Ross Clark is a leader writer and columnist who has written for The Spectator for three decades. His books include Not Zero, The Road to Southend Pier, and Far From EUtopia: Why Europe is failing and Britain could do better
Just what would it take to induce a housing price crash in Britain? Evidently, more than a Bank of England base rate of 4.25 per cent combined with a cost of living crisis. The Office for National Statistics’ House Price Index – the most comprehensive of the house pries indices – shows that prices fell
You have to feel a little sorry for Rishi Sunak. When you have a wife as rich as Akshata Murty, just how do you keep tabs on all her investments, making sure that each one of them is properly declared as an interest in the House of Commons Register? The Prime Minister has suffered the
Are we going to have to give up flying to save the planet? Many climate campaigners have been saying so for years, but now Sustainable Aviation – a trade body which represents the UK aviation industry – seems to agree, at least in the case of less well-off passengers. It is rather significant that the
How big a deal is long Covid and can it be treated? Opinions range from it being a serious impediment to the health of millions of those who suffered from Covid-19 to a figment in the imagination of the workshy. A study by the University of Oxford of a drug developed by US Pharmaceutical company Axcella
The term ‘hostile environment’ was dreamt up by the Home Office to describe a policy of making migrants lives’ so difficult that they would be minded to pack up and leave the country. But it could equally well have been coined to apply to the government’s policies towards buy-to-let investors. For years, governments of all
Good news – at least for those who hold faith in economic forecasts. The IMF has just eradicated half the recession it forecast, in January, for Britain. At that point, it expected the UK economy to shrink by 0.6 per cent over 2023 – which would have meant Britain uniquely suffering a recession among advanced
The path from the editor’s chair at The Spectator to 11 Downing Street was not untrodden when Mrs Thatcher asked Nigel Lawson to replace Geoffrey Howe as Chancellor of the Exchequer after the 1983 general election. Iain Macleod had made the same journey in 1970. But whereas Macleod died 13 days into the job, Lawson
Just when we thought inflationary forces were softening, the price of crude oil has shot up sharply today in response to an announcement by Opec that it will try to reduce production. A barrel of Brent crude, which touched $120 last summer before falling back to $75 last month, reached $85 at one point today.
If anyone thought that the public sector strikes were fading out, this week marks a resurgence, with Passport Office staff striking for five weeks – apparently on behalf of other civil servants whose absence might be less noticed – along with the National Education Union (NEU). The education union voted by a margin of 98
Britain’s acceptance into the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) will be presented by the government as a triumph, a statement that Britain really does, finally, have something substantive to show for Brexit. It is a deal which could not have been done so long as Britain remained a member of the EU, as
The location of Rishi Sunak and Grant Shapps’s net zero relaunch today shows there has been a change of emphasis since the PM set up the Department for Energy Security and Climate Change last autumn. One suspects a bit of ideology creeping in: fossil fuels have become a great bogeyman, and nothing will make them
It is not just Gary Lineker, apparently, who has fallen victim to sinister right-wing forces at the BBC. A follow-up programme to David Attenborough’s BBC1 series Wild Isles, focusing on the decline of UK wildlife, will not be shown on terrestrial television but only made available on iPlayer. ‘The decision has angered the programme-makers and
The end of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency has been predicted so many times that it is tempting to nod along with Jay Powell, Federal Reserve chairman, who pronounced last week that there is no immediate threat. But with high inflation in the US and China cuddling up with Russia, is it something
Just who do the Scottish Greens think they are? They provide a mere seven seats to the SNP’s 64 and they won 1.3 per cent of the vote in the constituency section of the Holyrood elections in 2021 (they had 8.1 per cent in the regional section). In return for that meagre offering they think
Until the turn of the year it was taken for granted that Britain would descend into recession in the coming months. The Bank of England saw a long downturn lasting into 2024; the IMF thought we would do worse than even Russia. Now, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) thinks we might avoid recession altogether,
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan was quick out of the blocks to join the condemnation of the Metropolitan Police following the publication of Louise Casey’s report. He even slapped down Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley for daring to question Casey’s assertion that the Met was ‘institutionally misogynistic, racist and homophobic’. So does that mean that
So, things really are different this time. The US Federal Reserve has decided to raise its Federal Funds Rate (its main interest rate) by a quarter-point, to 4.75 per cent – 5 per cent, in spite of a banking crisis that has seen two large banks fail in the past fortnight. For the past two
Does UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres really have any hope of persuading rich countries to commit to achieving net zero by 2040? This was a target he declared was vital as he launched the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) Sixth Assessment Report yesterday. He will have his work cut out. The trouble is that
If the emergency takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS was supposed to calm markets, it is not looking that way this morning. Markets are sharply down in Asia, and the FTSE fell by 1.5 per cent on opening this morning. Banks were the biggest fallers, losing up to 7 per cent of their value. There
Another Sunday, another banking takeover swiftly arranged before markets open on Monday morning. This time Credit Suisse has agreed to be bought by fellow Swiss bank UBS for 0.5 Swiss Francs a share – less than a third of its closing price on Friday and less than a tenth of what the bank was worth a
