Ben's blog and articles

A robot called “Tappy” which monotonously jabs away at mobile phone screens does not, let’s face it, sound like the most sophisticated of technologies. So it’s possible to feel a degree of sympathy with the Chinese firm Huawei which finds itself accused by the US Justice Department of the theft of this supposedly bleeding-edge bit of intellectual property from T-Mobile. The phrase “trumped-up charges” (in every sense) comes to mind. Yet, of course, there’s a bigger picture he

The “pushmi-pullyu” in the 1967 film of Doctor Dolittle was a double-headed llama, with one head facing forward and the other back. Pensions policy in the UK in recent years has borne a resemblance to this contradictory animal. In 2012 the government introduced a “nudge” to encourage people to save for their retirement. Rather than relying on workers to sign up to occupational pension schemes, the legal default became that everyone gets enrolled unless they deliberately opt o

If capitalism is defined by the question of who controls capital – the money that makes the world go around – there’s one organisation that has perhaps more influence over modern capitalism than any other. That company is BlackRock. The American-founded investment company has total assets under management of more than $ 6 trillion (£ 4.6 trillion), bigger than any competitor. BlackRock owns – on behalf of its millions of pension fund investors – a portion of just about every

“Fiscal illusion” sounds like the kind of thing Derren Brown might do to your wallet in front of a packed theatre. But actually, fiscal illusions are what perturb experts at places such as the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Institute for Fiscal Studies. They refer to various official statistical artefacts and quirks exploited by ministers, such as the fact that student loans or spending on private finance initiative construction projects don’t show up in the nationa

David Lloyd George never actually promised “homes fit for heroes” after the First World War. The Liberal prime minister’s pledge was that his coalition government would construct “habitations fit for the heroes who have won the war”. But whether a “habitation” is the same as a “home” the substance was clear: the state, in the form of local authorities, would build new residences on a large scale. National resources would be ploughed into improving the housing conditions of th

David Lloyd George never actually promised "homes fit for heroes" after the First World War. The Liberal prime minister's pledge was that his coalition government would construct "habitations fit for the heroes who have won the war". But whether a "habitation" is the same as a "home" the substance was clear: the state, in the form of local authorities, would build new residences on a large scale. National resources would be ploughed into improving the housing conditions of th

If capitalism is defined by the question of who controls capital - the money that makes the world go around - there's one organisation that has perhaps more influence over modern capitalism than any other. That company is BlackRock. The American-founded investment company has total assets under management of more than $ 6 trillion (£ 4.6 trillion), bigger than any competitor. BlackRock owns - on behalf of its millions of pension fund investors - a portion of just about every

Emergency shelters opened up across London this weekend as the mercury dropped and the risk of death for those sleeping rough on the capital’s streets rose. The government last month announced more funding for shelters and specialist support in cities across England. It is implementing a £100m rough sleeping strategy. There are signs that politicians have belatedly woken up to the national rough sleeping crisis. But have they woken up to the causes of it? The government’s own