Letter: Is the government right to focus on obesity as its top public health issue? July 29, 2020 Re: Is the government right to focus on obesity as its top public health issue? People with obesity are at a much greater risk of serious Covid-19-related complications and death. They are also more likely to require hospitalisation, ICU admission, and mechanical ventilation. Hence, addressing obesity makes sense not only as a way to prevent [...]
A digital tax is no way to reward our innovative online retailers July 28, 2020 Throughout lockdown, the advantages — indeed, the essentiality — of online retail became clear. Now, Rishi Sunak is rumoured to be mulling over a new online sales tax. Advocates for this new tax, such as SportsDirect owner Mike Ashley and Tesco boss Dave Lewis, believe that the existing business rates system creates an uneven playing [...]
An e-citizenship scheme would put the UK at the heart of global trade July 28, 2020 The global population of startups and entrepreneurs is on the rise. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, just 8.9 per cent of the world’s population was involved in some sort of startup business in 2001. By 2016, that figure was 14 per cent. In the most entrepreneurial countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, startups can employ [...]
DEBATE: Is the government right to focus on obesity as its top public health issue? July 28, 2020 Is the government right to focus on obesity as its top public health issue? Dr Keith Klintworth, managing director at VitalityHealth, says YES. The pandemic has made the case for action on obesity stronger than ever, with research showing that it is the second biggest risk factor for hospitalisation from Covid-19. Not only that, but [...]
Corruption in politics? It’s just business as usual July 28, 2020 Robert Wood Johnson IV is not a name which necessarily springs even to the more well-informed lips. “Woody”, as he is far better known, is the American ambassador to London — a post he assumed almost three years ago at the request of Donald Trump. His background is not in diplomacy: he is part of [...]
A property wealth tax is the only fair way to pay for the Covid-19 crisis July 28, 2020 Two years ago, the director of the Office for Budget Responsibility wrote the following: “Broadly speaking, the fiscal position is unsustainable if the public sector is on course to absorb an ever-growing share of national income… The baseline projection in each of our reports — since the first was published in 2011 — has pointed [...]
Boris Johnson’s calorie labelling plan is well-intentioned but economically inept July 27, 2020 Let me start with a concession to the Prime Minister: not all the policies in his anti-obesity drive are outright objectionable. Banning food advertising and telling shopkeepers where they can and can’t stock their products are obvious and unacceptable intrusions, whatever their intended goal. But as a liberal economist, I am prepared to consider some [...]
Why the UK should rethink its restrictive rules on dual-class shares July 27, 2020 The ability to have a dual-class voting structure can be an important consideration for high-growth, innovative companies (especially those in the technology sector) when deciding on an IPO venue. These structures are not possible for a premium listing in London, whereas they are available on other major stock exchanges, meaning that the UK risks missing [...]
Want a recovery that works for everyone? Fix the injustices in the tax system July 27, 2020 The lockdown shone a spotlight onto a two-speed, two-nation Britain, where better-paid white-collar professionals worked from home, while less well-off key workers had to keep travelling to work, often on crowded public transport, to do riskier jobs. Even worse, it turned out that those less well-off key workers were paying much higher tax rates than [...]
A grown-up Japan marshals the world’s anti-China coalition July 27, 2020 Intellectual coherence has its advantages. While much of the western world has recently taken a holiday from history — as the US is weighed down by the melodrama of Donald Trump, the EU by the sleep-deprivation soap operas of its summit meetings, and the UK by profound confusions about how to respond to coronavirus — [...]