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We cannot afford an anti-business agenda

This article is an excerpt from our Growth Bulletin, written by Adam Memon, Brian Sturgess and Tim Knox. To read the full article, click here. To sign up for our mailings, use the form on the left of our newsletter page.GDP AND EMPLOYMENT ACCELERATERecently released data on GDP and employment continue to show ...

The Green Council Tax Deception

The Green run council of Brighton and Hove is planning a referendum on a 4.75% rise in the council tax that it levies on its constituents. Instead of looking for ways to save money as so many other councils have done, the Greens want to raise council tax to pay ...

On the economy, Labour has been wrong, wrong and wrong again

Today’s PMQs will probably be more awkward than usual for Ed Miliband. Last week’s excellent labour market figures combined with yesterday’s good GDP figures have added to the pressure on Miliband to come up with a credible, coherent economic plan. This is increasingly urgent because the reality is that on ...

Appointing a Pub Tsar

Calls for a statutory code for pubcos and a 'Pub Tsar' are another potentially damaging manifestation of politicians wanting to be seen to be doing something, writes CPS Research Fellow Keith Boyfield. MPs of all parties are demonstrating a new-found interest in being photographed at their local pub. What explains this ...

Good GDP figures but let’s not get carried away

Today’s quarterly GDP figures are encouraging but we must remember that we still have far to go before we can truly say that the economy has recovered. Q4 GDP growth of 0.7% is good, especially considering the average of quarterly growth figures since the beginning of 2008 is -0.04%.The figure ...

If Miliband’s Labour party is pro-business, what does anti-business look like?

Despite his protestations on the Andrew Marr show yesterday, Ed Balls’ call for the reintroduction of the 50% income tax rate is just the latest in a line of self-defeating and anti-business proposals. His rather glib line that “this is not an anti-business agenda… this is an anti-business as usual ...

Britain’s labour market is outperforming America’s

Today’s extremely positive labour market figures show employment increasing by a massive 280,000 over the last three months and the unemployment rate falling from 7.4% to 7.1%. What is also interesting to note is that on a relative basis Britain’s labour market is outperforming America’s. On the employment rate, employment ...

Miliband’s missing millions

Tim Montgomerie tweeted last week about the inconsistency of Labour’s support for bank bonus taxes and their support for caps on those same bonuses. Many of Labour’s spending commitments such as extra childcare and their “Youth Jobs Guarantee” are supposedly to be funded from the reintroduction of the tax on ...

Stop injecting recovering addict with ultra-loose money

This article is an excerpt from our Growth Bulletin, authored by Adam Memon and Tim Knox. To read the full article, click here. To sign up for our mailings, use the form on the left of our newsletter page.Economy would be between 17% and 21% larger without impact of Recession.Recovery taking longer than ...

Miliband is no saviour of the middle class

Taxes and inflation are two of the key issues facing the middle class. Yet in today’s Daily Telegraph, Ed Miliband fails to propose any convincing ideas to cut taxes and consider the effect on the middle class of extraordinary monetary policy over the past 5 years. Proclaiming himself the saviour ...

Minimum wage hike advocates’ claims are contradictory

My City AM column today talks about one of the unintended consequences of hiking the minimum wage, a policy more and more people are jumping on board with. I argue those who say there will not be employment consequences from raising the cost of labour seemingly ignore the rise of ...

Scruton on conservatism

Inspired by philosopher Roger Scruton's vision for modern conservatism, Dr. Kieron O'Hara writes on why we need a Conservative Party that appeals to a wider constituency, while maintaining the essential principles of liberty, personal responsibility and a smaller state.Given that conservatives are supposedly the ‘stupid party’, it’s extraordinary what a depth ...