Miliband’s speech: Powerful rhetoric but muddled thinking October 2, 2012 IF standing up and delivering a lengthy speech fluently and without notes were all that it took to become Prime Minister, Ed Miliband would be a shoo-in after yesterday’s performance. Modern Britain – and especially the politically engaged minority – has in common with ancient Greece an exaggerated respect for rhetoric, delivery and articulacy. On [...]
Miliband’s speech: Powerful rhetoric but muddled thinking October 2, 2012 IF standing up and delivering a lengthy speech fluently and without notes were all that it took to become Prime Minister, Ed Miliband would be a shoo-in after yesterday’s performance. Modern Britain – and especially the politically engaged minority – has in common with ancient Greece an exaggerated respect for rhetoric, delivery and articulacy. On [...]
A strange kind of green shoots: Welcome to the New Normal October 1, 2012 GREEN shoots in the economy are a bit like beauty: they are in the eye of the beholder. Such is the confused, contradictory state of the British economy that one can just as easily be bullish or bearish, depending on which facts one chooses to pick out. For every piece of good news, one can [...]
A strange kind of green shoots: Welcome to the New Normal October 1, 2012 GREEN shoots in the economy are a bit like beauty: they are in the eye of the beholder. Such is the confused, contradictory state of the British economy that one can just as easily be bullish or bearish, depending on which facts one chooses to pick out. For every piece of good news, one can [...]
Ed Miliband needs to stop distorting statistics September 30, 2012 IF you want to know why I find it hard to be optimistic about Britain’s economic future, look no further than the political parties’ annual conferences – this weekend it was the turn of the Labour party to pander to prejudice and envy and advocate policies that will end up retarding growth, reducing job creation [...]
Time for MPs to summon statisticians over endless revisions September 27, 2012 IT is hard to know whether we should believe anything we are told by our statistical masters. Originally, we were informed that the economy shrank by 0.7 per cent in the second quarter; then that it fell by 0.5 per cent; yesterday this was revised down to 0.4 per cent. The big picture hasn’t changed. [...]
Troubled Britain should not mock the Eurozone’s nightmare September 26, 2012 EUROPEAN markets follow a well-trodden path. A bailout plan is announced, sending investors into a frenzy of happiness; nothing much happens; data is published showing one or more countries in even greater crisis than before; everybody panics; equity markets plunge and bond yields jump; another bailout pledge is made. And so on. We are now [...]
Troubled Britain should not mock the Eurozone’s nightmare September 26, 2012 EUROPEAN markets follow a well-trodden path. A bailout plan is announced, sending investors into a frenzy of happiness; nothing much happens; data is published showing one or more countries in even greater crisis than before; everybody panics; equity markets plunge and bond yields jump; another bailout pledge is made. And so on. We are now [...]
Fiscal crisis continues to threaten our struggling economy September 25, 2012 IT is hard to disagree with Standard & Poor’s that the Eurozone is likely to see zero growth until 2014. The situation is worsening again, especially in Spain, where the budget crisis is intensifying amid separationist tensions, and in Greece, which could soon be demoted to being an emerging market again by the FTSE. None [...]
Britain needs more venture capitalism – not a state bank September 25, 2012 HERE is a simple question. What do you think would do more to help the provision of finance for small firms? Vince Cable’s new state bank, which will begin its operations in 18 months’ time, or a radically improved tax system to improve the provision of equity financing and venture capital? In other words, is [...]