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 [...]
Cameron’s ‘non’ to popularity-boosting affair and why Miliband’s cost of living crisis could come unstuck January 14, 2014 It was a lively lobby briefing for journalists in Westminster this morning, with the PM’s spokesman (who just happens to be of French descent) being pressed on whether David Cameron might consider having an affair in order to boost his popularity ratings. Unsurprisingly the answer was a very diplomatic “non,” which sent tittering journalists off [...]
Technology and the minimum wage: A big rise could harm the lowest skilled January 13, 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 [...]
Our pension system is broken. We must tear it up and start again January 8, 2014 OUR pension system is broken. The public doesn’t save enough and is forced, for the most part, to rely on the state to finance all or a large part of its retirement years; and even though the government is being much more generous to pensioners than to any other group, and their benefits are now [...]