The death of cash, the rise of trade unions and other eclectic 2017 predictions

It’s certainly been an eventful year. But rather than dwell on the past, what sort of things can we expect in 2017? Here are a few eclectic predictions. Sweden may become the world’s first cashless economy. Notes and coins are already fast disappearing as a means of payment, and retailers are legally entitled to refuse to accept […]

Forget “post-truth”: A compelling vision drove Brexit and Trump triumphs

The buzz-phrase of the moment in political discussion is “post-truth”. Shell-shocked metropolitan liberals are astonished by both Brexit and Donald Trump’s success. How could their own rational analysis not find favour with the electorate? People in the internet age must be no longer capable of recognising the truth. Both the Brexiteers and Trump certainly created […]

The OBR shouldn’t be expected to forecast so far into the future

Economic forecasts have become a political hot potato. The Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) predictions, presented as part of the chancellor’s Autumn Statement, have put the government under pressure. The OBR has revised down its forecast for GDP growth over the next four years by 1.4 percentage points. The real controversy is that their gloomy […]

Dump opinion polls for social media to understand people’s real preferences

So the pollsters got it wrong again.  After the general election last year and then Brexit, it is perhaps not surprising.  What is surprising is just how wrong they were.  The real problem is the enormous confidence with which they pronounced that Clinton would win. The Princeton Election Consortium was probably top of the class, […]

From the NHS to Brexit, give people a choice and they’ll make a good one

A current headache for the government is the performance of the NHS, and whether it is running out of money. This was making the front pages until the judges’ decision on Brexit pushed it off. Successive governments have discovered that the finances of the health service are a potentially bottomless pit. A key policy issue […]

No wonder free trade is under threat: we’re just rediscovering its losers

It had been an article of faith among economists and policy-makers that free trade is a Good Thing. Trade liberalisation was a key feature of the world economic order enforced by the United States after the Second World War. For decades, the trend of removing trade barriers led to world trade growing around twice as rapidly as […]