That the crisis, greece's fault (28 april 2010), would lay that country low, was never in any doubt. The only question was the degree to which the euro would suffer collateral damage (23 july 2011). Two years ago, greece somehow leaving would have been absolutely catastrophic. Eighteen months later though, the dam was breached when the greek pm pulled his referendum rabbit out of a hat (5 november 2011) and merkel and co started talking openly about an exit. In doing so, they were clearly signalling their view that the threat level had been reduced from fatal. Today, floods, as even the no-break up high priests of the ecb’s governing council let the greeks know that they simply can't have…

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For thirty years I was obsessed with israeli politics, yet I realised how remote it has become when it was quite a shock to read yesterday that kadima had joined the coalition. As they originally split from likud, it should not really be a surprise, yet just a year or two ago they were the last force closest to the peace camp left standing. Things change though, labour having now bounced back to being the opposition and kadima, having ditched their once-excellent leader, now feeling they had little to lose by moving back into a renewed likud bloc. With 94 of the knesset’s 120 seats, the move completes the likud and netanyahu’s journey from spent force to a domination…

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The age of austerity may or may not be right, and may or may not be inevitable one way or the other - but it is certainly not popular. And so sarkozy, who started with such great promise, became a rare one-term french president, and the eleventh european government to lose an election since austerity began. Days before, the uk contingent suffered a significant (though largely consequenceless) defeat, and on the same night anti-austerity greeks stormed to victory. However, the british results conform to a typical mid-term reaction; indeed had they been held a couple of months before, the government would likely have held up very much better. For the french, this was above all an anti-sarkozy vote. Beneath the…

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For four years now I’ve managed to avoid using the f word: football, which for many of my friends and colleagues, let alone much of the general population here in manchester, is one of the most important words in the english language. Ironic then I was on national radio (47 minutes in) today talking about it. My dad was a big united fan, though strangely I saw more manchester city matches as a kid (colin bell, joe corrigan), as his boss was a guy called dovoud alliance who had some connection, so we worked there (sort of) on saturdays. By the time my brother came along, united was far too expensive, and rough, and so they toured local lancashire clubs…

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I’m not sure its wholly new, or isn’t more about presentation, but the “nudge” has become one of those ideas that has what people in the political sphere like to call traction. The british prime minister has his own nudge unit, and now obama is at it too, hiring one of the book’s authors. At its heart is a tweak to economics, which traditionally rests on a big presumption: that people act rationally. By contrast, behavioural economics tries to understand why decisions are taken. Maybe people are actually badly informed, or inconsistent, leave decisions to another day, or just lazy. Whatever the logic, maybe we’d take a bit of jam today, rather a whole cake tomorrow. Nudge gives…

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I’ve long held that reducing greenhouse gas emissions (or coe two as the kids call it) may well be the right thing to do, but we shouldn’t pretend it would be cheap, wouldn't work against economic growth, and would not involve drastic change in our western lifestyle. The best illustration of the latter is air travel, which for my grandparents was a once in a decade expense, for my parents biannual at most, but between me and my two siblings never a month goes by when one of us isn’t airborne, often at a cost of less than a train. The eu has long tried to lead the world on changing the pricing of coe two (5 january 2012), but…

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Grand national day today (see 10 april 2011) and much to do, as the sun shines and I complete my study’s annual move back into the conservatory, having been exiled in the dining room for a few months. Work has piled up, both at home and from the office, and the kids of course let me do none, as the demands of lego and cycling top the bill for the weekend. There’s also those now more than one hundred emails I’d like to reply to, and some of the organisation of a forthcoming weekend and, and, and. And we’re in london two of the next three weekends: one for a wedding (without kids) and one to see my sister and…

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I was on the telly today, talking about inflation (3 minutes in). From a fifteen minute interview, they culled just one. To a point, this was because the correspondent lazily concluded with the consensus view, whereas I was making the opposite point, namely that whilst initially the small drop in inflation would ease the pressure to raise uk rates, in fact come a month’s time the fact that the ecb has gone, and the resulting pressures on sterling, will have worked their way sufficiently through the system to make a rise likely. As price expectations cast off from their moorings, a direction of travel pointing of the ship back towards dry land will be necessary. The vast majority of…

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I’ve just returned from a short break in budapest, mainly to see my other half’s family, but also because I love the place I’ve twice lived in and will at some point make a hat trick. This time, we left the kids with their grandfather and stayed at the flat of a friend that now lives in strasbourg (12 february 2011). Her flat though has been transformed into an aladdin’s cave, with thousands of books lining every surface and piled to the ceiling. She started her small firm – csimota - about a decade ago and it has blossomed amazingly both into a hugely diverse and original cultural force, and also, it would seem, a social and entrepreneurial success.…

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