Letters to the editor February 6, 2013 Labour’s record [Re: Why Labour is the natural party of small business and entrepreneurs, Wednesday] While Chuka Umunna’s vision for small business is admirable, his ideas smack of the same old political rhetoric. Half-baked measures and ill thought-out plans are hardly sufficient to mend the problems facing British business. A temporary VAT cut will not [...]
US growth falls off a cliff again January 30, 2013 THE US economy shrank unexpectedly in the final three months of 2012, official figures showed yesterday, taking markets and analysts by surprise. Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve responded by holding interest rates at record lows and continuing to print $85bn (£53.8bn) a month to buy government bonds and mortgage backed securities. Stocks dipped on [...]
Austerity can’t have hurt UK growth because austerity hasn’t yet begun January 28, 2013 IN ORDINARY parlance, “austerity” means a period of cutbacks, spending reductions, and debt being paid down. So when voters hear talk of government austerity, most of them assume that’s what the government is doing. When they hear (a few) economists saying that weak growth has resulted from “austerity”, voters think cuts to public sector pay [...]
Britain isn’t classless but it’s time we all stopped worrying about it April 9, 2013 WHAT does a classless society look like? Is George Osborne its emblem – heir to a seventeenth baronetcy, but willing to drop his crystalline intonation to find common ground with a bunch of Morrison’s shelf stackers? Or is it only found in particular places? Perhaps class first died in London’s Docklands, gutted by war and [...]
Hunt asks City to provide cover for old age care February 11, 2013 HEALTH secretary Jeremy Hunt yesterday called on the City to help solve the funding crisis in long term care by providing new savings products, as he confirmed care fees would be capped at £75,000 for the elderly from 2017. “People will need to prepare and plan for social care costs as much as people prepare [...]
Brave start-up entrepreneurs may be set for a positive 2013 January 7, 2013 LAST year’s employment market was characterised by insecurity, scarcity of supply, and job losses in once buoyant sectors. Previously good reasons for staying in a City job could now be gone. While an uncertain jobs market may not be incentive enough alone for you to take the equally difficult path into entrepreneurship, according to Stuart [...]
Top football clubs call time on sugar daddies February 7, 2013 THE DAYS of mega-rich individuals, such as Roman Abramovich at Chelsea and Sheikh Mansour at Manchester City, lavishing billions on clubs in pursuit of instant success are over after England’s top teams agreed historic new financial rules. Premier League clubs will face points deductions if they lose more than £105m over a three-year period or [...]
Osborne revealed small measures to rebuild confidence December 5, 2012 THE background to George Osborne’s Autumn Statement was not encouraging. Growth has been very weak this year, and it comes in the aftermath of 2011’s inflation squeeze on consumers and reflects the ongoing euro crisis. The Office for Budget Responsibility has marked down its growth forecasts significantly. Taking this year together with the next three, [...]
Lobby calls for more state aid to businesses November 13, 2012 A PROMINENT business group this morning called for a radical Autumn Statement from chancellor George Osborne, asking for more money and support from the government. The government should re-allocate £3.8bn spending from welfare measures towards supporting house-builders, growing firms, and business investment the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said yesterday. “The chancellor’s Autumn Statement must [...]
Coalition U-turn on private prisons will undo 20 years of real progress February 22, 2013 THE coalition’s pursuit of competition in healthcare may have grabbed the headlines, but it was the Ministry of Justice that had made the most headway. In 2011, its Competition Strategy set out a “guiding principle” that competition will apply to all services not bound to the public sector by statute. After two decades of limited [...]