A bureaucratic nightmare risks stifling innovation in Britain’s energy market June 9, 2014 OFGEM’s chickens are coming home to roost, and the energy market regulator now faces a choice. It must decide whether it really is sensible to enforce the restrictions on energy suppliers it has spent the last few years formulating, or whether it will change course, given the bureaucratic nightmare and damage to market innovation that [...]
Why the unhealthy relationship between charities and the state must end June 9, 2014 LIKE many others, on Sunday evening I watched Soccer Aid – an annual charity football match featuring well-known ex-footballers and a raft of celebrities. All funds raised go to Unicef, to provide vulnerable children around the world with life-saving food, medicine and clean water. Given the alignment of this good cause with my interest in [...]
Why Britain’s battle against Jean-Claude Juncker may not be worth it June 9, 2014 WHEN Prime Ministers pick EU battles, they have to choose carefully. Like it or not, the UK’s historically unenthusiastic approach to EU integration – an understandable one at that – leaves it open to accusations of holding the rest of Europe over a barrel whenever the government appears to drag its feet. In the current [...]
Our leaders have forgotten the spirit of D-Day – and why it saved the world June 5, 2014 “OUR landings have failed and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”– letter by US [...]
Leadership lessons from the ancients: How to succeed like Cyrus the Great June 5, 2014 IT WAS a great invasion in the cause of liberty. Not 70 years ago, but two and a half millennia, when on 7 October 540 BC the army of Cyrus the Great entered Babylon by water. Beforehand, he misdirected the blockaded city by digging a ditch encircling its walls, as if settling his army in [...]
ECB easing must damage growth eventually: Let’s hope we’re not there yet June 5, 2014 THE EUROPEAN Central Bank (ECB) has cut its main interest rate to 0.15 per cent, and imposed an interest rate charge of 0.1 per cent upon banks leaving money in the ECB (as opposed to the traditional practice whereby central banks pay interest on such reserves). ECB governor Mario Draghi has also indicated a willingness [...]
This is no zombie government – but the Queen’s Speech lacked bold vision June 4, 2014 NOTHING baffles me more than the complaint that government isn’t doing enough. The accusation that coalition ministers have become zombies, walking around aimlessly with nothing to do, has energised those who feel that, if government slows down, life as we know it might well collapse. The notion that creativity, social progress and economic growth will [...]
How to be prosperous: We need a revival of the values crucial to capitalism June 4, 2014 COULD the forces that determine individual prosperity also determine national success? I’m increasingly convinced that five influences explain the wealth and wellbeing of people and countries: honesty, vitality, freedom, responsibility, and institutions. Traditionally, prosperity research has focused on long-term growth, looking at the role of physical and human capital, and productivity. Over the past decade, [...]
Recall stitch-up: The coalition doesn’t trust voters to discipline their MPs June 4, 2014 AMID all the speculation over who will win the Newark by-election today, it’s easy to forget the reason half of Westminster is running around the Nottinghamshire constituency: the behaviour of its former MP. Caught in a sting in May 2013, when he then resigned the Conservative whip, Patrick Mercer left Parliament in April 2014. But [...]
Why Britain’s housing crisis risks turning into catastrophe June 3, 2014 THE HOUSING crisis – worst in London, but bad across Britain – is fundamentally driven by lack of supply. For the past five years, we have been building fewer houses than in any peacetime period since before World War One. But house building has been on a downwards trend since the 1960s. Reasonable estimates suggest [...]
