Business is the wealth generator of the UK, and small and family businesses are the often neglected heart of the UK economy, with family businesses alone employing nearly four in ten of the UK’s workforce. We propose ways to make the UK an economy all businesses can thrive in.
Essential Services – Whose Rights?
The right of employees to withdraw their labour in an organised fashion was achieved slowly and, it must be admitted, sometimes painfully during the nineteenth century and in the first years of this century. The background was one in which employees individually worked at a great economic disadvantage vis-à-vis the employer, and one in which some employers were willing to exploit their advantage.
Education Race and Revolution
The Commission for Racial Equality, as it likes to tell us in its advertisements, “was set up by the Race Relations Act 1776 whit he duties of working towards the elimination of discrimination and promoting equality of opportunity and good relations between different racial groups generally.” These are indeed admirable objectives, which no person of goodwill could fail to share. Certainly racism is an outrage; if but only if, that is, the word “racism” is, as it should be, constructed as meaning the advantaging or disadvantaging of individuals for no other or better reason than that they happen to be members of this racial group rather than that.
Criminal Waste
In this study we have tried to achieve a blending of research, represented in our group by John Croft CBE, formerly Head of Research at the Home Office; the political knowledge of John Wheeler JP, MP, who was formerly a member of the prisons service, and is mainly responsible for this paper; the practical experience of barristers who also sit in the criminal courts on occasion as recorders; as well as the experience of two magistrates.
British Shipping: The Right Course
This pamphlet takes a fresh look at the problems of the British shipping industry and suggests practical proposals to solve them.
Personal and Portable Pensions – For All
There should be a fundamental review of pension legislation to remove the penalty on changing jobs, to aid mobility and to link individuals more closely with the wealth represented by their pension fund.
BL: Changing Gear
Between 1975, when the Company became state-aided, and in January 1983, BL received £2,051m from the Government. Except for the loans from the NEB which were subsequently converted into equity and the stake in Wholesale Vehicle Finance Ltd. Neither interest nor dividend has been paid on this sum.
Airports UK: A Policy for the UK’s Civil Airports
This pamphlet offers a new analysis of the problems facing Britain’s airports system. It shows how state control has led to an inefficient use of resources with passenger capacity under pressure in the London area and in excess everywhere else. It explains how the British Airports Authority uses its monopoly position to raise charges to the airlines and their passengers to fund its development programme, including the costly proposals for expansion at Stanstead, and why no positive regional strategy has yet been produced.
Worried to Death
After one of the greatest election triumphs in history, the Conservatives return to Government to attend, we hope, with renewed vigour to some important unfinished business.
The “Right to Strike” in a Free Society
The right of employees to withdraw their labour in an organised fashion was achieved slowly and it must be admitted, sometimes painfully during the nineteenth century and in the first years of this century. The background was one in which employees individually worked at great economic disadvantages vis-à-vis the employer and one in which some employers were willing to exploit their advantage.
The Truth about Transport
For a clear understanding of the present situation as regards transport in this country it is necessary to have some knowledge of the historical background. Until the 18th century overland movement was by the common roads which had developed from medieval packhorse trails between villages. The alignments of these had been adjusted over the years to take advantage of dry ground and to avoid the worst sloughs.
Value for Money Audits
In March 1978 the government White Paper on the nationalised industries outlined their significance to the economy in the following terms.
The Giant with Feet of Clay: The British Steel Industry 1945-1981
The history of the British steel industry over the last 35 years is a chronicle of industrial activity being hindered by government interference. The industry has been subject to two nationalisations with all their consequent upheaval.
The Economic Adviser’s Role: Scope and Limitations
There is not much mystery to the job description for an economic adviser. He is expected to give advice on economic matters. But most job descriptions it conceals more than it reveals. Unlike the Emperor, the economist does have clothes of sorts – although views differ as to whether the garb is that of a dunce, a fool or an undertaker.
Second thoughts on regional Policy
To read a book which begins ‘The first sound in the morning was the clumping of the mill-girls’ clogs down the cobbled street’ and then goes on to complain about unemptied chamber pots, is to evoke a vanished world.
British Leyland: A Viable Future?
An all-out strike and consequent break-up of BL have just been averted. But this closely argued and thoroughly documented study suggests that so long as BL exists as a single state-owned entity, subject to cross subsidisation, the weaknesses which have made it a burden for the economy and a focus of political contention will remain irremediable.
Against Import Controls
The Prolonged world-wide depression in which we are living is a symptom of profound economic, social nd political change, presenting a challenge of survival and growth to us all.
