RAPID RESPONSES December 6, 2011 Tax and the City Congratulations to CityAM for raising the issue of the threat to the City by intrusive and unnecessary EU regulation [Calls for PM to protect the City, Monday]. As a London MEP I am fighting in the European Parliament to protect my constituents’ jobs and to preserve the City’s status as [...]
Opening up the Oyster card beats charging ahead with TfL’s expensive alternative December 5, 2011 LAST week the London Assembly Transport Committee (LATC) released its report on the future of ticketing in the capital. No big deal, you might think – if you assume the Oyster card seems to function rather well. The heart of the problem is that Oyster is not only far too expensive, but has become so [...]
Why I backed the CityAM charity appeal December 5, 2011 IF WE’RE serious about tackling global poverty, then aid alone isn’t going to do it. It is the power of private enterprise that can tip the scales. 90 per cent of the jobs created around the world are provided not by governments but by the private sector. Currently, more than 2.5bn people have no bank [...]
Competing currencies versus freed markets December 5, 2011 THE UK hasn’t always had a floating exchange rate, and a reasonably free market in foreign exchange is not to be sniffed at. But is competition always a step in the right direction? According to Friedrich Hayek, the rational choice in monetary regimes is between one of two alternatives – either a free banking system [...]
RAPID RESPONSES December 5, 2011 Paving the way Scott Wilson outlines a new vision for transport [Time to bring our roads into the market economy, Friday]. I congratulate him on opening up the debate. However, he is effectively proposing a long term solution; in the current economic climate, acceptance by government of the need for a redistribution of large annual [...]
The coalition’s pension plan is an insult to private sector workers, not to the unions December 4, 2011 THE recent concessions by the coalition, in respect of the public sector pension negotiations, verge on an unconditional surrender to the unions, perhaps on a scale unprecedented in the history of public sector labour negotiations. The price will be paid by those who are not at the negotiating table: the private sector and the young. [...]
A warning from the future: Don’t bank on old ways December 4, 2011 FOR banks, the path of lowest possible risk is to continue doing what they’ve always done; however this would be a grave mistake, as Alan Hughes wrote in the Forum last week [The challenge to banks: Who will lead on service, Wednesday]. Not only is service important, as Hughes argues, but with technology shifting the [...]
Keep a new Heathrow runway on the table December 4, 2011 GRIDLOCK is often the outcome of public sector walkouts so we can be grateful that last week’s strikes did not, as feared, severely impact upon Heathrow. Civil servants and others stepped in to prevent the lengthy queues and angry scenes that would have damaged our international reputation with both tourists and businesses. As a world-leading [...]
RAPID RESPONSES December 4, 2011 UnCommons sense As a tax-and-spend liberal who believes in big government I am confounded to find myself agreeing with Dr Tim Morgan [There’s one economic policy the coalition has yet to try, last Tuesday]. He points to some truths that have been forgotten by all parties in this debate: growth is unlikely to come from [...]
Time to bring our roads into the market economy: A bold vision for better transport December 1, 2011 IMAGINE a private utility that charged customers the same regardless of the service it provided. Imagine it raises £32bn in revenue per annum from those customers, but spends less than a third of it on maintaining and upgrading its assets. Everyone depends on its service, yet it is unreliable, frequently overwhelmed by demand and in [...]