What will the Bribery Act mean for business?

Written by | Thursday 24 March 2011

The Bribery Act 2010 may put Britain in a difficult position. The Act will require companies with a UK connection to put in place what the Act vaguely describes as “adequate procedures" to prevent bribery. The extent and costs of these procedures are unclear. The worst case scenario is that multinational firms and organizations, for legal reasons, may be wary of having any connection with the UK in order to avoid this strict liability offence (ie, no proof of intention required) and the associated costs and reputational damage of having to defend if prosecuted..

How Ireland can leave the euro

Written by | Monday 28 February 2011

Dear Minister,

Congratulations on your new appointment. As you read the civil service briefings on the present crisis, you will come to appreciate that Ireland's problems would be much easier to manage if your administration could choose the country's own exchange rate and interest rate. However, your officials and your colleagues may believe that there is no practical way to leave the present European monetary union and so achieve this flexibility.

A smarter approach to the welfare state

Written by | Wednesday 23 February 2011

After the Second World War, few people had a bank account. They were about one third as rich, had ten years less life expectancy, penicillin was the most expensive drug and a hip operation wasn’t even the stuff of sci-fi yet. So the state had to contrive a cashless system for the nation’s welfare and ‘free at point of delivery’ was born. This required a bureaucracy that over the years has fed on itself and is now so large that there is no template for its management and its expense devours funds needed at the coalface.

It’s freedom we need, not the nanny state

Written by | Tuesday 22 February 2011

Paternalism, or (as it is now called, in a strange shift of gender and status) “the nanny state”, has always had its defenders amongst the elite. After all, it is the elite who define what is good; what is virtuous. It is little surprise that they would seek to defend their mores, even to the point of crushing the individual freedoms of others.

Market pricing information and competition

Written by | Saturday 5 February 2011

Background

UK motor insurance companies have been using detailed market pricing information to help set insurance rates for many years. Insurers have been able to check how much their competitors have been quoting for different types of vehicles and different groups of drivers. Available information has been very precise and has allowed predicting prices for individual quotes and up to one month ahead.

Reflections on the Shanghai skyline

Written by | Friday 28 January 2011

The "before" picture of Shanghai (from 1990) is actually the same skyline from before the Second World War. Under communism, from 1949 until 1980s-1990s, this picture of Shanghai had not changed.

Time to rethink Britain's drugs policy

Written by | Friday 21 January 2011

Now that the American government has dropped the phrase ‘War on Drugs’ it’s time for Britain's government to re-think policy. Although the evidence is increasingly stacked against current policy, legislators and governments are blinded by conventional morality about drugs. The Home Office set out its stall recently in response to Professor Sir Ian Gilmore’s comments about the need to consider decriminalizing class-A drugs: