Corbyn is completely out of touch with the real debate about UK austerity
Following the Brexit vote, normal service seems to have resumed. A key question in economic policy since the General Election of 2010 has moved centre stage once again: should the government abandon austerity? At one level, the question has an easy answer. Interest rates are now so low that the UK government can borrow for 30 […]
The blob is wrong: competition and independence raise school standards
The A-Level results released last week confirm the dominance of schools in London and the South East. Provisional league tables have only appeared so far for state schools, but these two regions have two-thirds of the top 100. South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear, and Wales did not have a single school between them in the […]
Blame Jeremy Corbyn for the increasing number of public sector strikes
The total number of working days lost through labour disputes last year was, at just 170,000, the second lowest annual total since records began in 1891. What a difference a year can make. Southern Rail commuters have endured months of misery due to the prolonged series of strikes called by the RMT. Union members on […]
What England’s greatest ever batsman tells us about how to use statistics
Cricket fans will be delighted that Joe Root is establishing himself this summer as a truly great batsman. His Test match batting average of 55.49 is bettered by only 16 players from across the world since Test cricket began in 1877. Root currently sits seventh in the England career batting averages, and he clearly has […]
Why the economic picture tends to be rosier than initial estimates suggest
One of the surprises of last week was the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimate of economic growth in the second quarter of 2016, the period from April to the end of June. In the run up to Brexit, the economy expanded by 0.6 per cent on the first quarter of the year. This was […]
Why Britain and the US are streets ahead of Europe in innovation
The proposed takeover of the hugely successful ARM Holdings by the Japanese giant SoftBank is in the news. Cambridge-based ARM is well placed to exploit the white hot concept of the internet of things, highlighting the UK’s recent advances in this field. The UK has also performed well in biotechnology. But the industry came under […]
Sorry, Prime Minister: Legislation won’t end excess in the boardroom
A key platform of our new Prime Minister is to curb what she perceives to be boardroom excesses. “It is not anti-business to suggest that big business needs to change”, she said. One of her proposals is to allow employee and worker representatives to sit on company boards, a suggestion which has not gone down […]
Why austerity must be the order of the day for May’s chancellor
On the face of it, the Brexiteers have a bit of explaining to do. A week before the vote, Boris Johnson dismissed fears about the value of sterling, and accused the governor of the Bank of England of “talking the economy down”. Yet the economy does seem to have stalled, property funds have had to […]
How Stalin’s right-hand man could help the UK in EU exit negotiations
The topic of behavioural economics is very fashionable. But many economists remain rather sniffy about it, arguing that it often does not really add to what the discipline already knows. But one of its most distinctive and strongest results from a policy perspective is its emphasis on what is called the “architecture of choice”. Economists […]
The only way could be down for shares – and Brexit is just the catalyst
The Brexit vote creates many uncertainties, exciting or frightening depending on your predilection. One thing which is certain is that the Leave victory was delivered by the less-skilled sections of the electorate. It seems part of a more general stirring up of what we might think of as the dispossessed, those who feel left behind […]
