Salute the super-rich | Ian Birrell
It should be a cause for celebration that the UK's stability makes it a magnet for billionairesThere is something repellent about the likes of James Stunt, who married billionaire Bernie Ecclestone's...
View ArticlePfizer bid for AstraZeneca: Britain takes a leaf out of France's takeover book
The foreign takeover bar is usually set low in the UK but in this case it is approaching the high default position of the FrenchThere's something of Tony Blair about François Hollande's rightward shift...
View ArticleTony Abbott's budget emergency: what are the facts? | Penny Wong
Not one of the prime ministers claims about the 'budget emergency' stacks up against a simple fact check and here's the evidence Its difficult to find words to adequately describe the spectacle of the...
View ArticleNow troubled children are an investment opportunity | Polly Toynbee
An 18% return on the most disturbed and needy children in care homes is the extreme end of Britain's outsourcing cultureGood investments are hard to come by in these low-interest times. But here's an...
View ArticlePay inequality is suffocating Britain's economic recovery and our society |...
When a CEO can take home in three days what it takes the rest of us a year to earn, we really need to question our prioritiesPay for those at the top of Britain's businesses has continued to rise...
View ArticleEconomic recovery was held back by changes to tax system, says thinktank
Institute for Fiscal Studies chief accuses coalition of creating a 'more complicated, less efficient and less transparent' tax systemThe government has held back the recovery with a string of policy...
View ArticleEd Miliband must give up his love of state intervention | Simon Jenkins
The Labour leader's stance on AstraZeneca is beyond silly. He needs a route map to cash in on the coalition's chaosEd Miliband is opposed to the Pfizer takeover of AstraZeneca. I do not recall if in...
View ArticleHuman casualties of an unequal society | @guardianletters
Polly Toynbee is right that profiteering from residential childcare is at the extreme end of outsourcing (Now troubled children are an investment opportunity, 13 May). It is also the at sharp end of...
View ArticleLabour reveals tax data showing UK economic growth 'only helps top 1%'
Party cites HMRC figures showing bottom 90% of taxpayers share less post-tax income but top 300,000 have moreLabour released figures that show the return of economic growth has overwhelmingly benefited...
View ArticleBank of England governor Mark Carney: economy 'has started to head back to...
The governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, says the UK is 'through the qualifying rounds' in terms of economic recovery, but not yet at the 'prize'. Carney says 700,000 more people are in work...
View ArticleBritish labour market may be too flexible, Vince Cable says
Business secretary says too much flexibility means low wages and low productivity are at risk of becoming entrenchedThe business secretary, Vince Cable, has warned that the British labour market has...
View ArticleOnly an economic revolution can defuse the global inequality timebomb |...
Economist Thomas Piketty warns that unless action is taken to redistribute wealth, inequality will widen until it becomes unsustainable. Development goal-setters ignore him at their perilFocus on...
View ArticleKristin Forbes joins Bank of England's interest rate-setting committee
Ex-George Bush adviser breaks male stranglehold on MPC and believes watchdogs must be tougher to prevent another crisisKristin Forbes, a former economic adviser to George Bush, is to break the all-male...
View ArticleWhy Thomas Piketty's wealth equation doesn't work in Britain | Kitty Ussher
There is little evidence to support the economist's claim that the distribution of wealth is becoming more unequalThomas Piketty, in his much-cited recent book on the distribution of wealth, argues...
View ArticleKristin Forbes is a good choice to join the monetary policy committee
American Kristin Forbes has no hands-on UK knowledge but she is expert in contagion caused by inadequately regulated capital flowsIt's easy to be sniffy about the appointment of Kristin Forbes to the...
View ArticleUkip has divided the left, not the right, and cut Labour off from its 'old'...
Labour and Ukip voters agree on more economic issues than you might think, presenting a strategic problem for Ed MilibandAccording to conventional wisdom, Ukip has "divided the right". By targeting...
View ArticleAn interest rate rise would be bad news for most Britons | Ann Pettifor
Britain is the world's most indebted nation. We cannot be relaxed about how a rate rise would affect households and consumersThere is now a concerted campaign to get the Bank of England to raise...
View ArticleMark Carney's World Cup analogies miss the target | Philip Hensher
Our thinking even on interest rates is contaminated by sporting ideals of victory, defeat and beating opponentsMark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, was trying to explain the state of the...
View ArticleMPs to investigate Serco over sex assault claim at Yarl's Wood centre
Firm forced to disclose secret internal report as Keith Vaz says he is 'shocked' by events at immigration detention centreThe hunt for the truth about Yarl's Wood asylum centreSerco, the private...
View ArticleBank governor highlights housing market's risk to economic recovery
UK housing market has 'deep, deep structural problems', says Mark Carney, and there is little that Bank can doBritain's booming housing market represents the "biggest risk" to the economic recovery,...
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