Opinion: Property raffles are 500 times easier to win than the EuroMillions but they’re not going to go mainstream until they’re transparent January 18, 2019 Property raffles have certainly generated national media column inches over the past few years. There has been a huge buzz around the concept and it’s easy to see why – the thought of owning a multi-million pound home for the small cost of a ticket could turn an ordinary person struggling to get a foot [...]
A year on from Carillion: 12 months that brought outsourcing to its knees January 15, 2019 On the anniversary of Carillion’s dramatic collapse, two more public sector outsourcing giants, Interserve and Kier Group, are up against the ropes. In the intervening 12 months, outsourcers have lurched from one crisis to another, with profit warnings, massive project failures and revelations of systemic late payment of suppliers. City A.M. charts a year which [...]
Off road: Is the car industry in reverse? January 14, 2019 The automotive industry faces recession and decline. Driverless cars are on the horizon, but has the moment for motors already passed? The first Model T Ford rolled off the production line in 1908. Available in “any colour… so long as it is black”, in the words of magnate Henry Ford, the car marked a breakthrough [...]
There’s only one way to fix the housing crisis: build more January 9, 2019 From free marketeers on the right to proponents of central planning on the left, cries to fix Britain’s broken housing market have become deafening. The solutions, of course, differ greatly depending on where along the political spectrum you stand. Yesterday, for example, Shelter issued its latest call to action, proposing three million new social homes [...]
Confronting the Robots December 13, 2018 Professor Peter Fleming, formerly of Cass Business School, wrote an article for Demos Quarterly which argued that the age of automation is unlikely to lead to a utopian world of play, but doesn't necessarily mean a proliferation of rubbish jobs. You can read the article in full here. Dr Simone Stumpf, Senior Lecturer in the Department of [...]
Mayday: PM delays crucial parliament vote on her Brexit deal December 10, 2018 Theresa May has confirmed a highly-anticipated vote on her Brexit deal will be delayed, following threats of a huge rebellion from within the Conservative Party. The Prime Minister confirmed the delay in the House of Commons this afternoon, saying she believed she could still win a vote after winning further reassurance on the Irish backstop. [...]
Transport secretary Chris Grayling could have done more to avert May timetable chaos, say MPs December 4, 2018 Transport secretary Chris Grayling should have been "more proactive" in averting the crisis that unfolded from the timetable upgrade in May, MPs have said. The Transport Select Committee said it was "not reasonable" of Grayling to "absolve himself of all responsibility" in the May timetable change, which resulted in widespread cancellations, delays and overcrowding. The committee [...]
Macron feels the heat as protests ramp up December 2, 2018 When Emmanuel Macron landed in Paris after the G20 summit in Argentina his motorcade delivered him straight to the Arc de Triomphe, where he was confronted with a vivid depiction of the anger felt by many of his citizens – and of his own place in this crisis. One of the country's most famous monuments [...]
Prosperity is the key to solving the migration crisis – and that starts with security November 29, 2018 Here’s some very good news: global prosperity is at its highest level ever. The Legatum Prosperity Index tracks 149 countries, and the 2018 results out this week see prosperity continuing to rise across the world, both over the last year and over the last 11 years. More countries are becoming prosperous and more people are living [...]
Like southern Europe, Britain’s stagnant regions are stuck in a monetary union trap November 28, 2018 The Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence created a bit of a stir at the end of last week with its estimates of growth in the regions of the UK. Since the recovery from the financial crisis began during 2009, London’s economy has grown by 26 per cent. At the other end of the scale, output [...]