The coalition government set two deadlines for 2015 when it came to office: the next general election and elimination of Britain’s budget deficit. Two years on, the budget balancing has been postponed but the election date can’t be. So ministers must go to the polls with the economy still a problem.
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Tony Blair introduced the Freedom of Information Act but later called it dangerous legislation. It is there to expose government workings but in publishing the names of people who have rejected honours, the law is intruding into private lives.
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Scotland’s proposed referendum is not a vote on that country’s independence, but on independence for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Losing 5.2m people is a small loss for the rest of the UK, but losing 65m is a big blow for Scotland.
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If the wheel’s been invented and is being ignored, there’s no harm in re-inventing it. So don’t knock Nick Clegg just because he is a latecomer to employee share-ownership.
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Will a royal Diamond Jubilee and the Olympic Games rescue the UK economy in 2012? David Cameron thinks (or maybe just hopes) so in his New Year’s message, but it’s big ask.
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George Osborne is in a hole. But on this occasion, the best advice is to keep on digging. This is time for the Keynes’ idea of paying some of the unemployed to dig holes and paying others to fill them in.
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Heathwick – or should it be Gatrow – looks like a take-off waiting to be aborted. The idea of a high-speed link between London’s two biggest airports will be cancelled before the engines are revved up.
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Margaret Thatcher applied the economics of the home to the finances of the nation. David Cameron needs to realise that if telling consumers to pay off their credit-card bills curtails economic growth, so does axing government expenditure.
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Now the government is to charge students for going to university it makes sense to lend them the funds. But it makes no sense to penalise them for repaying the loan early. The government must think these loans will be so profitable it wants to keep them going.
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It seems fair for those likely to need long-term care in their old age to pay for it, but do not expect ministers to impose National Insurance on pensioners’ incomes to raise the cash. That is far too political – and oldies still vote.
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