The impact of migration on jobs is believed to lie at the heart of last year’s Brexit vote.  Free movement of people, it was argued, was responsible for depriving indigenous workers of the employment they need.  Halting free movement, then, was supposed to result in more and better jobs for …

Taken alongside the Paris climate targets, the UK government decision to ban new internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) from 2040 implies that almost all of the cars on Britain’s roads will be electric by 2050. Insofar as anyone has focused on the impossibility of achieving this aim, they have tended …

  Nicole Foss famously compared the oil industry to a late night drinking binge.  The early oil found in pressurised deposits just 70 feet beneath the ground was the best booze.  The North Sea was the cheap stuff.  Hydraulically fractured shale oil and tar sands, though, are the last-ditch equivalent …

Trump’s border wall – if it ever gets built – will not stop the next mass migration of people from swamping the USA according to a special report by Matt Zdun for CNBC: “Increasingly, the phenomenon of rising sea levels has amplified fears over climate refugees — individuals forced to …

The UK is the latest in a growing list of countries to announce bans on petroleum vehicles.  This has led to understandable concerns about the ability of national electricity grids to cope with the massive demand for additional electricity that such a ban implies.  The thinking appears to be that …

As British frackers struggle to drill a handful of test wells, the US ‘shale revolution’ on which their efforts are predicated looks to be coming to an end. The reasons for its demise will send shivers through UK investors as they realise that it has nothing to do with the …

As media outlets wheel out the political and economic luminaries who supposedly “saved the world” a decade ago, journalists are still repeating the biggest lie of all: that there was a “credit crunch.” The official story goes something like this: wicked mortgage lenders in the USA had been making loans …

The UK government review of energy costs is unlikely to result in pleasant reading for anyone.  This is because the chosen reviewer, Oxford University professor Dieter Helm, has a long track record of telling unpleasant energy truths about the cost of renewable electricity while overlooking the equivalent problems with gas. …

The temptation is to jump on the bandwagon and attack British Gas owner Centrica for profiteering and for participating in a cartel in the wake of its 12.5% hike in electricity prices.  It is certainly difficult to feel any sympathy for a multinational corporation that raked in profits of £816 …

Business confidence is a big deal for the news editors… particularly when it slumps.  This is because – it is widely believed – a fall in business confidence reflects an economic slowdown at best or, worse still, the onset of a new recession.   With this in mind, the latest round …