How regenerating failed high rises can gift London thousands of extra homes January 20, 2014 A QUIET announcement, with potentially significant implications for London’s housing crisis, lay hidden in the detail of last year’s Autumn Statement: the government will “explore options for kick-starting the regeneration of some of the worst housing estates through repayable loans.” Is this just another excuse to spend taxpayers’ money? I hope not. It could be [...]
Labour to make jobseekers take basic skills test January 20, 2014 JOBSEEKERS will have to pass a basic skills test and could lose their unemployment benefits, under tough new measures being pledged by Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary today. In her first major policy speech since taking up the post in October, Rachel Reeves will set out Labour’s latest plans for tackling the cost of [...]
More competition would be good but Miliband is proposing little that’s new January 19, 2014 ED MILIBAND appears to be in the process of reinventing the Labour Party as the consumer party. His central theme is the “cost of living crisis”. He tells us how he is on the side of consumers in gas and electricity, freezing prices, in banks forcing competition, and in general by having consumer bodies report [...]
Springbok spicing up the wine market January 19, 2014 Annabel Palmer talks to Rowan Gormley, the South African taking on wine’s giants with venture Naked Wines THE DAYS of the wine snob – so brilliantly caricatured by Richard E Grant’s the Hon Simon Marchmont in the BBC’s Posh Nosh – could be coming to an end. It’s an industry long characterised by an assumption [...]
Technology and the minimum wage: A big rise could harm the lowest skilled January 17, 2014 POLITICIANS of all parties, including Treasury minister Sajid Javid, have stated that there’s a strong case for a significant increase in the minimum wage. Their arguments were perhaps best summarised in a blog by Paul Kirby, the former head of the Number 10 Policy Unit. His economic case for a big rise is based on [...]
Minimum wage to rise by 11pc January 16, 2014 Business warns Osborne’s move could jeopardise the recovery GEORGE Osborne has given the strongest hint yet that he wants to see the minimum wage increased to £7, despite urging caution earlier this month. The chancellor told the BBC that he would like to see an above-inflation rise in the minimum wage, currently set at £6.31 [...]
Miliband: I will break up high street banks January 16, 2014 LABOUR leader Ed Miliband will today confirm his plan to break up some high-street banks in an attempt to increase competition. In a speech at the University of London this morning, Miliband will claim that Britain can only earn its way out of the cost-of-living crisis by reforming the banks and building a new economy [...]
Letters to the Editor – 17/01 – Readers respond to our criticism of France’s failed socialist experiment January 16, 2014 Although I now live in China, I worked in France for 26 years, and have a lot of affection for the country and its people. Like Allister Heath, I feel sad to see the country going down the drain because it cannot rid itself of socialist dogma. The problem is that France is paralysed by [...]
Labour’s latest bout of banker-bashing is economically senseless January 15, 2014 BRITISH politics is so depressingly predictable. The cost of living crisis is abating (the gap between pay hikes and inflation is shrinking), there was one poor opinion poll for the Labour party (now reversed) and the economy is continuing to recover – so hey, presto, the Labour party has decided to start banker-bashing once again. [...]
Miliband’s middle class pitch fails to confront Labour’s statist legacy January 14, 2014 ED MILIBAND is getting serious about shedding his Red Ed image. In an article in the Daily Telegraph, the Labour leader tried to rebrand himself as a champion of the aspirational middle classes. This shouldn’t be ignored. His argument was somewhat unusual insofar as it contained an implicit admission that the cost-of-living crisis and the [...]