Monthly Archives: February 2014

Adam Lent reckons Britain and Europe need a bit of American-style creative destruction: [T]here are a small number of SMEs that are highly productive. If you want to ‘win the global race’, this is the place to look.  What is needed there is … Continue reading →

An interesting thought from Ben Dellot at the RSA. If current trends continue, sometime before the end of this decade, the number of people working for themselves will be greater than the number working in the public sector. What, he … Continue reading →

Walking through Buxton a couple of years ago, I passed the offices of the law firm set up by Tim Brooke-Taylor’s family. I couldn’t help wondering how many small town lawyers would be able to send their sons to Winchester … Continue reading →

A decade or so ago, when I was involved in the implementation of multi-country ERP systems, I used to go to regular ‘Pan-European’ meetings. At one of them, as my mind was wandering half way through the morning, it struck … Continue reading →

Yesterday, the Resolution Foundation published its report on living standards. Its most obvious theme is that the recession has made most of us worse off. However, it also shows that some of the features of the labour market which we … Continue reading →

Do you live half way up a hill, or well away from rivers and sea? Have you been watching the floods on TV and thinking, ‘Thank God that’ll never happen to me’? Well think again. Broadly (and I know I’m … Continue reading →

A good piece from the Guardian’s Phillip Inman, earlier this week, on the shift from paid jobs to self-employment. I’m not so sure that it’s an ‘untold story’ though, given that some of us have been banging on about it … Continue reading →

The IFS published its Green Budget yesterday. Chapters 1 and 2 on the public finances are excellent and go into quite a lot of detail about the prospects for the second half of this decade. Taking into account the Autumn Statement, the Chancellor’s … Continue reading →

Writing a post about hierarchy and then leaving the country is probably the blogging equivalent of lobbing a grenade into a room and then running away. In the old days, when no-one knew who I was, I used to tell … Continue reading →