Regulators beware: Why capitalism needs crisis March 25, 2014 WE LIVE in a world riddled with black swan fatigue, and this piece does not propose to add to it. Still, the recent financial crisis and its continuing implications have invited hyperbolic comparisons, most notably with the 1930s. That decade is seared in cultural memory as the Great Depression – a traumatic time of economic [...]
How fear of globalisation could propel Miliband into power March 25, 2014 THE IMPROVEMENT in the economy has seen a narrowing of the gap in the opinion polls between the Conservatives and Labour. In the key marginal seat of Bury North, a Tory gain in 2010 by just 2,200 votes, the party even took a council seat from Labour recently. Bill Clinton famously said about elections that [...]
The green myth: Why renewables destroy jobs March 25, 2014 POLITICIANS and activists are celebrating the news that Siemens is prepared to invest £160m in facilities in and around Hull to produce and install offshore wind turbines. It sounds like good news: 1,000 new jobs. But our embrace of renewable energy will cost jobs overall, not create them. The UK is putting eye-watering amounts of [...]
Why Western weakness stems from a failure to grasp Putin’s motives March 24, 2014 VLADIMIR Putin is having an easy time of it, precisely because the West is so at sea as to who he is and what he is trying to accomplish. The Russian President has painfully exposed our foreign policy elite’s schizophrenic tendencies, veering wildly between hysterical alarmism and useless gestures, both of which make the West [...]
Academies are transforming education: Here’s how March 24, 2014 AS SOON as you walk into a great school, you can feel the buzz. Children are confident, staff are passionate, and high academic achievement and exciting extra-curricular activities sit side by side. As an academy sponsor, and chair of the Department for Education’s Academies Board, I’ve visited many schools like this. Schools like Great Yarmouth [...]
Why individual liberty could be the new election battleground March 24, 2014 If people are given responsibility, they behave responsibly. So if we give people more political power, I believe that will create a country with a greater sense of social responsibility.” So said David Cameron in 2010. I remembered this quotation last week as the fallout from the Budget saw a debate open up over the [...]
Forget sanctions: Lame duck Obama is burying Pax Americana March 20, 2014 AS AN old DC hand living in Berlin, I was kindly invited to hear Barack Obama speak there in 2008 by some of my old foreign policy frenemies in the Democratic Party. I was present when candidate Obama’s white-hot global fame reached its apogee. In front of an old Napoleonic war memorial stood the anointed [...]
How open innovation will transform the humble quid March 20, 2014 FAREWELL to the pound coin’s familiar golden nugget design. Here comes the dough-decagon in its stead. The new 12-sided quid, modelled after the old threepenny bit, got plenty of attention this week. But the most interesting part of the design is what was left out. The flipside of the coin will be opened to a [...]
Pension freedom: A chance to rebrand retirement altogether March 20, 2014 THE chancellor’s pension reform proposals could, if implemented, not only change pensions as we know them, but the way people plan their retirement savings altogether. We aren’t there yet. But we should finally reach pension freedom in April 2015, when people will be free to decide, without restrictions, what to do with their pension pots [...]
No turning back: Four reasons Osborne’s Budget matters March 19, 2014 FOUR key things strike me about the 2014 Budget. First, George Osborne stuck to his plan. Osborne’s Budgets will be remembered for two things: slow, steady, drawn-out spending cuts, bearing down gradually upon the government’s huge deficit; and a large rise in the income tax personal allowance. Both aspects were reflected in yesterday’s Budget speech. [...]
