Telegraph Blogs

There was a fevered, violent atmosphere at last night’s Republican presidential debate. The participants duked it out over the prize, which is second place in the polls behind the caramel man mountain that is Mitt Romney. Mitt rose above the fray by smiling presidentially and dodging all blows. The fun was on the fringes. It… Read more

A number of countries have introduced short-selling restrictions today. This is a classic tactic in bear markets. Back in 2002, I wrote a paper analysing in some detail the economic role of short-selling and the impact of various proposed regulatory restrictions upon it.  It’s worth observing the following points, in the light of today’s events: 1.… Read more

This weekend I am going to another performance of Swan Lake. I’ve seen this ballet many times – even as recently as last week with the great Mariinsky Ballet at the Royal Opera House where they have had a residency. But my next Swan Lake is something very differentallet is by default something… Read more

I was on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, ostensibly to put the case against further “quantitative easing”, of which more later, but the conversation naturally focused instead on the overnight ban on short-selling of financial stocks in France, Italy, Belgium and Spain. My fellow guest, James Bartholomew, described the ban as like shooting the… Read more

Well, it was a pretty feisty and eventful debate here in Ames, Iowa. Here are 10 things to take away: 1. Tim Pawlenty won’t go down without a fight. But it is always difficult for a male candidate to attack a female and his verbal assault on Michele Bachmann might seem OTT to many. His belated… Read more

You can see this in the list of the first suspects to appear before the magistrates: among them a millionaire’s grammar-school-educated daughter, a ballerina and an estate agent. Still, these are the exceptions. Most of those taking part in the riots – and most of those arrested – were poor. But that’s not to say that it’s poverty… Read more

In 1990, the German government established the “Solidaritätzuschlag”: a special tax that was to run until 2019, designed to transfer funds to the former GDR. The idea was that Western taxpayers would help raise the East up to their own living standard. So far €200 billion has been transferred, yet the former East Germany remains… Read more

Luckily for his wife, Elsie, Jim Campbell is a research scientist. So – when she began feverishly eating lettuce, he realised that Elsie’s body was trying to tell her something. Having discovered that lettuce contains various nutrients and minerals which the body loses when fighting cancer – and which Elsie was unwittingly trying to put… Read more

House prices fell to their lowest level since December 2009, according to new analysis of Land Registry figures by LSL Acadametrics, while low interest rates helped reduce repossessions according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). But some mortgage brokers claim lenders and borrowers are living in a “fools’ paradise”  with an “arrears timebomb” primed to… Read more

I just watched this truly heart breaking interview on BBC online from Tuesday with a devastated young shop owner, Liz Pilgrim, whose business in Ealing, west London, was looted by what she described as “feral rats”, who took whatever they wanted with impunity. She made an impassioned appeal for the army to be brought on… Read more

David Cameron, Ed Miliband and the entire British political class came together yesterday to denounce the rioters. They were of course right to say that the actions of these looters, arsonists and muggers were abhorrent and criminal, and that the police should be given more support. But there was also something very phony and hypocritical about… Read more

Towards the beginning of Lord of the Flies, William Golding’s masterpiece about a group of teenage boys marooned on a desert island, a scene takes place in which the most vicious of the boys, Roger, throws stones at a younger boy whose sandcastle he’s just knocked down: Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to… Read more

It’s the welfare state! It’s the cuts! It’s Labour subsidising single mothers! It’s Thatcher undermining society! It’s Left, it’s Right, it’s liberal intelligentsia, it’s conservative callousness, it’s Their Fault, it’s Their Fault, it’s Their Fault. Humanity is a tribal species, and it’s entirely natural that we lump ourselves into groups. Our brains are evolved organs, and… Read more

If these riots had taken place in America, the outcome would have been very different. America has the intellectual and emotional tools necessary to deal with this kind of social disaster: Britain doesn’t. The riots were caused, prolonged and misinterpreted by English bad manners. We don’t know how to talk to one another anymore. Our… Read more

If Germany and France are to guarantee the debts of Italy, along with Greece, Ireland, Portual and Spain, pretty much everyone agrees that will take more than €1 trillion – probably more like two or three trillion. Suppose, mirabile dictu, that approach somehow ended happily, with no defaults by anyone and the Italians and others knuckling down to… Read more

As a proud member of the Facebook group The Nando’s Defence League, a collection of people who will fight tooth-and-catapult to defend our favourite chicken eatery from rioters, I wasn’t surprised to learn that one of the men accused of bashing up the Nando’s in Clapham is a 43-year-old organic chef. Fitzroy Thomas allegedly took… Read more

We like to think of ourselves as a calm people: unpanicky, steady under pressure. We like to imagine, too, that we are orderly and self-reliant. True, we can be violent, too: for at least 600 years, visitors have remarked on the cheerful belligerence of the British, and riots were a common occurrence for much of… Read more

For those in Euroland convinced that Anglo-Saxon hedge funds and speculators are responsible for the sorry state of the Italian bond market (seemingly the view of EMU’s entire governing class), here is a nugget from a Swiss blue chip investment house. Dieter Wemmer, CFO of Zurich Financial Services, said his group had … Read more

Rioters will pay for what they have done. So says David Cameron. He spoke well in the House, as did Ed Miliband. But Britain will judge Mr Cameron by his actions. Of course rioters are unequivocally to be condemned and correctly punished. No fair-minded Briton thinks otherwise. But beware of fire and brimstone as the… Read more

As you can see from the chart below (or perhaps not given the quality of the reproduction, for which apologies), UK government bond yields have fallen to historic lows the depths of which even six months ago would scarcely have been believable – less than 2.5pc on ten year gilts. These are the sort of… Read more

These days, most politicians are wary of the language of morality. You can debate the causes of their caution ad infinitum: from the scarring experience of Back to Basics to the wider cultural trend towards moral relativism, explanations are legion. The consequence has been a public debate that tends to shy away from talking of people… Read more

China’s decision to suspend all new high-speed railway projects, pending further checks on the safety of its much-vaunted high-speed railway network, is yet another indication of how deeply the Wenzhou rail disaster has spooked the powers-that-be in Beijing. The government in China may be autocratic, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t keen to be seen to… Read more