1776 has a claim to being the single most important year in the history of the English-speaking peoples. America declared her independence, James Watt sold his first steam engine and Adam Smith invented modern economics. Edward Gibbon might also win ‘highly commended’ for publishing the ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ in the same year. […]
According to Ernest Hemingway, there are two ways to go bankrupt: ‘Gradually, then suddenly.’ It’s a lesson the UK would do well to remember. Rather than fixing our frayed social contract, successive governments have merely tinkered with the public finances, doing just enough to keep the ship afloat. This deck-chair rearranging cannot continue forever. New […]
Suffering from a surfeit of prevaricating economic advisors, Harry Truman once demanded a ‘one-handed economist’ – one that wouldn’t keep saying, ‘on the one hand, on the other hand’. When it comes to stamp duty, he would find many. Economists almost universally agree that stamp duty land tax (SDLT) may be the worst tax in […]
It is a familiar lament of British policymakers that the UK invents everything and profits from nothing. The world wide web, nuclear energy, the ARM processors that now power every iPhone and many AI data centres – not to mention railways. All were invented in the United Kingdom; all are now largely scaled and monetised […]
