Category Archives: Uncategorized

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 […]

In the spring budget of 2016 just before the referendum the government decided it wanted to rein in buy to let housing investment. It introduced a 3% extra Stamp Duty on BTL and other second homes, and announced the phased removal of interest relief on purchasing Buy to Let property. I presume the government is […]

The Treasury has hit diesel car sales hard as the government wished. They have managed to bring the whole new car market down for a year by pushing up taxes in the Spring 2017 budget and leaving open future tax attacks on diesels in particular. People fear further action by national and local government. It […]

Nissan, Toyota and Vauxhall have all now announced important investments in the UK post the referendum. We were told the opposite would happen by Remain. During our tine in the EU Ford pulled out of making vehicles here and BL collapsed completely.