Kate Andrews is economics editor of The Spectator
Transport for London doesn’t like Uber. It doesn’t like the innovations the app has created in transport; it doesn’t like how competitive platforms like Uber have become with black cabs; and it doesn’t like that customers have completely embraced the service. That’s why they’ve effectively banned the app – again. This morning TfL ruled that
Funny how language changes over time. Or rather, how we change language to advance our agenda. Sometimes it’s a natural process, a long process – what works survives and what’s easy thrives. The word ‘smart’ originated as something to describe pain or a stinging sensation. The ‘sting’ associated with the word moved to an understanding of ‘quickness’ or
Laugher is a universally understood language. If something is funny, we all react the same way. What we find funny can be subjective – dark humour, slapstick, take your pick. But at the end of the day, comedy may be one of the truest forms of meritocracy we have. Regardless of your gender, race, beliefs
Dominic Raab is not a feminist. That is the confession the Tory leadership hopeful makes in an interview in this week’s Spectator. Screams, gasps and 240 character rants have swept the internet since. Who in their right mind would reject the notion of treating men and women equally? Of course, Raab didn’t do that. He describes himself
My heart skipped a beat when I discovered the Royal Statistical Society was publishing a report, out today, which calls for the rules around gender pay gap reporting (companies with 250+ employees are mandated to calculate and publish this data by law) to be refined. As I wrote on Coffee House last week, the calculations
Rumours continue to circulate that if a long extension were to be granted by the European Union, it could be flexible. This would mean that Britain could officially depart from the bloc earlier than the agreed-upon exit date if a deal were secured between the UK and the EU27. I’m unsure what about the past two-and-a-half
Would we condone teaching a child that 1+1 = 3, for the sake of increasing her interest in maths? No. Would we praise flat earth theorists for getting people talking about the health of the planet? No. So why are we giving credence to meaningless and often deceptive gender pay gap statistics, which have us focusing on
If you follow the US president on Twitter, you might think that every day is Donald Day. But Sunday was a particularly good day for Trump After two years of special counsel Robert Mueller investigating possible collusion between Trump, his officials and the Russian government, the verdict was finally delivered: not guilty. The letter from
Interested in a case study of all rational and proportional thought going out the window? No, I’m not talking about Brexit – I’m talking about the ‘EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health’ which – in an ironic attempt to lay out prescriptions for a better world – published a report yesterday calling for intervention, force,
If you want proof that the world is getting better all the time, look no further than the Greggs vegan sausage roll. I did not queue up early this morning to get one. I can’t comment on the taste, the texture, or the quality. I haven’t tried it, and I’m not sure I plan to. I’m also not
The philosophy of the National Health Service, as stated on its website, is that ‘good healthcare should be available to all, regardless of wealth’. This is why, in theory, Britain’s health service ‘covers everything’. Not this month. Last night, NHS hospitals were made to cancel all non-emergency surgeries until February in order to divert resources to this
Ronald Reagan famously proclaimed that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” With the ‘most terrifying’ words already attributed, the pledge of a commission to transform the economy through increased intervention and higher taxes will simply have to be chalked up to misguidance and
Seventy years ago, when the National Health Service was founded, the UK established the principle of universal access to healthcare. Rich or poor, young or old, you have the right to obtain treatment for your condition. It set a standard amongst the rest of the world, that healthcare is a vital part of a safety net
The NHS is one year older, yet none the wiser. Having spiralled into perpetual crisis years ago, no one can pretend the gargantuan system is looking great for its age. Its fragile condition has all of us worried – not least because of the millions of lives that are forced to depend on our monopoly
Love it or hate it, you’re likely well aware that season four of Love Island launched on Monday night. The media frenzy is impossible to escape. Traditional and social media are a-buzz about the contestants, the couplings, and the budding drama that is bound to escalate in coming weeks. But the first episode had its
Love it or hate it, you’re likely well aware that season four of Love Island launched on Monday night. The media frenzy is impossible to escape. Traditional and social media are a-buzz about the contestants, the couplings, and the budding drama that is bound to escalate in coming weeks. But the first episode had its
A week doesn’t go by without at least one horror story about the National Health Service hitting the headlines. But today you can take your pick. From the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which says the NHS will need £2,000 a year from each household to stay afloat, to the Care Quality Commission’s warning about patient safety in
Donald Trump has found himself in the midst of another international spat, fuelled this time by his attack on the UK’s national religion. In an attempt to verbally jab the opposition in his own country, the President has managed to rile up many thousands, if not millions, of people who have deep reverence for Britain’s National
The Fawcett Society would have you believe, as part of its Equal Pay Day campaign, that today is the day “women effectively stop earning relative to men”, highlighting the gender pay gap, which they place at 14.1 per cent for full-time workers. If that number seems high to you, or not reflective of your working environment,
International Women’s Day is a time to celebrate the vast achievements of women worldwide, while acknowledging the real struggles and oppression millions of women and girls continue to face, including violence, inequality under the law and limited access to education. It is not a time to push faulty pay gap statistics. Yet that is exactly
