So what’s so special about this lot? Who decides which countries get to be in the gang? Can you get kicked out? How does it stack up against the G20? If spies were to listen in, would they hear anything…
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Trade is one of the big buzzwords at this G8 summit. Along with tax and transparency, it makes up the “three T” priorities for the UK’s presidency of the group. But it is not at all clear whether multilateral…
World leaders head to Northern Ireland for the annual G8 summit, pursued by the usual claims that such meetings are “ineffectual”. Are the critics right? Are these summits nothing more than hot air? It…
Global leaders will discuss tax, trade, and other international issues at the G8 summit next week in county Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. If they want to achieve anything, they must recognise that economics…
Whether it is due to benchmark rigging, massive payouts to top executives, or failures to lend to house-buyers and businesses, the banking sector continues to make the headlines for all the wrong reasons…
At Facebook’s first annual general meeting since going public last year, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg faced a “barrage of complaints” from shareholders, worried that the value of their investment shows…
When the leaders of the world’s most powerful economies gather in Northern Ireland on Monday, one issue will overshadow all others: tax. For years the matter of how global corporations engage with offshore…
How far do facts and evidence get us in public debates and policy formulation on immigration? And how far should they take us? Data on migration and its social and economic impact are of course vital for…
Recent news of widespread phone and internet surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA) has raised serious questions over the ethical and legal obligations private companies face to protect the…
The Indian economy grew by just 5% in the past year, the lowest rate in a decade. This represents a rare piece of bad news for a country that has experienced two decades of booming growth since radical…
The IMF has conceded that mistakes were made in the way the first Greek bailout in May 2010 was handled. Its report suggests the need to refine the fund’s lending policies to accommodate for conditions…
We are now five years into the largest financial crisis in decades and yet, paradoxically, people don’t seem to be more unhappy than they were before. The UK ranked 10th of the countries surveyed for the…
The events of the past week in Istanbul’s Taksim Square are already etched on our minds. Pepper spray, baton charges, perplexed youths lying battered and bruised, but still chanting for change. Of course…
As in the movie that led Pedro Almodóvar to become an internationally famous film director in the late 1980s, Spanish banks have been “on the verge of a nervous breakdown” during the 4 last years, facing…
Amid the “cash for causes” scandal currently unfolding in parliament, and the criticism of David Cameron’s “chumocracy” of elites at number 10, it’s worth remembering that degree to which politics is dominated…
When Dan Jarvis, the shadow culture minister, suggested the coalition might wind up a major Government department, those of us who follow the health of the UK’s creative industries were extremely concerned…
MPs are busy giving payday lenders a kicking for targeting vulnerable people with expensive loans. But these lenders represent just one small part of the consumer lending industry. We shouldn’t let this…
Walk down the high streets of Britain, through the shopping malls of the United States or around the retail complexes of East Asia, and you will inevitably be confronted with a McDonald’s food outlet…
Many critics of the coalition government’s “Plan A” argue that it should deviate from deficit reduction plans to instead stimulate growth via additional infrastructure spending. Recent advocates of this…
A report released yesterday by the Centre for Retail Research (CRR) outlines a very bleak future for the UK high street. A fifth of shops are expected to close in the next five years, with 316,000 job…
The tax arrangements of major brands such as Google, Apple and Amazon have prompted a fierce debate over questions of organisational ethics, social justice and international co-operation. But as a consumer…
We know that as we browse the internet, we leave behind a trail. Search results reflect our browsing history; usernames and passwords are remembered on long-forgotten websites; and personalised adverts…
The all-German Champions League final has predictably generated the usual discussions about the potential “dominance” of a particular nation’s league. But before non-German fans get into a panic, it’s…
Statistics released today by the Department for Education show that 15% of young people are not in education, employment or training (NEET). These figures have hardly altered in recent years, suggesting…
The International Monetary Fund’s annual investigation into the health of the UK economy makes ugly reading. The IMF points out that “per capita income remains 6% below its pre-crisis peak, making this…