The Chancellor must act urgently to restore business confidence Opinion 77 per cent of businesses have ‘low or very low confidence’ in the UK’s business environment; winning business back will require us to actively improve our offering, with comprehensive reforms to our regulatory, legal and fiscal framework, says Sam Bidwell With all eyes on Washington and Kyiv, the government must not lose sight of trouble [...]
Longer licensing hours? We can all drink to that Opinion Sam Bidwell says three cheers for new laws to make it easier to extend licensing hours so pubs and hospitality venues can stay open for longer Slowly but surely, Westminster seems to be waking up to the idea that we can’t avoid the big questions forever. After years of collective head-burying, there is now a [...]
Give parliament a vote on quantitative easing Opinion QE should not be the preserve of bean-counting central bankers – money printing is not an abstract issue, it has real consequences for people’s ordinary lives, says Sam Bidwell If one thing characterises British politics in the post-Thatcher era, it is a serial addiction to avoiding questions about the structure of our economy. On the [...]
The service sector is not to blame for Britain’s industrial decline November 28, 2024 With the government’s new industrial strategy set to be published next spring, there’s a real risk that nostalgia for our manufacturing past gets in the way of the sectors that really drive growth, says Sam Bidwell Political conversations about the British economy are often dominated by one depressing fact – nobody seems ready to celebrate [...]
Class action boom in UK is yet another disincentive to investing here October 24, 2024 As the country holds its collective breath ahead of next week’s Budget, it’s fair to say that business confidence in the UK is lower than the Treasury might like. Last week, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) reported that business confidence had fallen to a 12-month low, while the Institute of [...]
Forget the bangs and flashes, the UK economy just needs some plumbing September 24, 2024 The outlook for the UK economy doesn't have to be so bleak. We just need to get back to basics, writes Sam Bidwell.
Neither party is serious enough about housing June 17, 2024 All major parties have set lofty house building targets in their manifestos, but plans to actually achieve them are light on detail. The fact is, there’s no shortage of ideas about how to tackle the big challenges facing Britain, what’s lacking is the political will, says Sam Bidwell It’s election season and so, like Regency [...]
Janet Street-Porter embodies this country’s pensioner problem May 17, 2024 Where on earth does Loose Women's Janet Street-Porter get the idea Rishi Sunak 'hates pensioners'? The entire Conservative agenda is built around appeasing this entitled generation and the rest of us are paying for it
Londoners are working 197 days a year just to pay the rent May 7, 2024 It will take the average Londoner until 16th June to earn enough before tax to cover their annual rent bill. The only way to bring prices down is to build more houses, says Sam Bidwell On average, for the first 125 days of 2024, English renters worked solely to pay their landlord. That’s according to [...]
The Chancellor’s tentative steps towards popular capitalism March 6, 2024 For far too many people, hard work no longer translates into material prosperity. Today’s Budget starts to change that, but there’s much more to do, says Sam Bidwell In amongst the excitement of Budget day, it’s easy to lose sight of the basics. The government’s major fiscal events are an opportunity to identify where our [...]
