Universities are not paid to train or educate; they are paid to recruit. They get their fee when they accept a student, regardless of how they do or whether they go on to get a job. What if we took the taxpayer out of it entirely and make universities loan directly to their students.
You may not like what Dubai has to offer, but don’t tarnish those who do with the brush of ‘tax exiles’ and ‘washed-up old footballers’. If we were able to attract their like and their ambition, instead of scaring them away, we would all feel the benefits.
He doesn’t want to reduce spending; but spend more. He argues giving away control of the essentials, gives away control of their costs. The key is compulsory purchases and nationalisation. That’ll delight the markets!
If you don’t set out a clear and packed agenda before ascending to power, to deliver on the receipt of a mandate at a general election, then you will be left with all barnacles and no boat.
Budgets are big, long, detailed things by their very nature. There are some successes buried there, if we look hard enough. However, the best news from the budget was arguably in what it didn’t do, more than what it did
Given the scale of our fiscal trouble, and it only going in one direction, it is not outlandish to believe that the Conservatives will see some electoral benefit by being the only ones willing to stand up and say ‘sorry, no’.
Anticapitalism disguised as other social justice causes is not new, but it does seem to be increasing. It has long been true of many environmental campaigns and voices. The rise in anticapitalist activism disguised as health science is a growing problem.
It cannot be right that our regulatory system means that courts decide if wages are fair rather than a market based on mutual agreement; it certainly isn’t productive.
Serious thought should be put into running our welfare system on the principles of mutual aid – a bottom-up, voluntarist, pluralistic system, rather than a top-down, managerial one.
There is a lesson in the winter-fuel fiasco for opposition parties (and Labour leadership contenders). If you say you’re going to take tough decisions, you have to mean it.
This isn’t just about saving money, though the fiscal benefits would be substantial. It is about restoring the fundamental principle that government should only do what is absolutely necessary and nothing more.
Margaret Thatcher is well remembered for how she turned the country around, but less well remembered for how she turned her party around. Before going to the voters, she dragged the Tories out of their comfort zone.
Any successful party of the centre-right must not just believe in economic freedom, it must make it its defining cause, because everything else can and will follow from it.
The problem at the heart of the government’s plan is all too familiar. It does the headline grabbing stuff around the edges, but risks shying away from the necessary but difficult fundamental reforms required.
To turn our fortunes around politicians on the right will need to lead from the front, make the most of the nascent support for change and make the case, as Reagan did, for stripping back the state.