Explainer-in-brief: Britain is the piggy in the middle of EU-US trade tensions December 1, 2022 Emmanuel Macron is in the US this week to meet President Joe Biden and try to avoid a potential trade war. The subject is green subsidies, part of the colossal Inflation Reduction Act passed by Biden over summer. Biden wants to inject billions of dollars into US-made green technologies, and the EU is worried about [...]
Our anxiety of talking about money is hampering our philanthropic efforts December 1, 2022 You don’t make the poor richer by making the rich poorer is a sixth form thought-starter to stimulate debate about the benefits, or otherwise, of inequality. Unarguably though, some of London’s rich are enthusiastically making themselves poorer by giving their wealth to good causes. It’s obvious that the UK has issues that aren’t being solved [...]
Britain needs more safe and energy efficient homes, but targets miss the point December 1, 2022 Last week, we saw Conservative party backbenchers oppose Michael Gove’s target to deliver 300,000 homes a year in England. The scale of the rebellion meant the vote on planning reforms, enshrined in the levelling up bill, was pulled. The government’s levelling up strategy has the potential to make a positive difference, but its focus on [...]
Let’s be honest, MPs should be allowed to expense Christmas parties for staff December 1, 2022 It has been a gruelling year for politicians. From partygate to the cost of living crisis, toxicity about Members of Parliament is on its way up. A YouGov poll earlier this month found that over two-thirds of Brits believe that politicians are “merely out for themselves”. This is an increase of 9 percentage points in [...]
Letters: 1 + 1 = too few good at maths December 1, 2022 [Re: Terrible at times tables? Our reliance on fintechs doing our maths dents our income, Nov 28] Maths used to be seen as something for boys; young women boasted of being “bad at maths”. However, arithmetic, the stuff of primary school, is what is needed in every day life. Mathematics can be daunting and abstract [...]
Explainer-in-brief: Fresh overhauls to the Online Safety Bill November 30, 2022 People will instead be able to filter out the harmful content they don’t want to see.
When did we simply accept fraud as an inevitable part of our modern lives? November 30, 2022 The more government reports there have been, the less policy has been delivered. Fraud is a glaring example of this.
If we want Britain to be the next Silicon Valley, we need an Open University for skills November 30, 2022 The UK has a proud history as a technology pioneer: from the steam engine to the worldwide web, British inventors have been at the forefront of technologies that have transformed lives across the world. But today our status as one of the world’s leading science and technology hubs is under threat. Digital skills shortages, which [...]
In low income parts of the UK, boosting productivity is a question of competition November 30, 2022 Productivity is a puzzle with many different layers. When it becomes a mainstay in political speeches, it is rarely for a good reason. Most of the recent focus is on why it has been so slow, in the overall economy, for the last decade or so. In the 1990s, productivity in G7 countries rose at [...]
Letters: We’re still working hybrid November 30, 2022 Despite what your article’s headline implies, we are not seeing a return to 2019 ways of working.