Spending without productivity improvements won’t lead to better public services
The decision by the government to stuff money into the bank accounts of the train drivers and junior doctors has been widely discussed. But the constant insistence by the doctors, and many others in the public sector, that they have in some ways suffered since the year 2010 has received much less attention. The use […]
Do long prison sentences work? Economics has the answer
Does prison deter crime? The recent riots have rather left the government facing both ways on the matter. On the one hand, the Starmer administration has not just gone along with the previous policy under which most inmates served just 50 per cent of their allotted sentences. They have reduced this to 40 per cent. […]
Don’t be so quick to dismiss the ‘doped Olympics’ – at least they’re honest
Despite all the glitches and the controversies, the Olympics have provided a great spectacle of skill and prowess. Not least was the dramatic men’s 100 metres final, won by America’s Noah Lyles by five thousandths of a second in a time of 9.79 seconds. Wildly hailed as the greatest ever 100 metres final, seven of […]
Crawling back to the EU after Brexit will only end badly for Britain
Clear signals are being emitted by Keir Starmer’s government on the European Union (EU). A much closer relationship is being sought on a wide range of issues such as trade and defence. For the time being, the Prime Minister has ruled out a formal application to rejoin the bloc. But it would not be a […]
The great student loans swindle
The university sector in the UK is in financial trouble. The annual fee of £9,250 paid by British students has been frozen for a decade. Given inflation, this is a drop of around 30 per cent in real terms. The number of overseas students is starting to fall. The Russell Group has estimated that English universities […]
It’s the energy price stupid
The scale of the Conservative defeat in the election has been amply documented. But what has been mentioned much less is the fact that they are by no means alone. Other Western governments which have faced the electorate since the world energy price rise during 2021 and 2022 have suffered serious defeats. Olaf Scholz’s SPD […]
Start-ups and spin-outs: The secret ingredients to growth
Going into the election tomorrow, the two main parties agree on a crucial issue. Economic growth is needed to achieve their respective economic and social aspirations. Despite widespread perceptions to the contrary, in the decade of the 2010s the UK’s growth record was quite reasonable. The average annual rate of GDP growth was two per cent, even […]
Keir Starmer could be more like Harold Wilson than Tony Blair
Labour’s massive lead in the opinion polls is generating many parallels with the 1997 election. Will Keir Starmer end up with a bigger majority than Tony Blair or not? But the comparison with 1997 more or less starts and finishes with the polls. Most other things are completely different. In the late 1990s, capitalism appeared […]
We can’t borrow our way back to growth
This week’s manifesto launches have made the poor state of the public finances clear – simply put, there’s very little money for any party to play with. One reason for this is that lockdown continues to exert an anaconda-like grip on our spending capacity. The policy of paying people to do nothing has proved to be […]
We’re still paying for lockdown, so why is no one talking about it?
To borrow a famous phrase from Karl Marx, a spectre is haunting the election campaign. Despite the frantic efforts by the Conservatives to portray Keir Starmer as a puppet of the left, it is not, as it was for Marx, the spectre of communism. It is the spectre of lockdown. More specifically, the costs of […]
