It is shocking just how much tax most workers have to pay November 19, 2012 ONCE again, Boris Johnson is making sense on tax. He is right to be calling for a lower tax economy and to oppose increasing the tax on homeowners – while simultaneously demanding the elimination of the loopholes that mean that the current system is riddled with problems, especially when it comes to corporation tax. The [...]
We must ditch unfair loopholes – and then cut tax overall November 18, 2012 BRITAIN’S corporation tax system is broken. It is arbitrary, opaque, incomprehensible and unfair. At best, it is uncompetitive compared with other countries, such as Ireland; at worst it is a complete nightmare of complications and distorted incentives. Britain’s tax system is one of the worst things about the UK: It needs to be smashed up [...]
We need a new entrepreneurial revolution to rescue Britain November 15, 2012 IT is all too easy to despair about everything that is wrong with Britain. But one ray of light is our slow-burning, yet increasingly profound shift towards becoming a more entrepreneurial society. Britain counts 4.8m private firms, 99.9 per cent of which are small to medium-sized businesses (SMEs). Most are micro businesses. The rise of [...]
Three important trends affecting Britain’s economic recovery November 14, 2012 THERE are three figures you need to take away from yesterday’s slurry of economic news. First, around 945.3m hours were worked in the UK economy between July and September, up 2.6 per cent year on year and the highest since April 2008. Second, total pay rises in the public sector were 2.2 per cent year [...]
Scandals have made the UK a dangerously low-trust society November 14, 2012 IN his bestselling book Trust, Francis Fukuyama argued that social capital is an essential prerequisite to prosperity. High-trust societies enjoy complex networks of voluntary associations, and this creates a climate conducive to commercial cooperation, entrepreneurship, the building of large companies and international trade. He warned in the 1990s that trust was in decline in the [...]
Here we have the perfect charity for all our readers November 14, 2012 TODAY Morning Wire is launching its annual Christmas appeal after an extremely successful debut appeal a year ago. As a newspaper that has become a standard bearer for private enterprise and individual responsibility, I’m delighted that we are continuing our partnership with Opportunity International, a brilliant charity that helps poor entrepreneurs worldwide build independent and [...]
America’s energy renaissance will transform China as well November 12, 2012 SOMETHING extraordinary is happening to the global economy, with huge implications for geopolitics and international flows of trade and capital. The United States has engineered an energy renaissance: while it currently imports 20 per cent of its total energy consumption, much of it from the Middle East, America will become roughly self-sufficient in net terms [...]
It is time for the BBC to allow its viewers freedom to choose November 12, 2012 WHAT a mess. The BBC, Britain’s most powerful and influential media company, is in crisis; the resignation of its director general hasn’t been enough to halt the chaos. Radical changes are needed to reform, strengthen and preserve the BBC; if Lord Patten, the chairman of the BBC Trust, doesn’t want to introduce them then he [...]
End of quantitative easing will stop mad monetary recycling November 8, 2012 IT is time for George Osborne to start worrying. The Chancellor will be the biggest loser from the Bank of England’s right and proper decision to halt quantitative easing, at least for the time being. The biggest problem with QE – apart from its increasing lack of impact and the pain inflicted upon savers and [...]
Ten observations on a historic election for the United States November 7, 2012 1 The popular vote was very close: 50.4-48.1 per cent, and a gap of 2.8m votes, against 52.9-45.7 per cent and 9.5m votes in 2008. Obama’s lead was cut from 7.2 points to 2.3 points. However, Obama triumphed in all of the swing states. 2 Many factors destroyed Romney: he was a poor candidate with [...]