Roger Bootle

Always interesting to revisit a prediction book like this one, many years after the prediction. The title says it all. He's predicting an era of low inflation. Though I notice that he has an each way bet in the introduction where ehe says he might be wrong. Well I guess coming out of the mid 1970's, most inflation was likely to look low. But my impression over the last 26 years is that inflation has crept along at quite a healthy pace .....maybe not as extreme as it was when America flooded the world with US dollars in the Vietnam war but it certainly hasn't been zero.Not sure that roger Bootle has called it right....though that rarely seems to worry economic astrologers. I'm now in the position of having to downsize my library and this book is one of the casualties. Pity but I won't be using it in th future. I give it two stars.… (plus d'informations)

Rare that a book changes your mind. Perhaps that's going too far: it has consolidated an intuition that I suppose i've had for a long time, that the European Union is bad news, not just for Britain but for Europe too. Balanced argument, no, but he gives a hearing to other views than his own, sets out the history and options very clearly and even with some light humour. An easy read too, through some thorny complexities (e.g. I'm still not quite sure how the Single Market is different from the EU itself). Main points: The EU was conceived in a different world and its generals are still fighting the last war ( in more senses than one); UK is not such a minnow, would still be trading with Europe whether outside or even after the EU; Brexit might well bring the EU itself to its end; Europe's economic decline is mainly due to bad governance; two main aims of expansion and internal uniformity are incompatible.

Intriguing suggestion that the Commonwealth may be more fit for purpose; common language, legal tradition, distance no bar with modern communications.

Recent events in Paris, since publication, already already leading to some unravelling of Schengen principle of free movement.… (plus d'informations)