The coronavirus crisis is a make-or-break moment for globalisation March 6, 2020 The anti-globalisation movement is going viral. A new disease — virtually unknown, fiercely contagious, at times deadly — has put every aspect of modern life at risk. While governments grapple with the domestic realities, urging citizens to self-isolate and wash their hands while reciting Shakespeare, a larger question is looming: is this the end for [...]
How better competition policy can restore public trust in capitalism March 6, 2020 Competition policy is not something most people spend much time thinking about. It’s a dry, legalistic area of policy that even elected officials themselves have largely preferred to delegate to technocratic regulators. Yet competition policy is an integral part of the lifeblood of capitalism. At a time when trust in the market economy is under [...]
If the chancellor stands up for small firms, he’ll be standing up for society as a whole March 6, 2020 Ever wondered how much small businesses hand over to the Treasury each year? Try £145bn in corporation tax and VAT alone. Factor in business rates, national insurance contributions, fuel duty, clean air charges and the insurance premium tax, and this big figure becomes, well, astronomical. We small business owners are resilient. We have continued to [...]
Flybe can’t blame Coronavirus for its long term failings March 5, 2020 In the early hours of this morning, Coronavirus claimed its first airline as Flybe finally bit the dust. Just as with the thousands of human victims worldwide, it is the vulnerable who are most at risk, and this was no different. They failed because they encountered multiple crises, each amplified by their failure to mitigate the [...]
Let’s celebrate female business success March 5, 2020 I was lucky to grow up around strong women who ran their own businesses. My grandma ran a haberdashery business and my mum still runs a catering firm. Entrepreneurialism surrounded me, and I got to see how rewarding it can be — not just for the people who set up businesses, but for their families, [...]
The Democrats appear to learn the right lesson March 5, 2020 Last Friday evening, Bernie Sanders addressed an energetic, excitable crowd of nearly 5,000 in the Massachusetts city of Springfield, drumming up support ahead of the Super Tuesday round of Democrat primaries. Even more impressively, he then persuaded more than 13,000 supporters to turn out in freezing conditions to an outdoor rally in Boston Common last [...]
New Bank governor seems open to battle of ideas March 5, 2020 Andrew Bailey will take the governor’s seat at the Bank of England later this month amid a global health emergency that threatens to undermine the world economy and shape the Bank’s course of action for many months to come. So pressing is the issue that Bailey has effectively started work early, telling the Treasury Select [...]
With Bernie Sanders, the Democrats must chart a course between Scylla and Charybdis March 5, 2020 For my sins, I spent most of my early adulthood in some sort of library. Of all the topics I have had the pleasure of really studying, one stands out: Classics. Paradoxically, an understanding of Classics tells you more about how westerners behave and are today than any other discipline. The ancient Greeks seem to [...]
DEBATE: In light of the Barclays protests, are climate activists right to target financial institutions? March 5, 2020 In light of the Barclays protests, are climate activists right to target financial institutions? Adrienne Buller, economist and research fellow at the Common Wealth think tank, says YES. Last week, a leaked JP Morgan report acknowledged that, in a world of accelerating temperature rise, “we cannot rule out catastrophic outcomes where human life as we [...]
Digital sovereignty: Time for Britain to take back control of our data March 5, 2020 They might not realise it, but the average person uses 36 cloud-based services every day. Chatting on WhatsApp, watching Netflix, sharing your work calendar with colleagues — all these services use the cloud, a network of remote servers accessed over the internet. But the cloud systems used by Europe have long been far from European. [...]