Pricing Royal Mail: Welcome to the free market April 1, 2014 LIKE several hundred thousand other ordinary investors, I emerged from Royal Mail’s flotation with 227 shares in my Isa. I don’t normally apply for Initial Public Offerings (IPO), and this one certainly didn’t come without risks. The terms of privatisation required the company to preserve the universal service and Saturday deliveries, which have been dropped [...]
Why the NHS now needs a radical strategy for survival March 31, 2014 THERE’S a new boss at the NHS. Today, Simon Stevens takes up the reins as chief executive of NHS England, the quango now responsible for the vast majority of the health service’s £100bn budget. Back in October, many welcomed his appointment to the top job in the NHS. After working for Tony Blair and Alan [...]
The Clegg cliché: How politicians turn fact into fiction March 31, 2014 IT’S TIME to cast aside the dogma and look at the facts”. Sound familiar? Anyone who watched last week’s Europe debate between Nigel Farage and Nick Clegg would have seen the latter use lines like this. But this is more than just rhetorical cliché. It’s part of a narrative that permeates far more widely than [...]
Businesses are ready to spend – but government can make it easier March 31, 2014 AGAINST a range of improving economic indicators, one metric has remained stubbornly sluggish: business investment. A well-balanced recovery requires a significant rise in corporate investment and a shift away from consumer-led growth. Deloitte’s most recent CFO Survey found that risk appetite is at a six-year high, while just 20 members of the FTSE 100 hold cash [...]
Don’t just blame energy giants: Government is blunting competition March 27, 2014 IT IS not entirely unwelcome that the energy industry has been referred to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) by Ofgem. It may lance a festering boil; it may do some good. However, this will only be the case if the investigation is handled correctly. Too often, competition inquiries have created huge uncertainty and disruption. [...]
How one man battled the bureaucrats to save a billion lives March 27, 2014 THE 1960s was a decade of explosive change, but the most important revolution wasn’t sexual: it was green. While Western intellectuals looked the other way, lost to well-meaning doom-mongering, one visionary saved a billion lives. Private foundations supported his work; rich governments’ aid programmes often thought it was wrongheaded. But Norman Borlaug (it’s pronounced Bor-log), [...]
Pensions freedom is at risk – from the regulators March 27, 2014 AS COMMENTATORS digest the liberal reforms to pensions announced in the Budget last week, questions are starting to arise about just how the proposals will be implemented. To be clear, we welcome the reforms; it is right that people should be empowered to make their own choices about how they access a pension fund which [...]
Why the real global debt crisis is bigger than you think March 26, 2014 HERE IS a very easy economic forecast. Public debt will be the number one economic issue on the planet over the coming decades. Hugely indebted governments will get even more indebted, and politicians will remain behind the curve in terms of finding a solution. Governments will find it even more difficult to attain and maintain [...]
The great British wage squeeze should be about to end March 26, 2014 A FASTER growing economy is key to improving living standards. This very simple claim rests on a more complex point – how closely linked are wages, productivity and economic output? For the government, its chances of success at the next General Election could largely be determined by the answer to this question. The most recent [...]
London will come to a standstill if we delay Crossrail 2 March 26, 2014 LONDON will start grinding to a halt if Crossrail 2 – the proposed new north-south rail line for the capital – isn’t built by 2030. That’s why London First, the business promotion body, has recommended a firm plan for Crossrail 2, including significant property developer contributions so that London could directly pay for a large [...]
