Against the Grain: Why the state’s technology bureaucrats must realise that most things fail December 3, 2013 THE PHRASE “industrial policy” seems to take us back decades. In 1964, the then Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s powerful new catchphrase was the need for Britain to embrace the “white heat of the technological revolution”. Sadly, by the 1970s this vision had deteriorated into a list of institutions, stuffed with dull businessmen and trade [...]
Why we need a radical solution to the crisis in our education system December 3, 2013 THE NEWS that UK pupils have failed to make the global top 20 in the OECD’s Pisa tests in maths, reading and science has sparked suggestions that Britain should adopt East Asian teaching and assessment models. But we don’t need to look to the East for answers. East Asian pupils do indeed perform the best, [...]
Letters to the Editor – 04/12 – Tube fare freeze, Best of Twitter December 3, 2013 Tube fare freeze A real terms transport fares freeze in January is welcome news. But TfL could continue to freeze fares at inflation in future years. It has an annual turnover just shy of £10bn and a capital investment programme in the tens of billions. Freezing fares at inflation for a year costs just £34m [...]
It’s time to end the cruel delusion of cheap money and reckless spending December 2, 2013 GEORGE Osborne will present his Autumn Statement to a country in the grip of a cruel economic delusion, perpetrated against the poor and the aspirational. Welfare states everywhere are spending chronically beyond their means while papering over the cracks with easy money. Budget 2013 forecast spending in excess of receipts of about £9bn a month. [...]
Read my lips: Why the chancellor should commit to a lower tax burden December 2, 2013 TWO CAMPS exist in the Conservative Party on tax cuts. One thinks they should happen now to ease living costs, the other that it’s fiscally premature and imprudent to do them. There is logic in both. The purpose of taxation should be to finance state expenditures in the least distortionary way possible. Since spending is [...]
Fog is lifting over China but its reform efforts may not prove enough December 2, 2013 DAVID Cameron is right; there is no point in being subtle. He is in Beijing for a three day visit – accompanied by an army of 100 British business leaders – in an effort to strengthen trade links with the world’s fastest-growing Great Power. So important is the prize of enhancing economic ties with a [...]
Letters to the Editor – 03/12 – Heathrow noise, Autumn Statement, Best of Twitter December 2, 2013 Heathrow noise [Re: Our innovative Heathrow plan could expand capacity without huge costs, Friday] It’s not clear to me that the author’s suggestions would limit the number of additional residents affected by Heathrow expansion, or merely dump even more noise on to those of us who already suffer. When the inspector gave the go-ahead for [...]
Forget Gatwick bluster: A mega-hub east of London is our only real option December 1, 2013 THE AIRPORT debate is hotting up: the last few days have seen the chief executive of Gatwick Airport practically carpet bombing every media outlet in sight, trying to convince us that expansion at his airport is the only game in town. It sounds a good story (even if one mired in self-interest and distortion of [...]
City Matters: International markets need regulation that transcends national boundaries December 1, 2013 THIS IS an important time for those working in finance on either side of the Atlantic. As the world’s two largest financial centres, it is up to both London and New York to take a leading role in ensuring that the reputation of the financial services industry is rebuilt, as the United Kingdom and the [...]
Tories need to map out a tax cutting plan to ease the living cost squeeze December 1, 2013 AS THE chancellor’s Autumn Statement beckons, after a run of good economic news, it is time to address Britain’s less flattering fundamentals. Government has too much debt, the country too little to show for the recovery. Public spending at 48.4 per cent of GDP is debilitating, leaving the tax burden at its highest for 24 [...]