22 March 2018 Leadership and Succession China, Russia and the EU. By Neil Tidmarsh China, Russia and the EU have all been preoccupied with questions of leadership and succession in recent weeks. Shortly after Mao Zedong’s demise, the Chinese Communist Party, anxious to avoid another dictatorship, introduced a limit of two five-year terms on future… Continue reading Issue 146: 2018 03 22: Leadership and Succession
Article Category: Comment
Issue 146: 2018 03 22: Diary of a Corbynista
22 March 2018 Diary of a Corbynista Sabre-rattlers need to give it a rest at least until Arsenal have dispatched CSKA Moscow by Don Urquhart 15 March The sabre-rattling will achieve nothing but sending home 23 people who are probably Russian spies and therefore potential murderers can only be a good thing. So also is… Continue reading Issue 146: 2018 03 22: Diary of a Corbynista
Issue 146: 2018 03 22: Rate rise soon
22 March 2018 Great ready for a rate rise. Reasons for delay are fast disappearing. By Frank O’Nomics “This tape will self destruct in 5 seconds”. No, this is not the economics of Mission Impossible but an early acknowledgement of the dangers of putting out a rate view on the morning of an MPC meeting. … Continue reading Issue 146: 2018 03 22: Rate rise soon
Issue 146: 2018 03 22: Rolling On
22 March 2018 Rolling On The Revolving Door by J.R. Thomas If there were ever a case for rolling news, the Trump Administration is making it. Another day, another sacking; a secretary of state goes, another arrives. It is almost impossible to keep up with who is who and who is doing what. Does The… Continue reading Issue 146: 2018 03 22: Rolling On
Issue 145: 2018 03 15: Lens on the Week
15 March 2018 Lens on the Week UK SPRING IS SPRUNG: Well perhaps. Chancellor Philip Hammond stated that debt would begin to fall as a proportion of GDP (85.5% as against 85.6%) and then on down to 77.9% for 2022-23. That isn’t an absolute drop in cash terms of course, the debt creeps on up,… Continue reading Issue 145: 2018 03 15: Lens on the Week
Issue 145: 2018 03 15: Apples and Oranges
15 March 2018 Apples and Oranges Reforming TEF By John Watson Well, I suppose it is an improvement. That the results obtained by universities under the Teaching Excellence Framework (the “TEF”) should be on a course-by-course basis will introduce more granularity. Unfortunately, though, it is only granularity along one particular axis. The TEF was introduced… Continue reading Issue 145: 2018 03 15: Apples and Oranges
Issue 145: 2018 03 15: Back to the Dark Ages
15 March 2018 Back to the Dark Ages Damnatio memoriae. By Neil Tidmarsh Here’s a mystery. Last month I saw an exhibition called “Crossroads” at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam. The Allard Pierson is the University of Amsterdam’s archaeology museum. The exhibition was about Europe in the early middle ages, about the peoples, journeys,… Continue reading Issue 145: 2018 03 15: Back to the Dark Ages
Issue 145: 2018 03 15: Revolution Needed
15 March 2018 “This is evolution; we need a revolution!” Macron’s education reforms don’t go far enough. By Richard Pooley Before I came to live in France I knew three things about the French education system. First, on any given day at exactly the same time all primary school children in the same school year… Continue reading Issue 145: 2018 03 15: Revolution Needed
Issue 145: 2018 03 15: Diary of a Corbynista
15 March 2018 Diary of a Corbynista Corbyn’s leadership qualities in question. May still talking a good game. by Don Urquhart 8 March New Look are planning to close 60 stores and make 980 people redundant. Businesses come and go, but in the last few weeks there have been a number of high profile failures… Continue reading Issue 145: 2018 03 15: Diary of a Corbynista
Issue 145: 2018 03 15: The Ides of March
15 March 2018 The Ides of March by J R Thomas One wonders as to the mood of the Roman aristocracy, and indeed the plebeians, as the empire rapidly shrank and the former imperial possessions fell to the Barbarian hordes. Did they shrug and say that things were all for the best, and imperialism was… Continue reading Issue 145: 2018 03 15: The Ides of March
Issue 145: 2018 03 15: Returns to Gender
15 March 2018 Returns to Gender The economic costs of misogyny. By Frank O’Nomics Beneath the deafening clamour of companies trying to explain away their disgraceful gender pay gaps lies the beating heart of the problem – that of promotion. Data from the Chartered Management Institute showed that, while 73% of entry level positions were… Continue reading Issue 145: 2018 03 15: Returns to Gender
Issue 144: 2018 03 08: Picking Cherries
08 March 2018 Picking Cherries The Brexit speech. By John Watson You would be Bletchley Park material if you could reverse engineer the speech which Mrs May made on Friday and deduce where the negotiations between the UK and the EU really are. There was much that was vague and bits that sounded overoptimistic, inevitably… Continue reading Issue 144: 2018 03 08: Picking Cherries
Issue 144: 2018 03 08: Putin’s Russia
8 March 2018 Putin’s Russia State of the Nation By Neil Tidmarsh Last Thursday, President Putin gave his annual ‘state of the nation’ address to the country’s MPs and other members of Russia’s political elite. It began as usual, promising to be the normal dreary two hours of dull and predictable assessments of the country’s… Continue reading Issue 144: 2018 03 08: Putin’s Russia
