Author Archives: johnredwood

On Wednesday morning the Today programme had the good idea of going to Germany to find out what they are thinking about the EU and Brexit. A few patsy interviews later we were little the wiser. There was no cross examination of how Germany is changing, with the Eurosceptic AFD now the official Opposition and […]

The NATO Allies are sure that the Syrian regime unleashed chemical weapons against the civilian population and rebel fighters. Russia denies it, and Inspectors may go in to see for themselves what evidence remains from the violence some days later. President Obama made the use of chemical ordnance a red line Assad should not cross, […]

On Friday 27th April at 11 am in the Old Library at All Souls College, High Street Oxford I am giving an open lecture to answer this question. I will examine the different ways the public and private sectors work together to deliver public services, and offer a new way of analysing services for their […]

Three recent posts have shown how the government has used higher taxes to stop or reduce activities that it does not approve, with considerable success. These policies have slowed the economy a bit as a result. Given that the government knows how to do this, wouldn’t it be a good idea if it did more […]

This evening I have been asked to debate Brexit and our future relationship with the EU with Lord Adonis. On the eve of this event I just want to reassure him I do know exactly how he feels. I remembered the huge misgivings and unhappiness I felt when I learned the result of the 1975 […]

The average bus in 2016/17 carried just 11.9 passengers. If you excluded the very crowded peak time service busies in our major towns and cities, the average figure for bus use would be considerably lower. It makes many bus services an expensive way of carrying a few people, and means there is a substantial output […]

The government is quite keen to use small tax rises on particular products to change consumer behaviour. These seem to be very successful in their own terms. Let’s take the 5p bag tax. 5p is not a large sum of money on the average supermarket shop, though the average supermarket shop would often need more […]