Category Archives: Uncategorized

               It is predictable and sad that the south of the UK is threatened with water shortages.              I remember urging the last government to put in more reservoir and desalination capacity. I asked in my news  release whether they wanted to greet Olympic athletes and visitors  to London in 2012 with words telling [...]

               Let me court unpopularity. I am going to defend the City of London.               The Global Financial Centres Index ranks London as the world’s Number One Financial Centre. It stays a little ahead of New York, and Hong Kong, which have been fairly consistent as the top three for some time. The only [...]

             We learn that the Foreign Office and doubtless the State Department are most concerned that Iran is fast approaching the ability to produce nuclear weapons. Let us suppose that on this occasion the intelligence is correct. We know that intelligence about weapons of mass destruction  was false in the case of Iraq.              [...]

            Today in Parliament at the instigation of the Backbench Business Committee we will be debating Iran.  Many of us feel it is high time Parliament debated the whole question of UK intervention in the Middle East. We need to review what has come of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. We need to [...]

              When I have been involved in turning round companies in difficulties I have always concentrated on managing the cash.  When the banks are becoming  reluctant to lend more – or want some of their money back – the business has to concentrate on getting more cash in and letting less cash out. It’s [...]

            The future is China’s for the taking. In the story so far, very hard working Chinese have built a huge surplus from successful exports. They have more than $3 trillion in the reserves. Millions of people have left the land and moved into more productive jobs in factories. China has grown to understand [...]

                 Recent figures revealed the extent of transfers between the regions in the UK sterling area.  It reminds us that the Uk is far from a perfect economic area for a monetary union, and reminds us that monetary unions are in practice expressions of nationhood. If we were only thinking of economic sense, London [...]

  This site has drawn attention to fundamental problems with the UK economy as a result of the Credit Crunch and the huge increases in state borrowing in recent years. The first is the broken banks. The authorities are relying on huge money printing operations. This money can only subsidise the public sector. The failure [...]

                  Greece has around one sixth the population of the UK, yet is has about the same number of military personnel on the payroll.  The Greek military comprises  around 170,000 active personnel paid by the state, with a further 280,000 in the reserve forces. Maybe instead of heaping ever more misery on the Greek [...]

              The public sector, as we have seen, likes to assume that all last year’s current  public spending is a given and should be repeated next year. If you want something extra, as the public sector always does, when budgets are tight, you therefore have to cut something.             Council officials live in hope [...]