Marc Sidwell For pure economic geekery, I’ve recently downloaded a free pdf of ‘The Socialist Calculation Debate’ by Peter Boettke and others, which despite the dry title is a gripping piece of intellectual history and highly relevant today, as misguided politicians turn back to economics as a tool of social engineering. Meanwhile it’s been a […]
This is an open letter to Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, organised by Emergency Reactor. Dear Ed, For three days in a row last week, your morning cuppa was brewed with the sponsorship of the shale industry, as gas and firewood accounted for around 80% of electricity generation. […]
Given the current state of the geopolitical landscape and the grave implications for minority religious communities, the reappointment of a special envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) has felt a long time coming. Nevertheless, the government has delivered an early Christmas present in the announcement of David Smith MP to take on the […]
The events of the past week have shown what non-state actors, supported by aggressive states, can do. The terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and a plethora of Turkish-backed militias shocked the world by taking over Syria’s largest cities in a matter of days and forcing its dictator, Bashar al-Assad, to flee. There is no love […]
The debate about when ‘liberal’ first acquired a political meaning has been resolved. The answer is the 1770s, when the adjective ‘liberal’ became the name of the policy orientation against government restriction, government monopoly and protectionism, and in favor of individual liberty, premised by a stable, functional system of governmental authority. This policy orientation was […]
The new Government has repeatedly emphasised its aims to drive economic growth, modernise international development and to rebuild Britain’s international relationships. While these are ambitious goals, one significant obstacle stands in the way of success: the Paris Club. This international cabal of creditor countries is stifling growth by restricting investment into nations that owe money […]
Kemi Badenoch has been Conservative leader for more than a month now. We are also approaching the 50th anniversary of the ascension of the Tories’ first female leader, Margaret Thatcher. Both came from modest backgrounds, holding scientific degrees and inherited a defeated and demoralised party. In my new book, ‘Forging the Iron Lady: Margaret Thatcher, […]
This Friday, the House of Commons votes on whether to allow assisted dying. The proposals will have strong safeguards. To fall within the very limited scope of the legislation, an adult must be judged capable of choice (so not children and those suffering neurodegenerative diseases), have a terminal illness and an expected life expectancy of […]
Health policy, and the politics of health, are two very different things. When Otto von Bismarck set about his mammoth social insurance reforms of the 1880s, he was motivated by one thing: politics. Specifically, he wanted to stifle and negate the allure of the Social Democrats, who had been steadily gaining support in the Reichstag. […]
In a 2022 column, The New York Times’ Ezra Klein wrote of the countless people he meets who ruminate about whether to have children ‘given the climate crisis they will face… [and] knowing they will contribute to the climate crisis.’ Klein’s acquaintances are not an anomaly. He cited survey data suggesting that a quarter of […]
This is an extract from ‘Boom: Bubbles and the End of Stagnation’, which is published this week. For the past 70 or so years, oil has been the most important commodity in the world. Cars burn oil and drive over it, since asphalt is a hydrocarbon. Fabrics created from oil keep us warm in the […]
Though few at Nato would admit it, in his first four years as US President, Donald Trump had more impact on the security alliance than his immediate predecessors, Obama and Bush, put together. To understand the future Trump-Nato relationship, one should look to the past. The most obvious Nato success of the first Trump administration […]
It was meant to be a last resort – an act of ‘compassion’ to ease the suffering of the terminally ill. Instead, ‘medical assistance in dying’ (MAID) in Canada has exploded. Even worse, it’s being suggested to vulnerable disabled and mentally ill patients – many of whom could be treated with other therapies or medications.To […]
I’ve never liked the saying, attributed to various French bureaucrats of the ancien regime, that ‘the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing’. Prudent farmers care not only about the hissing but also about the tolerable survival […]
The Government’s own impact assessment for its employment rights legislation estimates that the measures could cost businesses up to £5 billion annually. To start, this is a substantial amount. Past economic studies and business surveys tell us that it will largely be passed onto consumers through higher prices, workers earning lower wages and/or job losses. […]
Over the coming weeks, CapX will be running a number of perspectives on the future of the Conservative Party. If you have an idea you would like to contribute, get in touch at editors@capxstaging.wpengine.com. It has been a hugeprivilege to spend almost 50 years in the service of this country. Five years in local government on […]
In a Sun interview on 5 September, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson challenged opponents of the imposition of VAT on private schools to ‘put up or shut up’, and suggest another way to pay for her education reforms other than the Government’s new education tax. This article answers her question directly. First, let’s agree: we all […]
Until 4 July, we were all Conservative MPs. Unfortunately, alongside 250 of our colleagues, each of us found ourselves a casualty of the general election. We now stand at a crossroads and need to act decisively and urgently to reunite and rebuild our party, so that seats like ours are won back at the earliest […]
Today’s censors wield cudgels with the word ‘information’. Content they don’t like they call ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’. The justification is fake. The protection is faux protection. Pretending to protect people from bad information by means of censorship may be called infaux thuggery. The cudgels are hidden, of course, but it is not hard to see […]
Some 260 years ago, James Watt created the world’s first truly efficient steam engine – a cost-effective, abundant source of energy that went on to power the industrial revolution and all the subsequent growth that came with it. In his autobiography, Watts said his motivation was to make engines ‘cheap as well as good’. The […]
