It was Peter Drucker who invented the 20 to 1 ratio, suggesting top executives wouldn’t be able to manage their firms effectively if they paid themselves more than 20 times their lowest paid employees, because of the ‘hatred’ and ‘contempt’ in which they would be held. Today, top executives in both public and private sectors [...]

George Osborne announced the Conservatives proposal to mutualise and co-op the public sector, describing it as the ‘biggest social revolution since Thatcher sold council houses’. But their proposal just shows how little they understand the essence of those movements. Mutuals and co-ops operate within the for-profit sectors but instead of paying surpluses over to external [...]

Keynes said he could see no reason why a government should become involved in owning a railway. However, the result of privatizing British Rail and trying to open it to competition, suggests Keynes may have been short-sighted. Monopoly might be a bad thing when exploited by some profit maximising economist, but the case against [...]

This space is not habitually given to expressing party political views, but occasionally it is unavoidable. Political parties inevitably, from time to time, address head on, topics which are of prime concern here. And sometimes their approach is either so right, or so wrong, that comment is necessary if these postings are not to appear [...]