Trumpery and all that

2016 was a remarkable year – not in a good way –  and despite the optimism of its ending, for me, with a lovely holiday, a wedding followed by a Christmas with friends and New Year with some more, 2017 starts darkly with the emerging news that it is almost certain that Trump owes his impending position in the White House to President Putin.

Nothing is proved, or for that matter, provable.  It is as likely or unlikely as almost anything about the man. At least we now know have a plausible explanation for the particular shade of gold in his toupee.

But let us assume, for a moment, that it is true. That The Donald is, in fact, utterly Putin’s man. And ponder it for a moment. What does it mean for the world?

There is a really quite astonishingly good side to it all. Granted, it changes the climate change risk adversely, but the global momentum towards clean energy cannot be stopped. But Russia just discovered that cyberwarfare is not only a lot cheaper than the obsolete shooting variety, but a lot more effective. At a stroke, Putin and Russia (and the FBI) have made shooting wars obsolete.  Why would you want to nuke America and create a wasteland?

Of course, it is not all wonderful, but making shooting wars obsolete… that’s a result we should all be pretty cool with.

Fair Votes

I’m keen on the idea of a Progressive Alliance to introduce fair votes. As I’ve indicated in a previous post, the only purpose of the Progressive Alliance would be electoral reform.

But electoral reform isn’t just about proportional representation.  The present system is inefficient and unfair; it doesn’t reflect the will of the people especially when there are more than two main parties.  In general, the main parties oppose electoral reform and the minor parties support it. This is the case whatever their political colour: notoriously, when the Labour and Liberal parties swapped places as the main opposition to the Conservatives, in the 1920s, they changed their policies on PR. The old Liberal Party, the party of Asquith and Lloyd George, opposed PR until it was overtaken by Labour, which itself supported PR until it became the second party. And if you want to find a party on the right which now supports PR, look no further than UKIP.  Go figure: hypocrites all.

FPTP is clearly broken and unfair, but all the alternatives have problems. I personally favour the Single Transferable Vote, which the Electoral Reform Society supports. It is the most proportional system which still retains a constituency link – although the constituencies are larger, multi-member ones.  But proportionality in a multi-party parliamentary system can be just as undemocratic as FPTP.  The problem is that the small parties become kingmakers. The country that has suffered most from this is Israel, which has ended up giving  a great deal of influence to small, extremist religious parties.  Could we live with ourselves if electoral reform resulted in an extremist party like the BNP came to hold the balance of power?

The solution to this is to have direct elections for the Prime Minister.  Theresa May’s undemocratic smoke-and-mirrors elevation to the First Lord of the Treasury makes a further case for this.  The electorate, not a small group of  MPs whether in a cabal in a big party or as a small party exercising the muscles given to it by proportionality, should choose the PM.   For such an election, the Alternative Vote system would work well – as it does for the elections for the London Mayor.

But the difficulties don’t end there. We would have a directly-elected Prime Minister with the authority of his mandate, on the AV system over 50% of the electorate having voted for hime or her as first or second preference, and a legislature in which, in all probability, his party would be the largest party but without an overall majority.  Result: gridlock. The worst of all worlds.  The problem that has paralysed President Obama’s second term.

Traffic gridlock is avoided in the UK by yellow-box rules and we would need yellow-box rules to avoid political gridlock. The most important of these is that Parliament should not be able to veto the Government’s budget; but it should legislate for the framework in which the Government makes its budget. In relation to taxes,  Parliament sets the base (income, Value Added etc) and the Government sets the rate.  Parliament makes the laws, and the Government implements them.

 

 

A Progressive Alliance

 

Given the understandable splits in the left over core issues of principle – Trident, immigration, Blair’s guilt or otherwise – the only way we can avoid perpetual Tory rule is to form a Progressive Alliance for voting reform.  To be clear, a Progressive Alliance would be an electoral alliance,  only to implement Fair Votes.

With a sensible voting system, there would be room for two Labour parties as well as the Greens and the LibDems. Or for a single Labour Party in which we get to choose which candidate – Corbynista or Blairite – we prefer.

 If we had Fair Votes, we wouldn’t need a Progressive Alliance; so

When we get Fair Votes, the Progressive Alliance should be disbanded.

Organised Tactical Voting: How the Progressive Alliance would Work

Every candidate seeking endorsement from the Progressive Alliance would:

• Commit  to the key policies and in particular, voting reform;
• Agree to stand down for the current election in favour of the Alliance candidate with the best chance of beating the Tories and
• actively campaign for whichever Progressive Alliance candidate was selected for the constituency in question;

The Alliance would use constituency-level polling and demographic data to select the party and the candidate with the best chance of beating the Tories. The full resources  of every party in the Alliance would be focused on getting that one candidate elected, so that after the General Election the Progressive Alliance would have a majority in Parliament, enact the key reform bills and call a fresh General Election under the new system.

Core Manifesto for a Progressive Alliance

We understand that while we agree on the overall objectives of the progressive left – more social and economic justice, less inequality, a swift end to cruel and divisive Tory rule – there is also much that divides us: on Trident, on immigration, on the economic policies to achieve our goals, on military interventions past and future and who should be held responsible for them.

But we have far more in common than that which divides us

Our first-past-the-post voting system does not readily permit nuanced democratic choice, but  Fair Votes will give voters the power to choose both between the parties and between candidates within the parties.

Once we have enacted our constitutional reforms, we will therefore disband the Progressive Alliance and call new elections under the new system.

Constitutional Reform

• Direct Elections for Prime Minister

• Fair Votes for the Legislature

• More Power to the Nations and Regions

• An all-elected second chamber as a senate of the Nations and Regions

Brexit

• Negotiate the best deal given the circumstances, followed by
• A referendum on the terms

Policy

• A commitment to social and economic justice especially in housing and employment
• Reducing inequality
• Protecting the planet for future generations
• Evidence over ideology in policy-making

 

 

Brexit-A Plan

 

It is now two weeks since we woke up to the nightmare. Two weeks since the world changed. Two weeks since our smug metropolitan elitism was rightly, smashed.

It is time for a plan: a plan to rescue democracy.  It is a plan in three parallel parts:

• Brexit;
• A progressive alliance; and
• A movement for London.

Let us start with Brexit. The other two will wait for another post.  No one really knows how Article 50 is supposed to work, since there is no precedent. We have only the text of the article and its context. The key concern and unknown is, “can an Article 50 notification be rescinded before completion of exit negotiations?”

Let us assume that it can: this was the opinion of the learned Judge Sir David Edward QC in his evidence to the House of Lords, and there are several other authoritative expressions of the same opinion. In which case, it is not unreasonable to impose a condition on the notification, and it is my contention that it would be both prudent and polite to do so – certainly, more polite than rescinding the notification without warning at some stage in the future.  For the sake of discussion,  therefore, I offer this draft of the instrument by which Her Majesty’s Government should notify the European Council of its intention to leave the European Union:.

DRAFT Article 50 Notification

“Her Majesty’s Government, having regard to Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and the results of the advisory referendum held on 23rd of June 2016, on this day hereby  gives notice subject to the following conditions to the European Council that the UK intends to leave the European Union:

(1) Definitions

In this Notification, the following terms shall have meanings as set out in this clause:

Exit Terms means together:

• terms relating to the conclusion of  obligations subsisting between the parties as a consequence of the UK’s membership of the EU, and
• terms relating to the subsequent relationship between the UK and the EU.

Repealing Act means

An Act of  Parliament which shall provide for a binding Confirmation Referendum and in Part II of which shall repeal the European Communities Act 1972 as subsequently amended.

Confirmation Referendum means

A referendum, the result of which shall be binding, enabled by the Repealing Act, asking the question:

Should the UK:

Accept the Provisional Exit Terms and Leave the European Union, or

Reject  the Provisional Exit Terms and Remain a member of the European Union.

(2) Publication of provisional Exit Terms within 18 months

The EU and and the UK shall no later than eighteen months from the date of this Notification have concluded and published provisional Exit Terms;

(3) Holding of a Confirmation Referendum three months later

The UK shall no later than three months from the date on which provisional Exit Terms are concluded and published and no later than twenty-one months from the date of this Notification hold a Confirmation Referendum

(4) Exit to be completed within two years

In the event that a majority of the votes cast in the Confirmation Referendum are to Accept the provisional Exit Terms, the UK shall cease  to be a member of the European Union and Part II of the Repealing Act shall come into force no later than two years from the date of this Notification.

(5) Possible rescission of Article 50 Notification. 

In the event that a majority of the votes cast in the Confirmation Referendum are to Reject the Provisional Exit Terms, this notification shall be rescinded with immediate effect,  the UK will Remain a member of the European Union and Part II of the Repealing Act shall not come into force.

Comments are most welcome but are subject to moderation to avoid spam.

 

 

Fine words, Mr Cameron….

Now for some action.

On the use of London property for money-laundering.

It is a deep-rooted problem and action will have a damaging impact. The spate of high-profile developments in London, particularly but not exclusively on Battersea Reach – either side of Nine Elms Lane, where the new American Embassy is being built and by Battersea Power Station – depends on this foreign investment to be economic. Even with it, it would seem that there’s building up for an over-supply at the high end, where one-beds are up to a million.  But if you take the 30,000 units used to launder money out of the equation: price crash inevitable.  Lots of Cameron’s mates will be hurt.

The issue is relatively easily solved, if Mr Cameron is willing. First, insist that all UK property be owned by individuals or by EU-incorporated companies subject to full disclosure of beneficial ownership. Transparency, as ever, is key.

Secondly, stop these properties being left empty.  Keeping property empty in London, with its housing shortage, is nothing short of criminal. Properties left empty should be subject to punitive taxation, ideally through a reformed council tax, although if that can’t be done, they should be subject to business rates.

The Leftie’s Dilemma

I  make no bones about being a leftie, but leftism isn’t why I decided to join the Green Party. Climate change matters. Even if the GP never get to win power, their popularity influences policy in the parties that do.  Whatever I think about the rest of the GP’s policies, they get my vote because climate change.

Now, Labour.

Roughly speaking, I’m with Corbyn 80% of the way. He’s right about railways and Trident and austerity, but wrong about renationalising electricity generation (we do it in our back yards now).  And I’m deeply suspicious of arguments to preserve or rebuild union structures that gave corrupting levels of power to barely-accountable General Secretaries.

I’m about 55% with Burnham and Cooper, and about 35% with Kendall.

And maybe 5%, being generous,  with Cameron or Osborne/Bojo/TessaMay

But I’m also 90% against Tories, 5% meh.

45% against Kendall, 20% meh

30% against Burnham and Cooper, and 15% meh.

10% against Corbyn and 15% meh.

So – if I paid my £3, which I won’t  – who should I vote for?

It all depends on what is the probability of their beating the Tories. As it happens, I don’t agree with the Blairist analysis that Labour can only win from the centre-right.   The difference between 1997 and 2020 is generation rent, and if they bother to vote the left can win.  But the Tory press have a lot of power and will stir up the immigration question, about the only rightwing issue that will motivate generation rent outside the capital.

Corbyn doesn’t pander to it, the others do.

Now, could I really bring myself to vote for centrist Labour candidates who would pander to the implications of the immigration question, and go soft on media ownership, to avoid a skewering?

If the Blairist view is right, then – holding my nose – it might be the only way to prevent five more years of rampant Tory rule.

The struggle against Daesh will be won or lost in cyberspace

This is a long post in response to David Cameron’s speech, delivered yesterday at the Ninestiles school in Birmingham, about dealing with and countering extremism;  and also to his support for further air strikes against Daesh in Syria.

David Cameron’s speech is one of the best he has ever given – which is not a particularly high accolade. On much of the diagnosis I agree with him wholeheartedly.  Where I disagree is on the prescription. Much of his plan will make things worse.

Summary

I argue the case that the struggle against Daesh will be won or lost in cyberspace, and not on the battlefields of the Middle East. A military solution there will only entail more loss of life and more suffering. It is in cyberspace that the critical battles will be fought: on two grounds: the battle for ideas, and the battle for the command and control infrastructure. The battle for ideas is the one that must be won; but the battle for the command and control infrastructure is the most exciting. On  both of these grounds, the West’s defences are lacking, its thinking constrained by the very military metaphor I am employing.  Cameron, and the West – like Daesh – fall into the trap of believing that battles of ideas can be won by military means – whether in cyberspace or on the ground. They cannot: they win or lose purely on the merits of the ideas themselves.

Context

The war against Daesh is part of a larger struggle that is already defining the first half of this century  as the two world wars defined the first half of the last. Then it was empires against ideals, kings against republics, Germany against France, might against modernity. Now it is East against West, Islamism against what? against Christianity? against capitalism? against liberalism? against secularism? Against us, against our wooly universal values of freedom, secularism and democracy. Our enemy is what the fanatics at the heart of the movement see as Islam, not the Islam practised by most Muslims.  It is what David Cameron describes as Islamic Extremism, and while we are the enemy of its practitioners, its enemy is our liberty.

In 1992, Francis Fukuyama announced The End of History, the triumph of liberal democracy over socialism.   Fukuyama was describing the events that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989.  It was an important victory in the battle for free expression – but it was not the end of history, nor the inevitable success of capitalism over socialism.   The Soviet Union was a regime so afraid of ideas that every typewriter and  photocopier had to be registered with the authorities: but it was videotapes rather than the samizdat press that undermined it .   Throughout the final quarter of the twentieth century, authoritarianism was in retreat: the military dictators of Latin America as much as the communist ones of Eastern Europe being replaced by relatively liberal democracies.  Both communism and anti-communist militarism have been discredited as justifications for repression, but in the first half of the twenty-first century, Islam is being repurposed for the task.

It is not Islam’s fault that some people are hijacking it for the purposes of implementing repression. Nor is this hijacking purely the work of the daeshbags and others who believe what they are doing is somehow Islamic – the Taleban, what remains of al Quaeda, Boko Haram. It is just as beneficial to the West’s military-industrial complex to have an enemy to replace socialism. On both sides there are groups that benefit from conflict and who are using an ancient religious divide to foster it. That is to say, the frontline of the struggle that matters does not run between Islam and the West, but between those who would resolve matters with violence and repression, and those who choose the resolution of ideas on their merits, in a world where ideas and people are free.

Ideas are discredited, never destroyed.

The existence of the class of idea that Cameron calls “non-violent extremism” is an inevitable consequence  of free expression. Some truly terrible ideas get out and about and are expressed.  Most of them involve some censorship of countervailing ideas.  The only effective way of dealing with them is to make our own countervailing ideas better – to win the argument on the merits, by letting all ideas compete for what global marketers like to call mindshare so the bad ones are discredited. This is an old argument and it needs to be made again and again, because there are always people who will try to censor ideas they do not like. Censorship strengthens a bad idea.

Non-violent extremism is best addressed by allowing it to be freely and openly expressed, so that it is  discredited by its own contradictions.  Cameron’s attack on the expression of non-violent extremism is the second biggest mistake we can make in dealing with it.

Military intervention will fail

The biggest mistake is to address it with military force.  This is also what Cameron is proposing to do, in extending air strikes to Daesh bases in territory to the northwest of the Sykes-Picot line (that is, in the part of the world we decided in 1915 should be called Syria). Even the armchair generals agree that it is not likely to be particularly effective: they are calling for  tanks on the ground.  A sufficiently large tank force might be able to inflict military defeats on Daesh in the Levant, but it will be a very costly skirmish that could yet lose us the greater struggle.

The recent history of military intervention by the west is not even chequered: it is almost all failure. Two modest successes – Sierra Leone and Kosovo – stand against a depressing catalogue of failure. Of the others, the best result has been the long stalemate in Afghanistan. Libya, Iraq, Somalia and Bosnia were failures; the latter two’s emergence into relative liberty only occurring long after the military withdrew to lick their wounds.  In Vietnam, a generation earlier, vastly superior American military expenditure and hardware failed to defeat the Vietcong and the brutality of the war strengthened the very bad idea that was Soviet communism.

Choosing favourite proxies on the ground to support with weapons and training is equally dangerous. It has certainly helped the emergence of Daesh in Syria, as the west assumed that any enemy of Assad must be a friend of ours.  By focusing our diplomatic efforts on regime change rather than on conflict resolution we have helped to solidify Assad’s grip on power and hardened the divides in that country which was once a beacon of interfaith tolerance in the region. The inspiring Boys’ Own stories of the courage of the women and men of the Kurdish YPG in the battle for Kobane are a distraction, misleading us down the route of a military solution. This is a battle of ideas; there is no military solution.

Islam isn’t a bad idea

At the heart of Islam is a really rather beautiful idea. It’s the idea that there’s One God, for the whole world, not lots of different Gods for different communities.  One God, One Love, One World.  You don’t have to believe in the idea to appreciate its power and its beauty. It’s the idea that made Islam traditionally so tolerant of others – particularly other “people of the book”. The bundle of bad ideas we do have to discredit and defeat includes the murderous doctrines that drive Daesh, which are absolutely antithetical to the universal inclusiveness of Islam.

Communities count

Cameron is, however, right to say that we need to build strong, tolerant multifaith communities at home as well as abroad.  Such communities are witnesses for universal peace.  It is, therefore, regrettable that much of what he prescribes – both within his Birmingham speech and as wider Conservative policy, is calculated to undermine them.  Cuts in welfare aimed at larger families will disproportionately affect Muslim families and leave young men to grow up in the very conditions of deprivation that lead to alienation.  The obligations and encouragement to report extremism are more likely to provoke a defensive closing-in of communities.  Grassing-up your family or neighbour has never been a core British value.

So if not Cameron’s prescription – a revamped Prevent as a Tory Stasi operating in Muslim communities – what then? What can the Government do, what can we as citizens do, and what – in particular – can good Muslims do?

Support interfaith work.

As it happens, the Muslim community in Britain is already doing a lot. Interfaith work between many of our faith communities is growing.  During this year’s challenging Ramadan fast, a group called The Big Iftar invited people to share with Muslims the iftar night-time meal at their local mosque.  I am ashamed to say that I didn’t manage to go to one at mine.  The heartwarming story of the Bradford reform synagogue, saved by its local Muslim community is another great example. These things are happening all over the country, quietly and prayerfully as communities understand that their common humanity is reflected in their common God.  The secular community tends to be rather dismissive of faith, but it too needs to join the interfaith movement with love and respect: respect for humanity is the common feature of all the world’s great religions, and it’s shared by secular humanists.

Deal with racism , doh!

In his speech, Mr Cameron said,

"Over generations, we have built something extraordinary in Britain – a successful 
multi-racial, multi-faith democracy. It’s open, diverse, welcoming 
– these characteristics are as British as queuing and talking about the weather".

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The project to build the utopia Mr Cameron describes is far from complete. We are building such a thing. We are leading the world and doing it more successfully than most, but there is still a very long way to go. We won’t succeed unless we neutralise the toxic racism that still permeates British society. Countless academic studies show that, despite legislation, racism,  sexism and classism still influence housing, education and employment.  The evidence is clear that the colour of your skin (as well as  the shape of your genitals and the sound of your voice ) has a disproportionate effect on your life-chances.

Populist anti-migrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric, which does win votes, is highly destructive of the sort of equal society we need. It undermines everything done to tackle racism by providing a subconscious justification for the natural prejudices that need anti-racist effort to challenge. It helps to alienate many people with a Muslim, migrant heritage and undermines anti-racism work.

Embrace jihad

It is not for nothing that I used the word “struggle” in the title to this piece. It is as direct a translation as possible of the Arabic jihad;  far better than “holy war”.  Muslims identify the greater jihad as the perpetual struggle between good and evil, between Allah and Satan, in which Muslims engage in their daily lives as they try to live in virtue.  Daesh would like to see the great jihad as being the battle they are fighting, but it isn’t. However, the struggle to resolve conflict wherever it occurs is part of the great jihad.

Create attractive youth opportunities

There have always been, and there will always be, disaffected youth. There will be fewer of them if there are more opportunities for all young people – and that does not mean opportunities to become a corporate drone, a wage-slave in major organisation. It is simplistic, to imply that all extremists come from the alienated fringes of society, but the fact that many of the most notorious terrorists have had prosperous backgrounds does not discredit the notion that repression and alienation contributes to the pursuit of extremism.

Replace “moderate Muslim” with “good ” or “devout Muslim”.

A good Muslim is one who serves Allah and the ummah without violence.  A good Muslim will never engage in forced marriage, fgm or other unIslamic practices; a good Muslim will also pray five times a day and observe the fast in Ramadan.  Britain welcomes good Muslims and should make life easy for them to pursue the dictates of their faith. “Moderate Muslim” implies something half-hearted. What else makes a good Muslim is a matter for debate in the community – we kuffars can’t get involved, but we can be quite clear that good Muslims are also good Britons.

But most of all: engage the battle of ideas in cyberspace.

Cameron made much of conspiracy theories in his speech.  The weakness of all conspiracy theories is that they assume the existence of a much cleverer cadre of privileged conspiracists. Those familiar with real life know that anything that can be explained by a conspiracy can be much more convincingly explained by a cockup.  Nevertheless, conspiracies have mileage. Were Daesh  a Zionist conspiracy to discredit Islam, it would be working very well. Every beheading video the daeshbags release discredits Islam a little more.   Either it is a Zionist conspiracy, and the Zionists are very clever – or it isn’t, and the daeshbags are really stupid.    Likewise the use of Anjem Choudhury as a regular Muslim TV talking head looks to many Muslims to be a similarly dastardly Zionist plot: he is a terrible advertisement for the faith.  But there are more mundane explanations both for Daesh and for Mr Choudhury’s frequent television appearances.

At the start of this post, I suggested that the struggle in cyberspace will be engaged on two grounds: the battle for ideas, and the technical battle for command and control. Daesh would love to be able to hack  into the West’s drone control networks; the West feels it needs to be able to intercept and read Daesh’s internal communications.  Probably, neither will happen: strong cryptography will protect both. But Daesh, unlike its extremist predecessor al Quaeda, seems to be far more capable of exploiting technology. It’s important that we in the west both maintain superior cryptanalytic skills and do not delude ourselves that we can use legislation to insert back doors  or otherwise cripple crypto technology that is already out there.  If we ban Whatsapp and Snapchat, the daeshbags will use them anyway.

Not that we cannot, but that we must.

The Summer Budget

As you can imagine, the summer budget was not entirely to my liking.  I’m not sure what my reaction would have been had it been.

But it’s not quite as bad as I expected, and contains some interesting and good surprises.

If I were Chancellor, I’d cut inheritance tax allowances, not extend them. But I’m relieved that  his latest extension (“for the family home”) is going to be transferable when home is downsized. The biggest weakness with the proposal as leaked is that it would lock old people into unsuitable family homes when they should be downsizing to some form of sheltered housing.  In the announcement, he’s recognised that problem and said he will allow for it.

The Northern Powerhouse is another good thing. I think these things should be done by a more deliberative constitutional process, rather than by the Chancellor freelancing. But however it’s done, it’s a good thing; and the announcement that there’ll also be a midlands powerhouse is very welcome. What we now need is proper devolution to these powerhouses – and devolution to London.  Osborne’s politics has always been better than his his economics.

His attack on working credits however is a disgrace. What it does is increase the marginal effective tax rate for those moving off benefits and into work. The corresponding change to the minimum wage – the introduction of a new higher minimum wage, which he has disingenuously called the National Living Wage – will not be sufficient compensation.

This shows that resolving the problem of the poverty trap is expensive – we always knew it would be, and Working tax credit didn’t finish the job. But while its there, we will get both the social and the economic fallout of this glaring discrepancy in the marginal tax curve.

The Productivity Conundrum

As George Osborne wallows smugly in the better economic figures – which are, in my opinion, as misleading as ever and reflect mainly the return to the bubble conditions of before 2008 – he faces one undeniable problem, the productivity stats. The fact is that productivity growth is lower in Britain than in most of our competitors.

It is a conundrum that has puzzled the sharpest minds in economics, or something like that.

But at least they are agreed that unless we get productivity up, growth will be unsustainable.

I think the explanation for the productivity gap is simpler than has been said. And, guess what, George Osborne’s policies are going to do precisely the opposite of what is needed to redress the problem.

Consider these two facts:

(1) Productivity often rises towards the end of a recession, but it did not do so this time; and

(2) Unemployment usually falls during a recession, but it did so far less this time.

Productivity is output per worker-hour. It rises towards the end of a recession when employers delay taking on new staff by making existing ones work harder. But that didn’t happen this time because they hadn’t laid them off in the first place.  I think this effect explains most of the productivity conundrum.  Working tax credits and a relatively low minimum wage make it possible to keep staff on during a downturn.

Productivity is  boosted by capital investment. If you buy a machine to help your staff work better, productivity will increase. In other words, it is closely related to capital investment. But investment in productive capital does not produce the kind of returns that investment in property (which is static capital) does. That’s why we’re not getting the productivity growth we should be getting. This is the key to the problem at a national level.

Trading hours and retail productivity.

Mr Osborne has announced that he intends to reform the Sunday trading laws so that local authorities can decide trading hours based on local needs. On the whole, I think this is a good idea; but it’s important to consider how extended trading affects retail productivity. The retail sector is an important part of our economy, accounting for about 11% of output.  Extending opening hours will tend to reduce retail productivity – unless, which is most unlikely, the volume of trade goes up proportionally. What actually happens is that at best a marginal increase in volume is spread over a significantly longer trading time. The result is a fall in retail productivity.

Greece Should Launch its Own Digital Currency…

Alongside the Euro, and with no paper counterpart.

Cut out the Greek banks. They’re part of the problem.

To be used in its own online-mobile payment system.

Instead of paying pensions and other social obligations in Euros (which the authorities and the markets are not lending it any more), Greece pays them to its citizens in eDrachma. Better some money that not everyone takes than no money at all.

Greece accepts tax payments from Greek residents in eDrachma.

The eDrachma is nominally at parity with the Euro. eDrachma can be bought from the Greek authorities at par.

The eDrachma system collects its own taxes.