Rising UK house prices intensify the need to cut illogical stamp duty August 22, 2013 STAMP duty has to be a good candidate for the most stupid, destructive and illogical of the UK’s many taxes. Residential stamp duty raised £4.2bn in 2011-12, just 0.8 per cent of the government’s total tax revenues. But its reform is long overdue. It’s stupid because its “slab” rate structure means that, if someone buys [...]
Letters to the editor – 23/08 – BBC Licence Fee, Foreign companies, Best of Twitter August 22, 2013 BBC Licence Fee [Re: TV licence offences responsible for a tenth of all UK court cases, Wednesday] Currently, if you have a TV but don’t watch live TV over it, you’re still subject to “reminders” to pay – even though you’re not liable. A better system would be to make us pay for what we [...]
Liberty in transit: What the detention of David Miranda signifies for Britain August 21, 2013 THE DETENTION and interrogation of David Miranda, partner of campaigning journalist Glenn Greenwald, on his way from Germany to Brazil has brought up some interesting facts – and attitudes. Views on such a cloudy subject vary, but two strong camps have emerged. To hear one set of commentators, the Intelligence Services have magical powers of [...]
Why we shouldn’t be surprised by the rapidly rising cost of High Speed 2 August 21, 2013 IT’S A familiar but depressing story. When a big government project is first advocated, the backers downplay the costs in order to gain political support. As the scheme progresses, the budget increases dramatically, but the momentum behind it makes it difficult to stop. The same pattern is repeated again and again. The Channel Tunnel Rail [...]
M&S’s new ad campaign will struggle to reverse slumping fashion sales August 21, 2013 YOU CAN visualise the meeting at Marks & Spencer’s headquarters when its new campaign, advertising its make-or-break Autumn collection, was finalised. An ad agency suggests the idea of female empowerment and the boardroom battleground. Any actual brand idea is forgotten, as the rolodex spins and agents are called. Actress Helen Mirren, artist Tracey Emin, author [...]
Letters to the editor – 22/08 – Global competition, HS2 debate, Best of Twitter August 21, 2013 Global competition [Re: We should be glad that foreign firms want to buy British companies, yesterday] I agree with Tim Worstall. It is essential that financiers and investors have a viable route to a profitable exit. And a foreign sale is often an important avenue. UK venture capital typically wishes to sell on in four to [...]
How Britain can take advantage of a global growth in digital industries August 20, 2013 MOST new jobs are not created by established big businesses adding a few people here and there, or by the many smaller firms that are happy to stay small rather than take a risk and expand. Our future prosperity depends on a relatively small number of rapidly growing firms: high growth “gazelles”. So if we [...]
Against the Grain: Unemployment may fall much faster than the Bank of England expects August 20, 2013 THE VIEWS expressed by the new Bank of England governor Mark Carney on interest rates and unemployment remain a hot topic. Interest rates will not be raised until unemployment falls below 7 per cent, a process the Bank expects could take three years. The perception which many people have of unemployment is that it is [...]
We should be glad that foreign firms want to buy British companies August 20, 2013 THE ABSURDLY nationalist argument over whether foreigners should be allowed to own companies in Britain is raising its ugly head again. Vacuum technology firm Edwards has just been sold to Sweden’s Atlas Copco for £1bn, last month UK engineering giant Invensys was the subject of a £3.4bn takeover by France’s Schneider Electric, and Kentz has [...]
Letters to the editor – 21/08 – Sport competition, Best of Twitter August 20, 2013 Sport competition [Re: BT Sport has a mountain to climb in its bid to beat BSkyB, yesterday] David Hellier raises some interesting points about how consumers are buying converged TV, broadband and telephony packages. However, he misses two main points: BT is not looking to topple Sky Sports, and Sky TV customers can get BT Sport [...]