For the last five years, politicians of all shades have been banging on about how we should adopt this or that aspect of German economic policy. George Osborne argued in 2011: ‘We want to learn the lessons of the successful Mittelstand model, which has operated in Germany for many decades.’ Only a few weeks ago, Vince
The government is facing a fiscal crisis. In the face of that crisis David Cameron has promised to continue to raise pensions in real terms. The biggest item of welfare spending – it makes up around half – is therefore set to get bigger. Indeed, over the next 50 years, pensions spending will rise by
Conservatives will, no doubt, welcome the government’s announcement about A-levels today. Modules will be abolished. We will return to one tough exam at the end of the two years of study. Life will go back to the golden era of the 1970s when the top people got As and Bs and everybody else got a
The left are having a field day in traducing the concept of contracting-out as if, somehow, the failure of G4S to deliver its Olympic contract was some kind of slam dunk. It is curious that one does not hear the same voices raised against the use of public sector in-house teams in relation to the
It is very clear that the government cannot carry on borrowing at current rates and the coalition’s proposals for reducing government borrowing are prudent. However, today’s VAT rise is unnecessary. As has been said before, we did not get into this situation because the government taxes us too little. Ever since Gordon Brown abandoned his
George Osborne has probably done enough to ensure that the public finances are back on track and that the national debt will not run out of control. He has, however, taken only the first step on the road to reducing the size of the state. The government will spend the same proportion of national
