Author Archives: johnredwood

Teachers want a pay rise. Schools lobby for larger  budgets. Ministers have now had a second go at producing their Fairer Funding formula. This combines a higher total with a different distribution, as under the current one some schools receive small amounts and some receive up to twice as much as the lowest funded schools […]

I do not see the Boris article as a leadership bid or an offside comment. It is a clear statement of the possible gains from Brexit, by a senior member of the government speaking for the government.  It is a  reminder of how we can and should be better off by implementing the decision of […]

Productivity is an ugly sounding word from economics. Some are worried by it as they fear it means job losses, restructurings, making people work harder. Curiously enough it is a word which apparently unites the warring political parties. They all claim to want higher productivity. Some even understand that increased productivity is the key to […]

Today the pound got back to $1.36, a fraction off the pre referendum low earlier in 2016. This follows hints that the Bank might put interest rates back up to 0.5% where they were before the vote. Given the wish to blame everything on Brexit maybe we shoukd say thanks to Brexit the pound has […]

The decision of the UK to guarantee it would spend 0.7% of its National Income every year on Overseas Aid has been contentious. Some dislike the idea of committing to spend without assessing need and capacity to spend wisely. Some dislike the way the UK is one of the few countries to honour this international […]

Mr Juncker’s speech yesterday about the state of his Union contains few surprises. He confirms that “the Euro is meant to be the single currency of the Union as a whole” and sets out a way to make it so. He reasserts the primacy of all EU law and of the European Court of Justice. […]

Lord Bridges, the Minister in the Lords who recently resigned from the Brexit Department, advises us we should offer continuing contributions to the EU for a transitional period. He tells us Brexit is very complicated. There is nothing complicated about what we are doing. We had a long debate. The public decided to leave. We […]