Politics

The Daily Briefing: Friday 11 October

Radical conservatism, bean-counting and dealing with default

October 11, 2013
Royal Mail: your cheque is in the post
Royal Mail: your cheque is in the post
The Royal Mail sell-off is not simply about bean-counting (Guardian) Don’t be fooled by the language of bookeeping, behind it lies an ambitious project to unleash market forces, says Ha-Joon Chang.

Forget Blairite v Brownite. We’ve moved on (The Times, £) The fault line of the Labour party lies between those who defend the status quo in the public sector, and those who want to tear it up, says Phil Collins.

Look, David Cameron - when capitalism’s done properly it’s wildly popular(Daily Telegraph) The socialist devil seems to have the best tunes, but radical conservativism, where applied, works best of all, writes Fraser Nelson.

Buyers beware of Britain’s absurd property trap (FT, £) The Help to Buy scheme is helping those who wish to keep house prices up, writes Martin Wolf.

It is the Baby Ps and Hamzah Khans who pay for this Tory vandalism (Guardian) Gove’s approach to education refuses to see how a child’s success depends almost entirely on good enough home circumstances, writes Polly Toynbee.

Britain remains open to illegal immigration (The Times, £) Opening the labour market to Bulgarians and Romanians in 2014 could cause the target of reducing net immigration to be badly missed, writes David Goodhart. 

Dealing with Default (New York Times, £) There are no good choices if the US hits the debt ceiling, writes Paul Krugman, which bad choice would do the least harm?

Gender does matter in central banking (FT, £) Janet Yellen leads a change at the top, writes Diane Coyle.

Why the Nobel is still the greatest prize (FT, £) All new mega-money accolades must nod to the Swedish forerunner, writes Anjana Ahuja.

In a polluted stream a pathway to peace (NYT, £) Jeff Wheelwright on an issue that Palestinians and Israelis can work together on.