First – let me be clear: I’m no expert. But simple logic suggests that the current government’s idea of engendering herd immunity is both logical and cruel – people will die now, who might otherwise die later – even much, much later. But if we keep well apart until further notice which is broadly the… Read more
Budget – or just trickery
According to The History of Parliament the phrase ‘to open one’s budget’ “was being used in the sixteenth century to mean that someone was revealing something which was secret, perhaps even dubious. It meant something like bringing out a box of tricks. “ Yesterday’s budget certainly seems to justify that description. The new Chancellor seems… Read more
Covid-19: A test of leadership
It is difficult to write about Covid-19 because, above all, this is a human tragedy – behind every statistic are a manifold of individual human stories. Still the statistics are very important, because they may help us to learn how to save lives in the future. At the level of government, Covid-19 is a test… Read more
Fiscal Rules
I suspect that the Conservatives’ fiscal rules will be thoroughly breached by the upcoming budget. But meanwhile, Simon Wren Lewis, architect of Labour’s fiscal rules, has (at last?) outlined what they are for. I trust he’ll forgive me for quoting at length: Fiscal rules are there to restrain governments from not being benevolent. For many… Read more
Efficiency is not resilience
Following on from the previous piece on Coronavirus, and bearing in mind particularly the purposely reduced capacity of the NHS, I thought this graph below very instructive on the reasons for the overwhelming necessity for the precautionary approach in any epidemic. It demonstrates clearly that the smaller the capacity the greater the need for delaying… Read more
Coronavirus and taking care on the stairs
These are the fatality rates for Coronavirus, which suggest the difficulties start at 50 and get dangerous from aged 60 onwards: This table shows that the first economy of the world seems to have a surprisingly small occurrence and it may be that the average American’s preference not to travel abroad helps, but it could… Read more
Experts are not really us
I really cannot fault this ‘celebrity’ comment… Would that the tabloid press could think the same…… Read more
Countering executive over-reach
There is an interesting article in Prospect Magazine by David Allen Green in which he suggests that the judicial activism of the recent past is just not true and where he concludes: So there is an artificially inflated narrative of judicial activism. The context for this is telling: there are concurrent attacks on impartial civil… Read more
‘Nature’ and Economics are incompatible
Having attended a very interesting lecture from Tim Lenton, possibly the subsequent discussion was even more informative! Tim suggests that economics is way too influential in the government – and also generally – and that the environment is seemingly of little, or subsidiary, consequence. I’m sure that this will echo the views of many PP… Read more
Treasury rules – or does it?
This is from Ed Conway of Sky concerning the ‘Times’ extract that follows: The Treasury is debating a radical change in its accounting rules, reclassifying billions spent on education and health as “investment”. One upshot: Rishi Sunak could meet his fiscal rules without any tax rises or spending cuts.. So this suggests that Labour’s paroxysms… Read more
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