Moneyblog

Google the words ‘Universal Basic Income’ and you will be find high praise and excitement from a wide-ranging collection of people. Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg and now John McDonnell have all announced they believe that ‘free money for all’ is a good policy. UBI has fans on both the left and the right. Dutch author Rutger Bregman published his bestseller Utopia for Realists earlier this year that championed a basic income for all; while American Conservative author Charles Murray has also supported the roll-out of a similar programme. Understood simply as a single cash transfer to each individual, regardless of how rich or poor they are, it would guarantee a

When European leaders met earlier this month to thrash out an agreement on  migration, they succeeded in rescuing German Chancellor Angela Merkel from the precipice. But it is already becoming clear that the deal they struck was more a temporary papering over of ideological differences on migration than a permanent solution. While the EU agreed on the possible establishment of migrant transit centres on European soil, disembarkation platforms in north Africa, and a general statement that illegal migration was a European problem, the detail of how all this would work in practice was ignored. Not a single European country volunteered to host a reception centre, and attempts to persuade governments in north

Bank of England economists Will Holman and Tim Pike claim to have spotted a productivity revival, on the basis of a ‘recent pivot towards business investment to overcome greater labour scarcity’ aided by ‘major advances in technology’. But the Office for National Statistics reports that productivity actually fell by 0.4 per cent in the first quarter, while most experts agree that UK productivity is so far below where it might have been if pre-2008 trends had continued that the gap may never be made up. And both Carolyn Fairbairn of the CBI and Adam Marshall of the British Chambers of Commerce have recently lamented the sluggishness of growth in business

As someone who follows the news on Radio 4 at 6, 7 and 8 each morning, I notice that the bulletins begin very leftish and become slightly less so later. I assume the unit responsible, ‘Newsgathering’, works through the night from its default political position. So it relies heavily on the ready supply of ‘news’ from pressure groups, NGOs and right-on charities: ‘A new report warns that millions will die unless the government immediately injects £400 billion into X’; ‘A survey by an independent, Brussels-based think tank reveals that independent, Brussels-based think tanks believe that Brexit will be a disaster for Britain’. As actual news gets going, this dreary propaganda

At Chequers over the next couple of days Theresa May, along with her chief Brexit-sceptic ministers Philip Hammond and Greg Clark, will attempt to convince others to agree to a soft Brexit. The latest thinking, according to reports today, is that the UK would more or less remain in the single market for goods but would face greater restrictions on trade in services. There would also be some degree of freedom of movement, though it would be more restricted than at present. A necessary compromise that will stave off the fear of ‘no deal’, or a cave-in which will hugely favour the EU? The problem is that the UK economy