Tag Archives: reform (think-tank)

The Voice

Jeremy Browne’s liberal regime to get Britain fit for the global race

By The Voice | Tue 8th April 2014 - 9:58 am

Jeremy Browne bookAs we reported last month, Jeremy Browne has been using his time since he left government last October productively, writing a book on what he sees as the challenges facing Britain over the decades ahead, and the liberal approach that her believes is necessary in response to them. The book, Race Plan: An authentic liberal plan to get Britain fit for The Global Race, is published today by the think tank Reform.

The conundrum facing Britain is outlined neatly in the book’s first few chapters and can be summarised thus: world power and economic strength is shifting, from the Western powers that dominated the last century, primarily east, to Asia, but also south, to South America and Africa. On a whole range of indicators — productivity, educational attainment, global influence — Britain is losing out or is danger of doing so to these ambitious, focussed countries.

How do we respond? Do we accept relative decline as an inevitable consequence of globalisation? Or do we rethink our approach and seek to maintain the competitive advantage and influence on the world stage that we have grown used to? Browne’s answer is emphatically the latter, and he is clear on what form that response should take: it should be distinctly, “authentically” liberal.

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 87 Comments
Lucy Parsons

The Independent View: Road to recovery

By Lucy Parsons | Thu 15th October 2009 - 11:45 am

At a Reform event this week, Vince Cable gave his response to our new report on infrastructure. On the key points there is much we agree on. Infrastructure is critical for economic growth, and with a £175 billion government budget deficit, greater private finance is urgently needed to fund infrastructure investments. Government has a role to play in infrastructure, but bureaucratic, interventionist policies will be a barrier to productivity.

The report finds that the UK is in the infrastructure slow lane, ranked 34th in the world on the quality of its infrastructure in a recent competitiveness study. Road to recovery suggests that politicians of all parties have been blinded by the “green heat of technology”, moving towards a more interventionist approach in infrastructure markets.

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged , , and | 2 Comments
Lucy Parsons

The Independent View: It is our politicians – not the public – who need convincing of the need for spending cuts

By Lucy Parsons | Thu 23rd April 2009 - 2:20 pm

Yesterday’s Budget was a stalling tactic. The Chancellor put off having to make the tough decisions needed to regain control of the public finances and gave no plan to move the UK back to black. David Cameron in his response promised that his Party would make these tough choices, but he failed to say how. There is a real opportunity for the Liberal Democrats, if Vince Cable can continue to lead the way as the only politician brave enough to say that the answer lies in tackling the big areas of public spending.

In Reform’s Pre-Budget analysis last …

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Also tagged and | 23 Comments
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  • Russell
    By committing to not raising the 3 main taxes but then raising taxes by over £70bn on stupid taxes Labour have done a lot of unnecessary damage to the UK econo...
  • Jana
    “ …the hard choices required to revive our economy and strengthen our security.” If by hard choices you mean increasing taxes, I agree that that may be...
  • Paul WalterPaul Walter
    Peter, please see my ample answers above. I have made it perfectly clear what I believe. Best wishes, Paul...
  • Peter Martin
    @ Paul, I accept you are agreeing to an extent. A limited extent. "There are ample legal mechanisms for ensuring that the financial settlement with t...
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    Peter: “We shouldn’t tolerate the term “Crown Dependency” being a synonym for “tax haven”.” I don’t know whether you are actually reading my ...