By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter Policy Exchange's housing plan might have been written to offend vested interests… In our Comment Section today, Alex Morton of Policy Exchange urges the creation of a Secretary of State of Housing in the coming reshuffle, so that this new Cabinet appointment can drive through radical planning reform. He […]
How many Chinese cities can you name? Obviously, there’s Beijing and Shanghai. Nanjing (Nanking) and Guangzhou (Canton) might also come to mind – along with Shenzhen (Hong Kong’s near neighbour), Xi’an (home of the Terracota Army) and Chongqing (home to 30 million people). But what about Wuhan, Tianjin, Shenyang, Fuzhou, Hangzhou, Harbin and Chengdu – […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter There was more in ConservativeHome's newslinks this morning about Ministerial disagreements over Heathrow, which are being projected by suggestions that Justine Greening, the Transport Secretary, may be moved. The report was from the Financial Times (£). The lobby is writing less about the other big divergence of view over […]
Cllr David Pugh, the Leader of the Isle of Wight Council and a Director of the Solent Local Enterprise Partnership, says we should harness the energy of the sea From our island off the south coast of England – surrounded by sea water gushing up and down the English Channel – I read with interest […]
When accused of inconsistency, John Maynard Keynes famously replied: "when the facts change I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" Except, it isn’t that simple – as Tom Chivers explains on his Telegraph blog. All of us, he says, are subject to a psychological phenomenon called confirmation bias: "We get a pleasure-chemical reward […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter Matt Sinclair of the TaxPayers' Alliance has written a good blog over at Coffee House defending George Osborne's determination to take on the green lobby and get a better deal for energy users. The Chancellor, argues Matt, is on the side of the consumer. Standing up for the consumer […]
We are saved! "Leonardo Maugeri, a fellow in the Geopolitics of Energy Project at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs—and a long-time critic of Peak Oil analysis—has just published a new report, "Oil: The Next Revolution," in which he forecasts a sharp increase in world oil production capacity and the risk […]
When Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2009, not everyone was happy; according to her obituary in the Economist, there were those who "looked askance": It wasn’t that she was a woman – the first to win the economic prize – but that she gleefully defied conventional categories. For a start she […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter Caroline Spelman failed to sell off or lease large parts of England's forests – as her acceptance yesterday of the Independent Panel on Forestry's report into their future reminded us. But in another sense she has been a triumphant success – at least, if the example set by one […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter In last week's edition of the New Statesman I took a brief look at the state of Tory modernisation. I suggested that certain of the big change themes that Cameron has pursued since 2005 or more recently had not really stood the test of time – notably climate change […]
By Matthew BarrettFollow Matthew on Twitter. A story in the Financial Times (£) this morning contains the news that the Conservative leadership will, at the next election, give themselves the ability to support a third runway at Heathrow, after several years of opposition to such an increase in airport capacity. The FT reports: "The Conservative […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter 24 hours ago George Osborne announced that the planned 3p increase in fuel duty would not go ahead in August. During the day many readers have been voting in our end-June survey. That survey is still open (vote here) but over 1,000 Tory members have already participated and here are […]
On the Deep End we don’t exactly overlook the contribution of the Eurozone to the great economic crisis of our times. But there is another multinational enterprise that deserves the occasional mention – the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Writing for the American Interest, Gal Luft and Anne Korin remind us of the importance […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter George Osborne's decision to halt August's planned fuel duty rise and freeze it for the rest of this year is an adroit retreat which will be greeted with relief by motorists – and, furthermore, has been played by the book, since he's just announced it in the Commons. – […]
The industrial slaughter of animals for food is not something that we like to think about – and thanks to modern production methods, we don’t have to. From the point of view of most consumers, the whole messy business takes place out of sight and out of mind. But what would we see behind the […]