Published Articles.

Feb 5, 2019

Nissan has been betrayed by Brexit ideologues

There’s something tragically appropriate about the fact that the most high-profile British industrial story, as the country staggers in...

Dec 16, 2018

Brexit insurance that is worth having

The Irish “backstop”, the legal clause that offends the sensibilities of hardline Tory Brexiteers – to the point where they would be...

Dec 14, 2018

Brexit insurance that is worth having

The Irish "backstop", the legal clause that offends the sensibilities of hardline Tory Brexiteers - to the point where they would be...

Nov 11, 2018

The worrying echoes of the First World War's beginnings in May's approach to Brexit

In 1909 the British empire was locked in a frantic race with Germany for naval military supremacy. The continent was carved into...

Sep 30, 2018

Food for thought for Brexiteers

One could tell a surprisingly comprehensive history of the Brexit project by simply talking about food. From curved bananas to...

Sep 17, 2018

Beware ideologues who would inflict pain on others

At the peak of the global financial crisis a decade ago there were some who insisted that politicians and regulators should sit back and...

Aug 22, 2018

Brexit ideology will be bad for exports

If visions from ministers were effective in boosting UK exports we would long ago have surpassed the £1 trillion target set by George...

Mar 29, 2018

One year to Brexit: How businesses in the most economically exposed region of the UK are coping

A sword of Damocles hangs over the economy of the North-east of England. That at least is the implication of the government’s own...

Mar 14, 2018

Hammond’s spring statement was no new dawn for the UK economy. It was an optical illusion

The bonanza, in the end, failed to materialise. There had been a fair amount of talk before the Spring Statement that Philip Hammond...

Mar 4, 2018

On trade, Trump and the Brexiteers are not as far apart as you might expect

When it comes to trade, liberal Brexiteers are cut from a very different cloth from Donald Trump. Or so we’re led to believe. Trump wants...

Feb 21, 2018

Ministers should stop appeasing obscurantist Tory backbenchers and publish their internal Brexit ana

One would need to have been living under a rock not to know what the headline findings are from the Government’s internal economic...

Jan 23, 2018

UK companies are losing patience with the ideological fantasies of Brexiteers

Comparisons between politicians and business leaders are generally to be avoided. But sometimes they can be instructive. Imagine if a...

Nov 26, 2017

What Liam Fox and the Brexiteers get wrong on exports

Not long ago there was an official Government target for UK exports. “We want to double our nation’s exports to £1 trillion this decade,”...

Nov 23, 2017

Why the economic forecasts for Britain are so apocalyptic – and how much Brexit is to blame

The economic headlines of the past 48 hours have been thoroughly miserable, if not apocalyptic. So what’s going on? Has the UK’s economic...

Oct 19, 2017

INTERVIEW: Paul Krugman

As you would expect, Paul Krugman, the Nobel laureate economist and possibly America’s most influential liberal commentator, gets...

Oct 15, 2017

The Brexit negotiations are a game of chicken between a juggernaut and a Mini – and Britain is the M

In his 1960 book The Strategy of Conflict the late Thomas Schelling made a significant contribution to the field of game theory by...

Sep 19, 2017

Think the row over £350m a week is a pointless squabble over numbers? Here’s why you’re wrong

What is your reaction to the re-ignition of the row, courtesy of an “essay” by Boris Johnson, over whether or not Britain will be able to...

Aug 17, 2017

INTERVIEW: Richard Blundell

Who will be the next winner of the Nobel Prize in economics? One answer is that it might be a modest and quietly spoken professor who...

Aug 14, 2017

A ‘left-wing Brexit’ is a dangerous delusion

If Labour supporters want a glimpse of what Jeremy Corbyn’s 2017 general election manifesto would look like in practice, they don’t have...

Jul 3, 2017

INTERVIEW: Gertjan Vlieghe

On the floor of Gertjan Vlieghe’s wood-panelled Bank of England office sits a small doorstop in the shape of a hedgehog – an animal not...