Older readers will recall two major initiatives for less regulation and deregulation. In 2007 the EU created an “Action programme” to reduce the administrative burden of regulations by 25%. In the event, they claimed to have reduced the €126bn p.a. by ...
Blog - Thursday 16 February 2012
In all the panicky talk of haircuts and economic Armageddon, it might be wise to step back and consider the two basic options: Euro or no Euro. The Euro is only a means not an end and preserving it at all costs makes little sense. With hindsight it ...
Blog - Friday 03 February 2012
One of yesterday’s headlines, “Davos elite confronts capitalism crisis”, reflects the widespread view that the financial crisis shows that capitalism has failed and “we need another economic model”. ...
Blog - Friday 27 January 2012
Quangos were invented in the 1960s but not much used until the Thatcher administration saw them as a means of downsizing government and reducing ministerial meddling. They have blossomed since causing the Coalition to make big claims that they would ...
Blog - Thursday 26 January 2012
Andrew Lansley has provided a new, from 1st January, independent helpline for NHS staff with concerns about malpractice. The line (08000 724725) is operated under the auspices of Mencap and is already very busy. The questions though are whether the ...
Blog - Sunday 08 January 2012
What is “good government”? How would we know, for example, that this government is better, or worse, than the last or than UK government in previous centuries. This should be of interest to scholars and other citizens but the last thing any government ...
Blog - Thursday 05 January 2012
Douglas Alexander, Shadow Foreign Secretary, was whingeing on the Today programme this morning about Cameron’s failure to repatriate regulation of the UK financial services sector. The truth is that Labour, voluntarily and unnecessarily, gave Brussels ...
Blog - Friday 09 December 2011
The so-reasonable sounding Sir Christopher Kelly has today pronounced on the funding of political parties and their election campaign. The big donors are to be cut back to a maximum of £10,000 each. Since he only proposes a cut it election costs of 15% ...
Blog - Wednesday 23 November 2011
In this response to the Vickers report, financial experts Tim Ambler and Miles Saltiel argue that the report's findings fail to address the root causes of the financial crisis and would create another layer of bureaucracy. Instead, the government ...
Research - Thursday 17 November 2011
The Independent Banking Commission has striven mightily for two years and finally produced a mouse, and a malignant one at that. The report boils down to two recommendations: ring-fencing the retail subsidiaries and increasing equity requirements along ...
Blog - Tuesday 13 September 2011
Tim Ambler Regulation & Industry 6700flouting-its-own-regulation-policy Regulations continue at the same rate, or indeed, higher even than under New Labour. And about one third of the justifications, according to today’s report from the ...
Blog - Wednesday 27 July 2011
ASI_briefing paper Basel III.pdf Tim Ambler Money & Banking Reports Wednesday, July 27, 2011 - 13:45 Basel III requires an increase in the size of banks’ equity relative to their loans and a more formal assessment of risk, says ...
Research - Wednesday 27 July 2011
Tim Ambler Politics & Government 6678civilians-will-outnumber-soldiers-at-the-mod Liam Fox’s announcement that the army will be cut from 101,000 regulars to some 82,000 by 2020 means, on current numbers, that we will have more civil servants ...
Blog - Tuesday 19 July 2011
Tim Ambler Tax & Spending 6591the-financial-conduct-authority-could-cripple-the-city Consumer protection traditionally focuses on the point of sale: the moment when buyers part with their money is the time to ensure trading is fair and ...
Blog - Friday 17 June 2011
Tim Ambler Healthcare 6575reform-of-the-nhs-fails-again “Another reorganisation involving unhappy managers can only worsen the service.” So said a British Medical Journal editorial in 2001. Thanks to the Lib Dems reneging on their own manifesto ...
Blog - Wednesday 15 June 2011
Tim Ambler Tax & Spending 6254what-regulations Those with long memories will recall that the new government intended to clamp down on new regulation and insist, for example, that one existing regulation of similar or greater burden would be ...
Blog - Tuesday 01 March 2011
Tim Ambler Politics & Government 6114looking-back-on-the-quango-cull Was the Coalition’s first cull of the quangos quite as botched as the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee’s (PASC’s) report of 20th December suggests? ...
Blog - Saturday 15 January 2011
Tim Ambler Tax & Spending 6047uk-parliamentary-sovereignty-bluster-without-substance Brussels and Luxemburg assert that EU law, and the European Court of Justice (ECJ), take precedence over the UK constitution, including Parliament, our laws, ...
Blog - Tuesday 21 December 2010
Tim Ambler Tax & Spending 5977wishful-regulation Regulators were originally created to bring quasi-competition to newly-privatized markets. But, more than this, the last government used them as wish fulfilment agencies and that still continues ...
Blog - Tuesday 30 November 2010
Tim Ambler Politics & Government 5954spring-cleaning-the-missing-trick Incoming management typically regards the inherited HQ as idle, over-staffed and unproductive. They seek to reduce overheads, which seems so much easier than increasing ...
Blog - Wednesday 24 November 2010
Tim Ambler Welfare & Pensions 5782a-benefit-screw-up Yesterday the Chancellor announced the great idea of withdrawing child allowances from those who shouldn't need them. It’s such a great idea that, desperate for money as he is, he has ...
Blog - Tuesday 05 October 2010
Tim Ambler Regulation & Industry 5718are-we-still-in-europe Have you noticed how quiet the government has been on the EU since the election? An unwritten part of the Coalition Agreement, perhaps even the glue in the Agreement, is that neither ...
Blog - Friday 17 September 2010
Tim Ambler Regulation & Industry 5646who-certifies-the-certifiable You may not have heard of UKAS (United Kingdom Accreditation Service), the quango that approves the standards of certification bodies. For example, the certifying body for ...
Blog - Thursday 26 August 2010
Tim Ambler Miscellaneous 5601the-future-of-the-raf The US forces are now equipped with a wide and increasingly versatile portfolio of long-range and local “unmanned aerial vehicles” (UAVs). The long-range versions are controlled from Creech ...
Blog - Tuesday 17 August 2010
Tim Ambler Politics & Government 5439taxpayer-value-the-new-whitehall-board-game In Gordon Brown’s day the word “cuts” was unmentionable. Now politicians talk of little else. Michael Gove has a new list for every day of the week. Civil ...
Blog - Wednesday 14 July 2010
