Chinese solar panels win – everyone else loses
29 July 2013Over the weekend, EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht capitulated in the trade war with China over the pricing of solar panels.
The Blog
Ideological blindness to the facts on social mobility
26 July 2013There is an ideological blindness on the left which seems to preclude them from acknowledging any biological basis to cognitive differences. I discuss this in Social Mobility Myths and I experienced it yet again this week when I was a guest on Radio 4’s The Moral Maze.
The Balance of Competences Review – oddly imbalanced
The first four reports of the Balance of Competences Review, an audit designed to look at what the EU does and how it affects the UK, were published earlier this week. The review was launched by Foreign Secretary William Hague, in order to provide the British public, who are widely apathetic on most EU issues,… [Read More]
Two quarters of non-negative growth
25 July 2013Two quarters in a row better than the last is good news but is no substitute for proper rebalancing.
Applications to university resume growth halted in 2012
UCAS data suggest demand for university is healthy, even without the sensationalism.
Quantitative easing and the democratic deficit
24 July 2013It is a strange subject that brings together the Marxist academic Radhika Desei and the libertarian, Spectator editor Fraser Nelson together in agreement. Both authors criticise the policy of quantitative easing (QE) that central banks on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Bank of England, have pursued since the financial crisis. The policy involves… [Read More]
Kudos to the BBC for nuancing the healthcare debate
23 July 2013The BBC often comes under fire for its supposed political bias. On the one hand, many on the right have always felt it has a “lefty bias”, while on the left, a bizarre conspiracy theory has recently taken hold that the BBC “betrayed” the NHS by failing to report on the Health and Social Care… [Read More]
Japanese government wrong to be critical of ‘Brexit’
22 July 2013Over the weekend, the Japanese embassy in London made a contribution to the coalition’s ‘EU balance of competences review’. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has just won a secure mandate through gains in the Upper House for his party, the Liberal Democratic Party, and his coalition partners, New Komeito.
Screening out crimes in London
18 July 2013The police need to bring more crimes into the easy-to-solve category as an alternative to screening-out or futile pursuit.
The giant firms of global capitalism
17 July 2013‘China will not buy up the world’ writes Martin Wolf in the FT. Contrary to the common perception of China gobbling up Western companies; it in fact receives $324 billion more capital from foreigners than it invests abroad. Drawing on the work of Peter Nolan, Cambridge University Professor of Development, Wolf explains why this is… [Read More]