Long reads
With our new PM in place the focus shifts from supercharging growth to finding short to medium term savings to balance the books. In truth as we have found dramatically already, the one measure is needed to enable the other: the interest cost of our debt has reduced because the markets have confidence that the…
Read MoreThe leadership contest we have just witnessed was like the political equivalent of Squid Game but without the bathos. The battle lines were relatively clear and on a 2 by 2 chess board with the degree to which you are fiscally conservative mapped out on the one hand (from being a high spend/high borrowing candidate…
Read MoreThe following statement is in response to allegations relating to my past work on UK-China relations. In short, it accuses me of having met with Chinese people and organisations, which being from a Chinese background, I am likely to do and have done, some of which may have had links with the United Front and…
Read MoreAs the nation starts to look ahead to the future cautiously, it is time to take stock and reflect on what just happened and to ensure it doesn’t happen again, or if it does, to minimise the impact on our freedoms, economy, and health from having to lockdown in future. If we are really honest,…
Read MoreSo here we are again, and it seems not much has really changed since my first post in June 2020. Two strategies are being pursued or championed for how we deal with Covid-19 and its impact on us as a country. The first is to keep locking down partially or fully periodically until we find…
Read MoreI grew up in Milton Keynes in a tough estate where the slums were relocated from East London in the last century. Whilst I cannot with honesty say the town has developed the kind of urban cultural gritty feel of my beloved Shoreditch, it is certainly a place where the kind of innovation we associate…
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