Ryan Bourne - 20 November 2012 - Economy
That’s the question I examine in my City AM column today. The answer is a resounding ‘no’. I’m not going to rehearse the arguments from the column again here, but thought it might be an idea to provide some graphical representation of the arguments.1) Everyone has got better off in ...
Ryan Bourne - 15 November 2012 - Economy
Since David Cameron’s conference speech in October about Britain being in a ‘global race’, many commentators have written negatively about the effects of the rise of the east. The latest example is a column by Martin Kettle for the Guardian. The common thread in all of these columns is to ...
Adam Memon - 12 November 2012 - Politics
Remembrance Sunday is the one day of the year when we stand together to honour the millions of British and Commonwealth men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. We remember the families of those who were killed; we remember those who were maimed and injured in ...
Ryan Bourne - 09 November 2012 - Economy
That’s one of the questions Douglas Carswell MP attempts to answer in his new book ‘The End of Politics and the Birth of iDemocracy’.To many people the answer is simple: democracy. This view was most recently expressed by Ron Paul in the aftermath of Mitt Romney’s defeat to President Obama ...
Kathy Gyngell - 07 November 2012 - Prisons & Addiction
‘Let ‘em use’ or ‘lock ‘em up’. Recent demands for drug legalisation suggest that drugs policy is a matter of ‘either/ or’. And that’s what the voters of Colorado and Washington must have believed to risk this ‘putting the lunatics in charge of the asylum’ moment.But this polarisation is misinformed ...
Ryan Bourne - 06 November 2012 - Economy
The Coalition government aims to eliminate the structural component of the current deficit (i.e. the bit excluding public investment) within five years, and for debt as a proportion of GDP to be falling by the end of the Parliament. As I explained in my City AM column this morning, on ...
Ryan Bourne - 02 November 2012 - US Politics
Last night I took part in a Cambridge Union debate on the motion ‘This house would re-elect Obama’. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the crowd was highly in favour of the incumbent President. The motion passed by something like 320 to 50-odd (I can’t really remember the exact number). But given that even ...
Serena Crawshay-Williams - 02 November 2012 - Public Services
Michael Gove’s education reforms will go some way to improving the current system, but work still has to be done to ensure the needs of the students themselves are met.The current exam system is certainly not ideal; specifications are so precise students are not given a deserved freedom in their ...
Tom Burkard - 30 October 2012 - Public Services
Tom Burkard is a Visiting Professor of Education Policy at the University of Derby. He is the co-author of the Sound Foundations reading and spelling programmes, which are rapidly gaining recognition as the most cost-effective means of preventing reading failure.John McIntosh, the former head of London Oratory, is a key member of ...
Ryan Bourne - 25 October 2012 - Economy
I suppose it’s at least fair to be consistent. Given the doom and gloom attached to any preliminary GDP estimate which shows negative output growth, at least it’s symmetric to rejoice in better-than-expected figures. In America it would be annualised up – we’re growing an annualised rate of 4% per ...
Ryan Bourne - 24 October 2012 - Economy
I was very disappointed by an article by Michael White (of the Guardian) for the Health Service Journal which quoted our examination of the progressivity of taxes and transfers in the UK. Talking about the recent debates here and in Scotland on what proportion of people are net recipients or ...
Jeremy Jennings - 22 October 2012 - Politics
My guess is that supporters of the CPS are not greatly interested in the Big Society. I might be wrong, but I suspect that for most the priorities lie in limiting the activities of the state, cutting taxation, and reducing the deficit. Ending big government rather than crafting the big ...
Kieron O'Hara - 22 October 2012 - Politics
Perhaps more than at any other point in modern memory, the Conservative movement is being pulled in many different directions. How can these competing political voices coalesce into one successful vision for the Party as a whole? Dr Kieron O’Hara explores the various strands of thought. Conservative politics are all over ...
Matt Qvortrup - 17 October 2012 - Constitution & Democracy
Referendums expert Matt Qvortrup of Cranfield University looks at the agreement for a Scottish independence referendum and questions which side has secured the advantage. All might be fair in love and war, but the same is not true in referendums. And the referendum in Scotland will be fought as much in ...
Ryan Bourne - 11 October 2012 - Economy
The atmosphere at the Conservative party conference was far more optimistic and upbeat than I expected, despite the on-going economic problems. One gets the feeling that the party is the only one that really gets just how hard-earned real (as opposed to debt fuelled) economic growth is, as evidenced by ...
