At the start of this year I and many others wrote that Boris’s deal would results in empty shelves in super markets: The story of empty shelves only partly came true. Some supermarkets have had empty shelves at different times, while specialist on line retailers have much bigger problems – one I use has roughly … Read more
Last summer my son was the victim of a racist incident. Not an attack or anything violent. But racist behaviour by a public official. Britain has come a long way on race, and we are noticeably less racist than we were a generation ago, but over the last few years things have started going … Read more
It’s been a funny old year Despite all of the doom and gloom about the state of the environment I have always been positive that we can find a solution, and prevent disaster. The steps we need to take are straight forward, and many are already working. Resource consumption per head of population in the … Read more
We did OK for food before we joined the EU, we’ll be fine when we leave I have heard this statement a lot over the last few months as we get closer to the end of transition, and a period of disruption. Frankly I don’t believe it. The UK is highly dependent on food imports … Read more
Just when we thought Kickstart couldn’t get any worse, we have been told that we are not allowed to take part in Kickstart at all, 6 months after it was announced. This apparently is the case for most small businesses. For those who haven’t been following the story Kickstart is an employment subsidy for under … Read more
A few months ago I wrote about a Government cock up that has slipped under the radar https://wordpress.com/post/jon-chadwick.com/4830 In July Rishi Sunak announced KickStart – a programme to help under 24 year olds back to work. This is a good idea, even if the scheme was essentially a re-tread of a programme that had run … Read more
30 questions, each describing a government service. Select whether you think the state should provide this service, or whether it should be outsourced to the private sector of charities. This isn’t about who pays for it, just who provides it
With all of the mess around Covid and exam results it is easy to forgot that we have a much bigger challenge ahead Brexit In all of the flurry of nonsense I wanted to highlight the problem of licensing British lorries to work in the EU after the 31st December. The process of authorising goods … Read more
All of the focus of the last week in politics has been the storm around A level results. This is without doubt one of the most shambolic situations any Government has found itself in, one which has no easy way out. The only positive thing I can take from it is that the 6th formers … Read more
I wrote yesterday about the growth of prison labour in the US and the impact it was having on the US jobs market. I received quite a lot of messages and comments about the 13th Amendment to the US constitution. The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments are know as the Reconstruction Amendments because they were … Read more