Politicians and the press are complicit in providing simplistic solutions to complex problems. The public sector should offer an alternative approach by shutting down PR departments, eschewing spin-friendly press releases and, instead, telling the unvarnished truth Read more
The Prime Minister’s aversion to extra borrowing is coming under sustained attack. There is now a strong argument to increase spending in next week’s Budget in order to build more houses and boost the economy Read more
Vince Cable was praising the UK’s flexible workforce at the LibDem conference. So why is the government proposing measures that make it harder to use temporary staff? Read more
More austerity will not lead to growth in the UK. We should learn from successful economies across the world, where government involvement in the private sector is accepted and has helped provide stability and boost business Read more
… check out the public sector morale. Strikes may be the least of the government’s worries as the cuts really start to hit home Read more
I know the government is getting desperately confused in its higher education policy, but the answer is not to introduce a two-tier fees system for home students. Read more...
Business Secretary Vince Cable is in many ways the biggest disappointment of the coalition. He is a shadow of his former self, showing little sign of the sparkling wit that brought forth the cruellest jibes against Gordon Brown when he was the LibDems’ stand-in leader. Read more...
Leading Liberal Democrats, including Vince Cable and David Laws, have been defending the coalition’s policy of substantial public spending cuts in recent days, in part through an appeal to Keynes. Their central thesis is that the economy will only recover if private investment spending accelerates, that private investment spending will only accelerate if interest rates are low, and that interest rates will only remain low if the government reduces its deficit quickly. Read more...
Vince Cable, the business and universities secretary, is a man with a problem. Despite Nick Clegg’s best efforts, the Liberal Democrats fought the election on a ludicrous higher education policy of scrapping fees. Now, faced with being in charge of HE policy, Cable has to perform contortions to try to get himself off the hook. Hence his graduate tax idea. Read more...
A government’s ability to respond quickly to economic shocks depends on its basic beliefs. This might be a problem in a coalition holding very different views Read more...
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