According to reports over the weekend, Rachel Reeves is considering whether a new generation of public-private partnerships (PPPs), the modern successor to the old Private Finance Initiative (PFI), could help Labour’s ambitious plans for a new generation of towns. With borrowing constrained by Labour’s own fiscal rules, debt interest costs elevated and public finances under […]
After a poor set of local election results, the Government has returned to a familiar British political reflex: the ‘reset’. It is a word that sounds decisive, almost therapeutic, signalling that a Prime Minister has learned from their own mistakes and is now freshly aligned with reality. Yet in Westminster, the ‘reset’ is less a […]
The Government’s plan to tunnel under Stonehenge has been struck down, having its planning consent formally revoked. The cost of this current stint of planning and consultations amounted to an eye-watering £179 million. At the same time, HS2 continues its slow progress northwards: continuously scaled back, delayed and vastly more expensive than when first promised. […]
On Good Morning Britain last week, Kemi Badenoch laid out her plan to address Britain’s intergenerational inequality. Her message was clear: student loans are unfair, graduates face a heavy burden and reform is overdue. For most of the past decade, despite its modernisation, youth policy has not exactly been the animating force of the modern […]
The Liberal Democrats have announced that they want to abolish the Treasury and replace it with a new ‘Department for Growth’, supported by a separate department for public spending. On the face of it, this sounds radical, even refreshing. Britain’s economy has stagnated for over a decade, productivity has broadly flatlined (especially in the public […]
Rachel Reeves pulled out of an event at the London Stock Exchange yesterday at the last minute to join Keir Starmer in an emergency press conference, responding to Donald Trump’s latest gambit over Greenland. Reeves planned, in her abandoned address, to unveil newly revamped frameworks, which came into effect on Monday, designed to lead the […]
It began, as these things often do, with an M&S tinnie. Several, in fact. I was on the train to Manchester for the Conservative Party Conference with a rabble of SW1ers, equipped with the sort of portable picnic that passes for glamour on the Avanti West Coast – ready-mixed G&Ts, Percy Pigs – enough tin […]
Would you judge the health of a football team by how many players it could cram on its books? Sure, the number of players available goes up, but if none of them can pass, shoot or defend properly, it hardly counts as progress. That, in essence, is the trick played whenever pundits conflate headline GDP […]
In 1948, in the dust-blown counties of South Texas, Lyndon Baines Johnson won his second attempt to gain a US Senate seat, not with ideas, but with a box of ballots – Box 13 to be precise. Stuffed with 202 votes, written remarkably in alphabetical order and with what appeared to be the same pen […]
British businesses are under siege. Not from rivals or regulators, but from American hedge funds and their proxies. There is something profoundly flawed with the UK’s class action system: it allows hedge funds in Connecticut to quietly bankroll lawsuits against British companies, while lawyers take home millions in fees, claiming they’re fighting for justice. It […]
Compare for a moment the National Health Service to a theoretical, dysfunctional state-run bistro. It has been poorly managed and undermanaged for years. The kitchen equipment is outdated and frequently fails to work, causing endless delays and frustration for both customers and staff. Successive governments have responded by hiring more waiters and cooks, but this […]
Imagine this scenario: you host a dinner party in your home aglow with candlelight and conversation. On a polished oak shelf sits a delicate Cisk lager-branded ash tray, collected from a recent trip to Malta. Though not of great value, it holds sentimental charm, a quiet testament to travels past. As the evening draws to […]
Since his inauguration as US President, Donald Trump has not wasted any time upsetting the applecart. Within days, federal aid had been paused to ensure spending matched the administration’s agenda. Further actions include the freeze on hiring federal employees and the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency, otherwise known by its acronym, DOGE. The […]
In times of economic adversity, wealth taxes on the richest are often proffered as a solution. Last week, Labour’s largest union backer, Unite, demanded a wealth tax on the top 1% in order to give public sector workers a pay increase, claiming it was time for a raid on ‘the super-rich’. After the Government offerred […]
The BBC’s annual report, released on Tuesday, shows the dire predicament Auntie Beeb is in. Half a million households stopped paying the TV licence fee over the last year, making it increasingly difficult for the BBC to compete in what is a high-cost industry. Historically, the use of a compulsory levy could be justified due […]
Before the ascendance of President Javier Milei, the Argentine economy could best be described as being up the creek – the South American nation faced 161% inflation, a shrinking economy and its currency losing about 90% of its value. By comparison, the UK’s ongoing economic stagnation may seem immaterial. Nevertheless, there are lessons to be […]
Strike action has become an everyday feature in the United Kingdom leaving many people’s access to public services immensely limited. About 4m working days have been lost as a result of strikes in the past year – much to the detriment of an already weak economy. Compare this to 450,000 strike days in the average […]
When William Beveridge published the Social Insurance and Allied Services report in 1942, he proposed a universal system of social insurance financed by the state, with contributions made from employers and employees via their wages. He spoke of his system providing a ‘subsistence’ payment for the elderly, infirm and unemployed. CapX readers need little reminder […]
