Category Archives: Uncategorized

The left’s analysis that says inequality is the key to understanding Brexit, Trump and much else needs to make a distinction between inequalities of power and inequalities of income. Many populist voters in the USA and Europe have cast their votes against concentrations of unaccountable or dogmatic political power in the elites that control their […]

Listening to the “liberal left” trying to explain the Trump phenomenon is a frustrating experience. Of course I agree with them that all elected politicians should condemn any efforts to whip up racial hatred. What interests me is they say that the big Trump vote was only possible because of the large inequalities they see […]

Some time ago after giving a talk I was asked by a student at one of our top universities if I thought the A levels I had were of the same value and difficulty as the ones he had most recently obtained. I was both pleased to have a question out of the ordinary, and […]

The ONS presented a healthy picture of employment growth in the year to June 2017. There are 338,000 extra jobs in our economy. Unemployment has fallen by 157,000 on the year. Many of the new jobs are full time jobs. It also showed a small rise in average weekly pay, though it reported the figure […]

Yesterday the RPI for July told us that rail fares will go up by 3.6% next year. As I reported yesterday on this site, costs have been mounting at the nationalised Network Rail which supplies the expensive track, stations and train slots. The railways will want this substantial fare rise, which always bears heaviest on […]

The BBC did its best this morning to talk inflation up, inviting on interviewees prepared to say inflation would rise owing to a weaker pound. They were wrong. Inflation stayed stable, with food prices dipping a little. The rise was sustained by Council taxes and associated housing costs and utility bills contributing. These are largely […]

Network Rail had a disappointing last year. Their accounts for 2016-17, published in July reveal that they were £172 m net or £424m gross below target financially. Their operating costs rose by £124 m or 4.6%, well ahead of wage inflation. Total debt was up by £4.7bn, and debt costs were £370m more in the […]

I asked the service provider to protect this site from an excessive number of commercial and automated responses. They have come up with the picture question system which some of you dislike. I also have to go through it each time I moderate and find it works OK. I do not have available another system […]

There have been various studies of migration arguing that migrants that come to the UK make a net contribution, paying more in income tax and National Insurance than they receive in benefits. These studies ignore the wider picture and do not look carefully enough at all the budgets involved. They are not based on a […]

It is not easy being the world’s superpower. Mr Trump swept into office on a programme of America First. He envisaged doing good deals for the USA. He did not seem keen on military interventions around the world of the kind favoured by the Clintons and the Bushes, by the State department and the Pentagon. […]