uk

Sep 05 19:03

High Wire

By: Ciarán Tags:

I suppose there's going to be a lot of crowing about how Gordon Brown's failure to get energy companies to pony up £1bn worth of fuel vouchers for the least well-off. Certainly Brown has some serious problems with his, um, capacity to persuade (things are bad when I agree with classics-my-arse Clarke).

But on this occasion I'm not so sure that his failings are all that bad a thing. The government has an opportunity now to really think about a long-term energy policy. And I think that taxes can do some of the heavy lifting for consumers here. Instead of taxing on profit, we should tax energy companies based on how energy efficient or inefficient their customers are so that companies would have a huge incentive to focus on their customers' energy efficiency.

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Jul 07 09:51

Fair Trading

By: Ciarán Tags:

There's a good interview with John Fingleton in today's Times. I think Fingleton lectured me when I was an economics undergrad, before he moved on to the Competition Authority. He always seemed like a very nice guy. Anyway, he's now chief executive of the UK's Office of Fair Trading and is doing an excellent job to my mind.

The best line in the interview has him reflecting on his relative anonymity, where most people seem to think that the OFT has something to do with coffee:

'It was the same when I was in Ireland at the Competition Authority,' he says. 'We had schools writing in asking what competitions we were organising.'

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Dec 12 16:25

Iraqi Interpreters

By: Ciarán Tags:

One of the hidden shames of the British prosecution of the Iraq war and occupation has been the apparent abandonment of interpreters in Iraq when the army was done with them. It did appear that this had been solved, with the government promising UK refuge to Iraqis who had worked for them during the last few years.

According to today's Times, though, the government might be in the process of drawing back on their (which means: our) promises. For further detail see Dan Hardie's blog. For what you can, and ought to, do if you live in the UK, see here.

Via Crooked Timber. 

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Sep 24 10:53

Influential? Left?

By: Ciarán Tags:

There's an interesting list in the Telegraph of Britain's 100 Most Influential People on the Left, presumably as part of Iain Dale's burgeoning list-making hobby. But, as always, these lists say as much about the list-makers as they do about those who they list.

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