Most companies estimate they are analysing just 12 per cent of the data they hold, and it is likely the government is doing far worse than that. As the array of data collected about us rapidly expands – with our mobile phones, cars and Oyster cards recording more and more information about who we are, where […]
UK politicians may have spent the last three months debating the finer points of what post-Brexit Britain will look like: Hard Brexit or soft Brexit? Norway-extra or Switzerland-light? Yet little attention has been spent looking at the other side of the equation. What will be the impact of Brexit not in Britain, but in Brussels? Many […]
Ever since the times of Karl Marx, left-wing economists have focused on capital – who owns it, and how can they use it to exploit the working class to make a buck. Thankfully, Marxist predictions of the proletariat rising up in revolution and seizing ownership of the means of production have rather spectacularly failed to […]
Many well to do Londoners who bought their homes twenty years ago have become millionaires by sitting on their backsides in front of their televisions. The astronomic rise in house prices has been somewhat less so rosy for the rest of the country. Rent now makes up two fifths of private tenant’s outgoings, and the […]
Last month, Theresa May announced the return of a formal industrial strategy to British economic policy. Under Cameron’s ministry, Sajid Javid was loath to consider any policy that smacked of state intervention as Business, Innovation and Skills minister. Indeed, one of the first programmes on Javid’s chopping block at BIS was the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS). […]
For all the complaints of Labour moderates, one of the most common is that Jeremy Corbyn has not offered a clear set of policies in opposition to the Conservative Party. This is not a new problem. Labour found it difficult to find a coherent policy platform after leaving office in 2010. Ed Miliband struggled create […]
Perhaps the most important outcome of Brexit is not what we have lost, or what we have changed, but what has survived. We have not seen blind panic among European ministries in the aftermath. We have seen a shock, but also a determination to quickly set out a deal on a new European order. Summits […]
Ukraine has had no choice but to look westwards for new export markets. The war in eastern Ukraine has severely curtailed its access to the Russian market. Industrial production has been decimated, and Ukrainian food exports have been met with increasingly arbitrary “food hygiene checks” on the Russian side, with free trade between the two […]
Two years after the revolution of dignity, Ukraine remains in the lurch geopolitically. Ukraine is outside the European Union’s sphere of influence, yet has cut formal political ties with Russia. Attempts towards moving westwards have hit European resistance and domestic foot dragging from old elites not too keen to stamp out corruption completely. Putin’s military interference […]
The European Commission declared last week that the Polish government was threatening the rule of law in the country. The constitutional reforms introduced by the socially conservative Law and Justice Party have been criticised across Europe as threatening Poland’s adherence to shared European values. In a British news cycle dominated by Europe, it seems odd […]
The EU debate has been dominated by the notion of returning sovereignty to Westminster. Why, the Brexiters ask, should we allow unaccountable Brussels bureaucrats to have any role in creating our laws. President Obama was showered with accusations of hypocrisy from Brexiters who spat blood at the suggestion we would be put to the back […]
“Britain has never played its full hand in Europe. And that is because of feckless, weak, unimaginative and pretty cowardly governments.” Sir Nicholas Soames is a man not known for pulling his punches. “For the press and people like you this EU debate is meat and drink from heaven. You’ve got bugger all else to […]
For all the protestations from Ukippers that Britain is facing a migration crisis, spare a thought for the Jordanians. The country plays host to 1.4 million Syrian refugees. With a population of just 6 million before the conflict, for Jordan, this is no small feat. Social security systems are struggling to cope with the number of […]
The Corbyn experiment will not last forever. Eventually, years in the wilderness will convince Labour to bring in someone electable, just as hunger for power after Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock created Tony Blair. The Labour party will feel a strong temptation to swing the pendulum once more to the right and bury the past. […]
Brazil has faced a sharp change in its economic fortunes. Graft, mismanagement of growth dividends and protectionism has put dreams of a seat at the top table on hold. At the heart of this regression has been the beleaguered president Dilma Rousseff. Last Wednesday, her main coalition partner, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, left government. Its […]
The Russian economy today bears little resemblance to that of the late Soviet Union. Mikhail Gorbachev’s dreams of perestroika, of transforming the creaking command economy by adopting the advances of automation and the information revolution, did not come to pass. After a lost decade of graft and economic mismanagement under Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin’s rise […]
Jeremy Corbyn’s budget performance was rather better than usual. His criticisms came with a greater analytical clarity, his performance seemed a bit more heartfelt, and he even made a joke about press releases some people actually laughed at. In an added bonus, a Labour response to a statement by the Chancellor did not involve a […]
From the descriptions of British columnists, in Brussels one might expect to find legions of grey suited Commission officials, intricately plotting paperwork assaults on the fledgling British Spring, to bring the country back behind the bureaucratic curtain. Despite this hype, for the most part, the mood in Brussels remains remarkably calm. Things are going on […]
The Eastern conflict has forced Ukraine to fundamentally redesign its energy policy. Whereas once, it could rely on a near endless stream of cheap Russian gas, tightening sanctions and a steepening political cost have forced it to think again. Ukraine, newly cynical from 2014’s “Revolution of Dignity,” has learned the lessons of Gazprom’s previous supply […]
The military might of the Soviet Union once dominated the Eurasian continent. While weapons exports remain a powerful tool of Russian policy, in Europe, energy is now king. With the lowest gas production costs in the world, Russia has a strong policy card to play with its natural resources. However, this does not give Russia […]
