The dangers of confusing democracy with populism
Last week I received a communication from the Electoral Commission about the coming EU referendum. The pamphlet states the case for each side and gives instructions on how to vote. At first sight that...
View ArticleWhy the European Union is not the United States of Europe
There are many different visions of the economic and political future of Europe – different from each other, some related but distinct from each other, others incompatible. One vision is of a federal...
View ArticleWhy Scotland is different
As a schoolboy in Edinburgh, I was taught that, long before the union with England, Scotland had been a cosmopolitan country. The ports on the east coast showed the influence of trade with the...
View ArticleHinkley Point: Another Brexit silver lining
For those looking for some silver lining from the Brexit outcome, there is the good news of the abolition of the Department for Energy and Climate Change and its reabsorption into the Business...
View ArticleWe need incremental infrastructure improvements, not grand projects
We need more infrastructure spending. With long term interest rates around zero and a sluggish economy, the opportunity seems obvious. And with a new Chancellor able to jettison George Osborne’s...
View ArticleWhy are British governments so bad at infrastructure decisions?
The government has decided, again, to increase London’s airport capacity by building a third runway at Heathrow. If all goes well — and there is absolutely nothing in the vexed history of this issue to...
View ArticleBusiness is not politics
After the failed popular uprising in East Germany in 1953, Bertolt Brecht wrote sardonically: …. the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could win it back only By redoubled...
View ArticleUgly descriptions of the the market economy undermine its real successes
It was, perhaps, predictable that high taxes on business and the rich would be central to the manifesto of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party. Twenty years after Tony Blair successfully staked his leadership...
View ArticleUK needs to expand house building
The UK housing market is “broken”. Even the government agrees on that. But who broke it? And how to fix it? “Teach a parrot the terms supply and demand and you have an economist,” said Thomas Carlyle,...
View ArticleThe Covid Hangover
John joined Dame Minouche Shafik and Gemma Tetlow on Radio 4’s The Bottom Line to discuss the impact of coronavirus on the UK’s economy and debt levels. Listen to the discussion here. The post The...
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