politicians is to be expected, and insofar as they represent public opinion, we have to respect that. But when the hot air dissipates, you’re left with one simple fact – financial services employ hundreds of thousands of people in this city, and not [...]
After accusations he is unfit to run BSkyB, should Rupert Murdoch be forced to sell? May 2, 2012 YES Joe Cox Whether or not Rupert Murdoch is forced to relinquish his dominance over the British media landscape should be more than about whether he is a “fit and proper” person. The important question is whether it is in the public interest for someone to be so dominant in the media market and, by [...]
RAPID responses May 2, 2012 Fresh appeal [Re: Why Boris Johnson is by far the best choice for Londoners, yesterday] It’s good to see support for a candidate on the basis on his character, the worth of his policies, and how those coincide with the nature of London itself. There’s no better example of how directly-elected mayors can rejuvenate politics [...]
Recession in the Eurozone reminds us why economic reform is so vital May 1, 2012 MUCH of the Eurozone has now tipped back into recession, prompting cries for pro-growth policies and increased spending. In these difficult times, austerity has become a dirty word, but this masks the wider failings of individual government policies and is a diversion from the collective challenge of keeping the Eurozone intact. Any attack on austerity [...]
People calling for an equal tax burden ignore how wealth is generated May 1, 2012 IN A recent article, Times columnist Philip Collins implied that an individual’s income is really the collective property of all citizens. He did not use those words, of course. He is a former speech writer for Tony Blair and a political moderate, not a communist. But he said something that makes sense only if all [...]