Government

I don’t hold out much hope for Drink Free Days, a new campaign launched by Public Health England and the alcohol industry to persuade people to abstain for two consecutive days a week. That was also the recommendation of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee in 2012, as well as the advice of England’s Chief Medical Officer in 2016, but it doesn’t seem to have had much impact. According to a recent YouGov poll, more than 20 per cent of UK adults ignore the government’s drinking guidelines and are consuming more than 14 units a week. That may be an underestimate. A recent study published in the Lancet,

The last day of the parliamentary term is usually an occasion for the government to get a whole bunch of bad news out of the way all at once. But this summer’s end-of-term announcements were used as a chance to put out some seemingly good news. Teachers, prison officers and members of the military will all receive pay increases of above 1 per cent for the first time in five years. The lifting of the public sector pay cap is another reminder of how politics and the Tories have moved on from the age of austerity that George Osborne announced in his 2009 conference speech. Much has been written about

A fortnight before Philip Hammond delivered his last Budget, the chief executive of the NHS gave a speech making the case for more funding. Simon Stevens had brought with him picture of a Vote Leave poster, promising £350 million a week for the health service, which he showed to his audience. What a good idea, he said. He wasn’t coming out as a Brexiteer, but he did think the Leavers had a point about giving an extra £350 million a week to the National Health Service. In fact, he went so far as to say that the ‘public want to see’ this promise honoured. And if politicians don’t cough up?

When you pay £8 for fish and chips, where does the money go? That’s the question one restaurant has been busy answering after a customer left a two-star review on Facebook. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with the food – in fact it was ‘lovely’ and the staff were ‘amazing’. But Debbie Davies still felt the need to complain to Oxton Bar and Kitchen over the price for the meal – £8. Happily, staff at the restaurant were happy to provide clarity: ‘Ok Debbie. Where do I begin? Out of that £8, our nasty government is charging you 20% vat which we collect by law on their behalf, so

For anyone considering a career in economic forecasting, the Bank of England’s inflation report for August 2007 ought to be required reading. A graph illustrating its Monetary Policy Committee’s ‘best collective judgment’ of annual economic growth two years ahead is fixed around a central prediction of 2.5 per cent, with extreme boundaries of 0.8 per cent and 4.2 per cent. But after two years, economic growth was running at –5.6 per cent, and the economy had just completed its fifth consecutive quarter of negative growth. The finest minds of Threadneedle Street could not see two years ahead. In this case, the Bank of England could not even see a few

It is not usually feasible to put the great and good of the financial services industry together in a room and get them to agree on anything. Typically, they squabble like alley cats, arguing about everything on and off the agenda, even  the state of the weather. Occasionally, blows are traded. Yet a few days ago, I witnessed something of a financial miracle taking place in a swanky restaurant (1 Lombard Street) in the heart of the City of London. Fourteen individuals, representing different areas of the pensions industry, actually agreeing on a pensions agenda that the next government should follow. I was taken aback as I chewed furiously away

The government has made good on its Autumn Statement pledge to introduce a new ‘market-leading’ bond through National Savings & Investments (NS&I) – it’s just a shame the market is still in the doldrums. The Investment Guaranteed Growth Bond will pay 2.2 per cent to savers depositing between £100 and £3,000. Launching the NS&I bond on Tuesday, economic secretary to the Treasury Simon Kirby said: ‘With its market-leading rate of 2.2 per cent, the Investment Bond will provide a valuable boost for savers who have been affected by low interest rates.’ The Treasury also pointed out that the average three-year fixed-term product has a rate of 1.24 per cent so

If you’ve ever rented a property, chances are you’ve a horror story or two up your sleeve. I remember the north London flat with mushrooms growing in the shower. Then there was the house in the south of the city with mildew on the bathroom walls. And the landlord who refused to return my deposit because I had a cat – despite telling me months earlier that pets were no problem. So I welcome the news that local authorities are to be given powers to crack down on rogue landlords who shirk their responsibilities. Under government rules, which came into force yesterday, landlords who commit a range of housing offences could be

An email from the high-minded Carnegie Endowment, marking the triggering of Article 50 and the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, speaks of ‘The Closing of the European Mind’. ‘The cult of the protective sovereign nation-state,’ it goes on, ‘will not provide convincing solutions to 21st-century challenges, which are inherently transnational.’ This is true, in a way. Lots of modern challenges cannot be solved by the nation-state alone. But is there anyone — even including the ‘Anywheres’ defined recently by David Goodhart — who would be happy to inhabit a space completely unprotected by a sovereign state? Surely it is only with the confidence engendered by living in a well-functioning

Young people, their faces pressed against an estate agent’s window, gaze at all the lovely homes they’ll never, ever be able to buy. That’s the image the communities minister Sajid Javid conjured up while unveiling the government’s long-awaited housing white paper week. This snapshot of young housebuyers’ despair was meant to symbolise a broken housing market where, on average, house prices are nearly eight times average salaries. ‘If we don’t act now,’ the communities minister said, ‘a whole generation could be left behind’. So what did the government propose in its white paper for England, initially intended for publication late last year and then in January 2017? More importantly, will this housing finance reform