
Prospects for the economy 2) Andy Silvester: The fundamentals are strong. But confidence is in shorter supply.
Doomsday predictions remain overblown, but the real, specific concerns of business are worth listening to nonetheless.
Doomsday predictions remain overblown, but the real, specific concerns of business are worth listening to nonetheless.
They provide much better value for money than Labour’s unwieldy Regional Development Agencies managed.
The former fear that it will revive what they believe are business-unfriendly ideas about foreign takeovers and workers on boards.
Downing Street can win votes in the regions without resorting to Blair’s pork-barrel spending.
Local Enterprise Partnerships have shown how business can prompt local authorities to speed up decision making.
Brexit will allow us to decide on our own regional policy.
The focus on leaving the EU needs to be balanced by a powerful new Department for Growth, with a mandate to devolve power and drive up regional prosperity.
It’s about what they contribute – and take from – the public finances.
There are negative possibilities for the supply of jobs, positive ones for productivity – and a lot of variation across sections.
The second piece in our mini-series on whether the Chancellor is achieving the rebalancing of the economy he wants.
Tamworth will be there at the table grabbing the opportunity of the new Combined Authority.
Too often, existing suppliers have contracts renewed without proper scrutiny.
It’s crucial for the shared future of those who live in these islands that we should not Balkanise ourselves, in either structural terms or in our minds and hearts.
Having left England out of the devolution deal, they then tried to break up the country. And that was just the start.
Bureaucracy and political correctness have been cut back while taxes have been kept down.