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 […]
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 […]
Budget 2021: The political consensus on low taxes could be completely wrong
In the run up to most Budgets there is almost always one key question shaping debate: should the screws be tightened or the floodgates opened? This time round, a near unanimous consensus has arisen. Taxes should not go up, for fear of jeopardising the recovery. Even the Leader of the Labour Party has signed up to […]
Can we innovate better outside the EU? Economic lessons from the Nobel prize winner
Gordon Brown’s time as chancellor will be remembered for many things. A sense of humour would be conspicuously absent from this list. But he provoked a great deal of mirth unintentionally in a speech shortly before the 1997 General Election on the theme of “post-neoclassical endogenous growth theory”. Perhaps the last laugh is with Brown. The […]
The UK could teach the Eurozone a thing or two about successful monetary unions
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) published last week some figures which show how a successful monetary union works in practice. It is not obvious at first sight, from the dry heading: “regional public sector finances”. The ONS collects information on the amounts of public spending and money raised in taxes across the regions of […]
Valuing the Future. Why Climate Change Agreement is Hard
The two week long Paris conference on climate change seems to drag on interminably. There are obviously many reasons why such summits find it difficult to reach meaningful agreements. But a fundamental one is that the electorates of the West are being asked to bear substantial costs right here and now, in return for a […]
CEO compensation and Jamaican demands for reparations: two sides of the same coin
David Cameron’s visit to Jamaica last week led to vociferous demands for the UK to pay the Caribbean island billions of pounds in reparations for slavery. Most people here reacted with predictable eye-rolls and sighs. Slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire in 1833, nearly two centuries ago. Jamaica has been independent since 1962, over […]
Markets are good, but we need clear signals
Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of the general election result is the abuse which is now being heaped on the metropolitan liberal elite from many quarters. Theirs is truly a difficult mind set to comprehend, based as it is on an unshakeable belief in their own omniscience. Yet this is confounded on an almost daily […]
The 38 per cent tipping point on tax
Ed Miliband’s proposal to tax non-doms more harshly may be good, populist politics. But does it make economic sense? At most, the yield will be around £1 billion, even if people do not alter their behaviour in response to the change in policy. The actual amount generated could even be negative if enough non-doms leave the […]
The ‘Gentleman in Whitehall’ does not know best
The government is relaxed about people cashing in their pension schemes to buy a Lamborghini. But the left-leaning liberal commentariat is certainly not. Abuse has been heaped onto George Osborne’s Budget measure of removing the requirement for people to buy an annuity. The main thrust of the attacks is that individuals may act irresponsibly. They […]
