Solving immigration is a question of economics
Across Europe and the USA, immigration is the hottest of political topics. How many immigrants is too many? Who should be allowed in and who should be turned away? How far does our obligation to help refugees actually go? But underlying the often heated discussion lies the fact that many Western economies have become dependent on immigration. In many [...]
Protest votes
Francis Fukuyama famously claimed that with Western liberal democracy we have reached ‘the end of history’ or the final state of man’s sociological evolution. We have [...]
Hunt pays up, doctors stand down
The long running dispute between Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and the British Medical Association over a new Junior Doctors contract may finally be at an end. Yesterday a deal [...]
UK Inflation figures: No rate hikes on the horizon
Another month of low inflation in the UK. April CPI was up 0.3%, due to falls in air fares, vehicles, clothing and social housing rents which offset the rising oil price. The [...]
Its ze Germans’ fault
Martin Wolf is at it again in the FT this week, scolding Germany for running a current account surplus and for their criticism of the ECB. In the Keynesian utopia occupied by [...]
The depressing (lack of) debate about tax
The level of taxation has always been one of the most hotly contested topics in politics, with the debate pitting those who favour taxes to rise in order to pay for more [...]
Let me hear you say it: ‘We don’t like Trump’
The UK doesn’t like Donald Trump. We politically correct, superior, civilised Democrat sympathizers think he is a bully, a brute, a Neanderthal and not sensitive at all to [...]
Another irrelevant election
Tomorrow we have the local elections to look forward to. And boy, are they exciting! Actually, the only remotely exciting aspect is the implications for Jeremy Corbyn’s [...]
Robots and local elections: difficult to predict
Labour Deputy Leader Tom Watson is concerned. The rise of robots, he says, poses a danger which needs to be addressed. Low-skilled jobs will be threatened and will lead to [...]
The EU’s mad fight against Google
Last Wednesday, the EU charged Google with using its dominant Android operating system to hinder competition. The EU’s competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, is [...]
UK unemployment: the Living Wage in action
The National Living Wage of £7.20/ hour is now law. UK unemployment rose for the first time in 7 months. Is there a connection? Too early to tell, some might say – but we [...]