Author Archives: Rick

“It’s begun,” said Resolution Foundation chief executive Torsten Bell, as the increase in unemployment fed through into the labour market statistics for the first time. He also reminded employers that there were 45 days to go until the end of … Continue reading →

Theresa May was horrified by the idea of a trade border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.  “No United Kingdom prime minister could ever agree to it,” she said. No sovereign state, least of all one that still claimed world … Continue reading →

I bet Dominic Cummings did a little happy dance when someone scrawled graffiti on the Cenotaph during a Black Lives Matter protest. He probably opened a bottle when the Archbishop of Canterbury announced a review of statues in churches. These are … Continue reading →

Two months ago, few people had heard of Rishi Sunak. He is now about to go down in history as the most interventionist peacetime chancellor. His plan to pay 80 percent of the wages of employees kept on by their … Continue reading →

(With apologies to Simon and Garfunkel) I am just a rich boy, And my story’s often told, I quit management consulting, To write mendacious columns for a pot of gold. All lies and jests, Still folks hear what they want … Continue reading →

Remember The Debt? The Debt was a really Bad Thing ten years ago. The sheer hugeness of it was going to drag the country down, cripple the economy, turn us into a pariah on the international markets and bankrupt the country. … Continue reading →

Brexit meant there was always going to be a trade border somewhere between the UK and Ireland. Unless the future relationship was to be so close as to make Brexit pointless, a UK outside the Single Market and Customs Union … Continue reading →

Brexit has ground to a halt. Theresa May will put her deal to Parliament again and it will fail again. At this rate we will come to the end of the extension period having achieved nothing. Which isn’t surprising, given … Continue reading →

Donald Trump doesn’t listen to big business. Unusually for a Republican president, he seems to be ignoring the business lobby altogether, as Edward Luce reported in the FT: Groups such as the Chamber of Commerce, and the Business Roundtable, complain … Continue reading →