We cannot improve schools from the centre: A bold call for more choice in education November 6, 2011 BY AND large, British families do not choose the education their children receive. For the majority of parents that choice is made for them, by the distance from their front door to the school gate, and whether they have the means to buy into the catchment of another school or avail themselves of a private [...]
The debate over chief executives’ pay isn’t simple November 6, 2011 INCOME Data Services (IDS) released a report on executive pay last week, drawing hysterical condemnation of business leaders from unions, politicians and journalists. However, research by Harvey Nash’s Board Practice and the London Business School’s MBA Consulting Team reveals that FTSE 100 chief executive pay is just not as simple as many would like us [...]
Reclaim the City from Robin Hood tax risks November 6, 2011 MUCH has been written in recent weeks about the protest camp outside St Paul’s and about the City of London Corporation’s attitude to it. I would like to take this opportunity to bring a degree of clarity to the situation. The City fully supports the democratic right to protest and at no point have we [...]
RAPID RESPONSES November 6, 2011 Bailouts vs zombies As Marc Sidwell says [The Zombie Menace of Anti-capitalist Thought, Friday], the Occupy London protest is leaderless, yet he lumps all the protesters together as anti-capitalist. From what I’ve gathered, some may be anti-capitalist but there is a range of views; many are simply disgusted with the way that banks have been [...]
Four years into a succession of crises and still no reform: Time for some Long Finance November 3, 2011 FOUR years into a series of financial crises, from Bear Stearns and liquidity shocks in 2007, to Lehman and RBS failures, Irish and Icelandic collapses, and now Eurozone currency-quakes, there have been no financial reforms to match the magnitude of the problems. An Olympiad later, the world feels more brittle and people jump at any [...]
Leaving a legacy doesn’t just have to be a metaphor November 3, 2011 YOU can give without suffering. That is the heart of the launch of my new Legacy10 campaign. The donor will not feel the pain while they’re alive, even if their children might be a little worse off, but the charities that benefit from our generosity can be exponentially better off. The reality is that we [...]
The zombie menace of anti-capitalist thought November 3, 2011 WHEN the Occupy protest movement began, how twenty-first century it seemed: leaderless, emergent and driven by a fury at unprecedented cronyism between high finance and high politics. But how quickly it has decayed, in its London incarnation at least, into reheated anti-capitalist slogans with nothing original to say. Commerce is ancient, and so is the [...]
RAPID RESPONSES November 3, 2011 Rowan has fire Rowan Williams [Why the Archbishop has got it wrong, Wednesday] only gets the chance to get heard nationally when the opportunity is afforded to him. The media will publish a heated political perspective but would they allow a regular briefing on day-to-day morality or spiritual growth? Unlikely. I look forward to a [...]
Time to reach for the stars: Britain’s new space industry has the potential to blast off November 2, 2011 SIR RICHARD Branson opened the world’s first commercial spaceport last month. As his new venture Virgin Galactic recognises, space is an industry where the sky’s not the limit. For too long the domain of superpower rivalry between America’s Nasa and Russia’s Federal Space Agency, space is now giving way to the private sector, funded by [...]
To secure credit in the future we need clear rules November 2, 2011 THE latest uncertainty over a Greek referendum to agree debt writedowns demonstrates, now more than ever, that reliance needs to shift from banks to the securities market for the risk capital needed to fund future economic growth. The G20, which meets today, therefore needs to take steps to revive risk capital markets to support growth, [...]