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Rowan Williams sowed confusion last week when he raised the distinction between the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor
Philip Booth
13 June 2011
3 comments

In his recent New Statesman editorial, Archbishop Rowan Williams criticised the re-emergence of the seductive language of the deserving and underserving poor. The job of a Bishop is to...
Coalition should launch full frontal attack on Archbishop
Philip Booth
9 June 2011
15 comments

Benedict Brogan asks what David Cameron should do about Archbishop Rowan Williams' full frontal attack on health, education and welfare reform. He suggests that he should consider the PR perils...
Conservatives hooked to the past on fishing
Philip Booth
3 June 2011
1 comment

One has to be very alarmed that the Chairman of the Defra Select Committee – Conservative MP Ann McIntosh – is arguing that fishing quotas should not be traded as an economic commodity...
Are financial markets ‘short-termist’? A crucial gap in Haldane's argument
Philip Booth
17 May 2011
2 comments

A couple of weeks ago, I went for a walk in Ashdown Forest. I followed the instructions perfectly and everything seemed consistent with the map. However, clearly something was wrong and, instead of...
The Bishop of Brentwood part two
Philip Booth
6 May 2011
1 comment

My last blog post dealt with the issue of ‘living wages for migrants’ in response to points that the Bishop of Brentwood had made in a high-profile homily. In direct contradiction to...
The Bishop of Brentwood part one
Philip Booth
5 May 2011
1 comment

The Bishop of Brentwood made the headlines yesterday for saying in a homily at a Mass that it was a scandal the migrants were exploited by being required to work for low levels of pay and that...
Why contracting out of the state pension should remain
Philip Booth
20 April 2011
0 comments

The recently published Green Paper on pensions was widely welcomed. Indeed, it contained some reasonable ideas. However, it also contained a proposal to abolish contracting out of state pensions...
Reducing deficits in open economies
Philip Booth
15 April 2011
3 comments

In June 2011 an editorial article appeared in the Royal Economic Society newsletter which seemed to sympathise with attacks on what it called ‘deficit fetishism’. Not quite the legions...
Austrian thoughts on competition policy
Philip Booth
8 April 2011
1 comment

This is the first of two blog posts that summarise some of the discussion that took place at an IEA seminar on EU competition policy with particular reference to Intel. The next post will deal with...
'Who you know' and 'what you know' - what does Nick Clegg know?
Philip Booth
5 April 2011
1 comment

Today, Nick Clegg decided to declare war on nepotism. He wants to 'stop a lot of the informal advantages which are helping certain people to hoard opportunities at the exclusion of others...
Watch out for Osborne’s foreign currency plans
Philip Booth
30 March 2011
2 comments

A few ears pricked up on budget day when George Osborne announced a surprising and potentially expensive plan to rebuild Britain’s foreign currency reserves. There are two...
IEA/TPA Budget Briefing 2011
Philip Booth
24 March 2011
0 comments

The opening and closing remarks of George Osborne’s budget speech did not bode well. He talked about: “a budget for making things”; he wanted a budget that supported manufacturing...
Solidarity, Charity and Government Aid
Philip Booth
24 March 2011
0 comments

Of all Christ’s teachings as reflected in the gospel accounts, there is none as consistent as his defense of the poor and downtrodden. This teaching applies also to international relations...
IDS's pension reforms: The Good, the Bad and the Unexplained
Philip Booth
8 March 2011
4 comments

Today's announcement by Iain Duncan Smith that there will be a simple state pension of £140 for all has been widely welcomed. Indeed, the proposals look a little like the...
The seen and the unseen - benefits, and the taxes used to finance them
Philip Booth
3 March 2011
5 comments

This week, Pensions Minister Steve Webb MP described the views of the authors of Sharing the burden - How the older generation should suffer its share of the cuts as “loathsome”. It...
Decentralisation - actions speak louder than words
Philip Booth
25 February 2011
2 comments

The government talks a good decentralisation game and, no doubt, there are some good things happening. However, we need more coherence across this field of policy. There are 'easy hits...
Pensioners should suffer their share of the cuts
Philip Booth
23 February 2011
35 comments

The Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) was not particularly comprehensive. It will reduce spending as a proportion of national income to the levels we had in 2007 – hardly ambitious. By 2015...
Economic liberalisation and the growth agenda: actions speak louder than words
Philip Booth
17 February 2011
7 comments

The government has realised belatedly that it wants to pursue an agenda for  ' growth '. The problem with this sort of language is that it encourages government...
Planning and the supply side of the economy
Philip Booth
14 February 2011
2 comments

Editorial note: Supply side week Supply side liberalisation should be at the top of any government's agenda. It is particularly important during a recession when economic resources need to be...
Rational pessimism, Mervyn King and supply-side liberalisation
Philip Booth
26 January 2011
1 comment

As Mervyn King suggested last night, the prospects for living standards in the near future are grim. Higher economic growth will help and the government should therefore pursue policies that...
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