Replace Trident with a credible, alternative nuclear deterrent – and free up billions for investment in the conventional forces.
The alternative to building lots of homes in many places is build lots of homes in a few places: this would certainly lessen, or at least limit, the political penalty involved.
It’s time to raise the NI threshold to the same level as that for income tax.
The solution, in the words of Tim Leunig,CentreForum’s former chief economist, is to turn the Nimby into an Imby.
Tom Papworth is Associate Director, Economic Policy, CentreForum. Follow Tom on Twitter. This is the fourth article in ConservativeHome’s week-long series on the Spending Review, and follows those by Peter Hoskin, Sean Worth and Mark Wallace. It is intended to be a “yellow” account of what should be in Review to go against the “blue” account […]
Chris Nicholson is Director and Chief Executive of CentreForum, the liberal think tank The stagnant economy has forced the Office of Budget Responsibility to downgrade its economic forecasts. The structural deficit is now not forecast to be removed until the next Parliament, so the question arises: “what can be done to boost demand and growth […]
Chris Nicholson is director and chief executive of CentreForum, the liberal think tank. For a party which is pro-private enterprise and keen to boost economic growth, the Conservatives' policies towards control of student immigration defy logic. Of course there have been past abuses of the system, where bogus colleges have brought in students with no real […]
Chris Nicholson is director and chief executive of CentreForum, the liberal think tank. The CentreForum paper "Employee empowerment: towards greater workplace democracy" can be accessed here. The papers this week are full of discussion about boardroom pay. The Financial Times is even running a series on "capitalism in crisis". Party leaders seem to be falling […]
Chris Nicholson is the Director and Chief Executive of CentreForum. Opinion polling consistently shows that the Conservatives are still seen as the party of the rich and wealthy and not as the party that represents the ordinary working person. This has led some Tories such as Tim Montgomerie to advocate that the Government adopts Liberal Democrat ideas such […]
Tim Montgomerie Under James Crabtree the FT's Comment pages have become among the very best from Fleet Street. Today's pages are no exception and Julian Astle of the Centre Forum think tank has contributed an article challenging the Coalition to embrace profit-making schools. Astle argues (£) that Michael Gove's free schools programme has not taken […]
By Tim Montgomerie A report in the Mail on Sunday from James Forsyth notes a new gathering of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to discuss future prospects for co-operation between the two parties. James Forsyth asks at the top of his piece: "Are wedding bells ringing in Coalition ears?" The answer to that is "no". I […]
Last night Centre Forum held their summer party. The cross-party think tank which styles itself as "the liberal think tank" has been an important source of ideas for the Liberal Democrats since it was started by the philanthopist Paul Marshall (pictured above at the event with Nick Clegg). CF had good relations with Conservatives for […]
A new report from the Centre Forum think tank (which although non-party has particularly good links with the Liberal Democrats), written by Professor Alison Wolf, has called for an end to national pay bargaining: "Professor Wolf attacks national pay systems that ignore local differences, handicap struggling regional economies, and make it impossible for public sector […]
It can improve our health and care service to patients and users, and empower our elderly patients to take more control of their own lives and condition.