Tory leadership race has created a surplus of Twitternomics July 21, 2022 Economics really has become the new battleground for armchair commentators. Are unfunded tax cuts inflationary? Should we worry about the UK debt stock nearing the same size as the economy? Such questions have sparked long Twitter threads that have generated even longer threads in response. Who’d have thought the dismal science was so interesting to [...]
Hasta la vista! Boris waves goodbye but casts a shadow for his successor July 21, 2022 THERE’S always an awkward moment when you start a new job, and someone comes round asking you to contribute to a collection for someone you barely know. That moment came unusually quickly for the dirty double dozen that Boris Johnson shuffled into the Cabinet room, with ministers who had been serving him for less than [...]
Innovation can save our food system from climate threats July 21, 2022 ON TUESDAY, people in the UK experienced the hottest day on record. For those living in cities, there were sweltering commutes, walks through parched parks and a newfound gratitude for office air conditioning. Overnight rain broke some of the heat. But further afield, the National Farmers’ Union is warning of lower crop yields as a [...]
Designs to adapt all our cities to extreme weather must dovetail with mitigation July 21, 2022 On Tuesday, the London Fire Brigade had over 2,000 calls on its busiest day since the Blitz. Extreme heat in the capital and across the nation sparked fires, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees celsius for the first time. Sixteen firefighters were injured, 41 properties destroyed, our runways and railways melted, and the NHS remains under [...]
Letters: Sharing the fraud blame July 21, 2022 [Re: Zahawi to outline plan to change EU’s City rules, July 18] The Financial Services and Markets Bill is a welcome step to help Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud victims. But the onus on reimbursing fraud victims cannot be placed solely on banks. This fraud doesn’t happen in siloes. Other actors need to be incentivised [...]
Tax and spend? We can’t save public services without a unified tech policy July 20, 2022 There are numerous ways in which to judge a potential leadership candidate. Their sheer electoral appeal, their reputation within the party, their communication style and authenticity, their experience, or their policy agendas. Or often all of the above. In regards to the latter, the candidates are unsurprisingly fixated on the same old conventional arguments about [...]
It’s hot, sure but we don’t need the health bureaucrats to tell us to open the windows July 20, 2022 Phew, What A Scorcha! No, not a tabloid headline from this week, but from 1976. As many have pointed out already, in that distant summer Britain experienced a prolonged heatwave. The temperature was over 30 degrees for several weeks, without respite. We survived without the hysteria of the Met Office or the pronouncements of the [...]
It would be madness to arm the unions with acquiescence July 20, 2022 THE continuing rail disputes are understandable given that two years of on-off lockdown have disrupted normal pay settlement processes. But the railways have been massively subsidised by the taxpayer over this period, and cannot expect such largesse to continue. Revenue is down to less than 80 per cent of pre-Covid levels, and patterns of use [...]
Letters: Who gets a vote, anyway? July 20, 2022 [Re: The dizzying tax promises of the Tory campaigns aren’t enough for the City, July 18] The dizzying tax promises as Eliot Wilson calls them are geared towards the Conservative members who are a unique group of people who should not be given a mandate to pick our next Prime Minister. Who gave them the [...]
We must bring tech into every aspect of how we govern the country July 19, 2022 The digital revolution has changed the way we work, stay in touch with friends and organise our lives. I want to unleash this power at the heart of government to improve services, enhance competition and keep people safe. The digital economy has developed faster than government has been able to keep up, and in order [...]