I don’t know what Boris Johnson’s IQ is but his speech at the annual Margaret Thatcher Lecture suggests that he is a spectacularly stupid little man. At the core of his speech was a celebration of Margaret Thatcher’s success in transforming Britain into “a buccaneering environment where there was no shame – quite the reverse –…
I have just ploughed my way through the first four chapters of Scotland’s Future, the Scottish Government’s white paper which argues the case for voting “yes” in next year’s referendum on Scottish independence, and outlines the Scottish National Party’s “priorities for action” should they be voted back into government after Scotland becomes independent. I confess…
Yesterday was spent attending the Radical Independence Conference 2013 in Glasgow, organised by the Radical Independence Campaign which employs the slogan “Another Scotland Is Possible”. We were a thousand strong, packed into a big room in the Marriott Hotel where we were addressed by a series of very able and persuasive speakers all of whom…
There’s a debate going on in some nerdy corners of the internet about negative interest rates, which sounds like a desperately dull thing to be wasting time on, but it could be the spark that lights the lamp that leads us out of the economic gloom into a bright and prosperous future. A negative interest…
Not only is Help To Buy stupid in terms of pumping up the housing debt bubble (as explained here), it’s also an expensive alternative to renting, according to this analysis by pricedout.org.uk. Apparently you’re better off renting than being an average first time buyer using Help To Buy.
I have just watched this interview in which Ross Ashcroft of the Renegade Economist talks to author and film-maker David Malone about democracy, economics and more. There’s a lot of good stuff in it but one idea struck me as something really special. David Malone argues that the idea of individual rights – human, constitutional, whatever…
David Cameron published an article yesterday on his LinkedIn page telling us how wonderful his Help To Buy scheme is. What he doesn’t tell you is that Help To Buy is merely an extension of the asset inflation farce that was responsible for the recession, and it can only lead to more misery further down…
Don’t Panic – The Truth About Population. Professor Hans Rosling telling us how it actually is. Entertaining and inspiring. Please share this far and wide.
I wasted a couple of hours today at the live broadcast of Brian Taylor’s Big Debate from Portree on the Isle of Skye. The man himself is a class act – warm, welcoming, and witty – putting both audience and panel at ease. On the panel were three MSPs (Members of the Scottish Parliament) who…
A couple of weeks ago, prompted by lots of activity on facebook, I published this article about Russell Brand’s recent interview with Jeremy Paxman. A few days later I published this one about how our insane system of money-as-debt is slowly driving our economy off a cliff. The Russell Brand article has been viewed by…
Views From The Boatshed 