MEPs have voted against Malta’s controversial scheme to sell Maltese citizenship for €650,000. The scheme is designed to attract wealthy foreigners from countries such as Russia and China, in order to boost the small island’s economy. Malta joined the EU in 2004; it is part of the Schengen area (and has a visa waiver agreement… [Read More]
The UK Statistics Authority has withdrawn its designation of ‘National Statistics’ from statistics derived from Police Recorded Crime. It is an exaggeration to describe the designation as a ‘gold-standard’. The report itself explains : Designation as National Statistics should not be interpreted to mean that the statistics are always correct.
According to the papers this morning, Ed Miliband is considering the idea of a cap on the size of banks, specifically their share of the current account market. The biggest four UK banks hold roughly 80% of all current accounts between them, essentially meaning they are too precious/dangerous to fail. Miliband, who has referred to… [Read More]
This weekend has seen so many EU stories that I felt I couldn’t focus on just one, but did not want to cram comment on several into a few hundred words. Instead, I’ve used the latests pronouncements from William Hague, Chris Grayling and Ken Clarke to plot a very rough table of Tories’ stances towards… [Read More]
The Turkish government has found itself engulfed in a political crisis that could potentially threaten Prime Minister Erdogan’s chances at being re-elected next year. A cloud of suspicion is hovering over the prime minister’s inner circle amidst allegations of bribery and fraud in a scandal that seems to be edging closer and closer to Erdogan… [Read More]
If this government is vulnerable to any charge it is that economic recovery has benefited few people. Wage rises are still below inflation and job creation has been largely inflated by temporary, low paid work – jobs in low-paying sectors rose at twice the rate of overall job growth in 2012. Having wedded itself to… [Read More]
The triple lock for uprating pensions is poorly understood and excessively generous.
Michael Gove has a plan so cunning it might be appointed Minister of State for Cunning in the next reshuffle. The plan is to write an essay for the Daily Mail criticising a broad mass of Leftists historians for their interpretation of the First World War. Gove asserts that they advance ‘myths’ such as the… [Read More]
Greece has now taken over the rotating EU Presidency, which it will hold until June this year. There has been criticism from left and right about whether or not the debt-ridden country will be able to cope with governing the EU, as it struggles with the ongoing financial crisis and its damaging effects on Greece’s… [Read More]
Migration needs to cause a lot of growth to increase the real per capita measure of GDP.