Monthly Archives: August 2009

I had an easy decision to make yesterday. I was offered another one of those reality style TV opportunities. I sent back a rapid “No”. This one was a bit more imaginative. They wanted me to spend a week living on a Council estate so I could “experience the everyday lives and issues of the [...]

So will the Bank of England want to print another £25 billion or not? That is today’s question. When they started the programme the Bank said it should be judged by whether it eased lending through the banks. It has not done that so far. Money remains quite tight if you are a small business [...]

Far from saving the world, this government’s banking policy has been a disaster. First they bungled their monetary and regulatory policy allowing the uncontrolled boom. Then they helped bankrupt some of the leading players. Now we have too few banks, too little credit and too many losses from nationalised banks they should never have bought. [...]

Some have asked for numbers to back up the argument that trains are often not very green. An overall hypothetical calculation has been made which says that if all freight went by truck instead of train and if all train passengers went by coach carbon emissions would be 13% lower, given current generating methods for [...]

Northern Rock has weighed in with six month losses of £724 million. £122 million of that is current loss, on top of the £602 million of losses on past poor loans. No-one in government seems to think that is either bad or surprising. Forecasters think the second half should see something similar. If you own [...]

The release of the interview last night with David Cameron on Radio 4 was an important development. In it David quite clearly stated that the Health department, like all others, will need to make economies. Health is not exempt form the necessary pressure which needs to be introduced into every department to do more for [...]

I was pleased to read today the Conservatives announce two policies for the BBC – disclosure of all remuneration for stars and executives earning six figure salaries, and the sale of Radio 1. That’s a start. As the Sunday Times rightly points out the BBC now also offers effectively a free on line newspaper as [...]

This has become the new and interesting question this summer. A long summer break has been traditional, and used to pass without much comment. Maybe then people accepted that MPs worked crazy hours for the rest of the year when Parliament was in session, regulary going on to midnight or beyond, that they thought the [...]

We know that running train services is a very expensive way of travel for taxpayers to support, and we know that fourteen times as many journeys are made by car as by train. Rail has a small market share despite all the subsidy and encouragement. The case for trains has increasingly relied on the assertion [...]