For decades, the UK has been sleepwalking into a slow-burning, self-inflicted disaster. Rising intergenerational inequality is a clear symptom of how wrong things can go when incentives are misaligned, economic activity is discouraged, and there is no apparent political will to fix it. That absence of political will is understandable when you look at the […]
The perfect storm of the mini-budget, where surprise uncosted tax pledges and an open-ended energy price package met market instability and rising interest rates, has meant a wholesale rethink of the Government’s tax approach. Rather than going for growth with lower taxes, Jeremy Hunt is now focused on getting the most feathers from the goose […]
The Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has already made a splash on the morning media round, just hours after his sudden promotion. Was it horrible or fortuitous timing? Whatever it turns out to be, he used his broadcasts to tease some of the policies he might undertake while in No 11. Of course he touted the need […]
As an American living in London and working in Westminster, I often get asked why I identify with the centre-right in the UK but as a Democrat in the US. Besides the obvious fact that the entire American political spectrum has shifted to the right, my overriding reason is that many of the left/right social […]
There’s nothing like a crisis to bring the failures of the past into sharp focus. Right now, as the UK faces a stark cost of living squeeze which is mostly being driven by energy prices, the Government is publishing their strategy for energy security. One can’t help but wish we had taken this problem seriously […]
The Government’s paternalistic streak knows no bounds. We now have the prospect of online age verification, a crackdown on offensive comedy, restrictions on food and drink advertising, and perhaps worst of all, the disastrous Online Safety Bill which creates a new category of ‘legal but harmful speech’. It would be grimly amusing watching ministers flailing […]
The British people did not put up with years of division, political instability, and hard fought negotiations to take back control of domestic policy from the EU to see it handed on a silver platter to Joe Biden. To paraphrase the Iron Lady: “We did not roll back the frontiers of the EU superstate only […]
‘Buy now, pay later’ schemes have become a staple at the bottom of online shopping checkouts. Used by millions of people accounting for £2.7 billion in transactions, it’s no wonder they’ve caught the eye of the regulators. The Financial Conduct Authority announced on Tuesday that they would be formally cracking down on ‘buy now, pay […]
Welcome to the New Year, same as the old one. If 2020 will go down as an annus horribilis, the first few months of 2021 don’t look much better at the moment. What hope there is for a return to normality rests on a speedy and efficient vaccination programme. The UK ought to be ahead of the […]
Just two years ago, when the ASI published our report ‘Don’t Have a Cow, Man’ on the potential for lab-grown meat, one reader suggested the authors were portraying “a sci-fi world”. Yesterday, that world became a reality as Singapore approved cultured chicken meat for sale. The importance of this development cannot be overstated. It knocks […]
“For the British people it’s become not so much test and trace, but trace a test”. Aside from being a rather pithy turn of phrase, that quip from Labour’s Jon Ashworth neatly captured the absurdity of the UK’s Covid testing system. From ‘world-leading’ one day to overwhelmed and stalling the next – how, mid-way through […]
As the pandemic shuttered shops, restaurants and offices earlier this year, the Treasury went into overdrive figuring out how on Earth they would pay to keep people safely at home. We’re all familiar with the results of these brainstorming sessions: a series of subsidies, enhanced welfare programmes, and a rise in NHS funding. And while […]
One of the most welcome developments of recent years is that we have become much more open about discussing mental health issues. No longer do people have to suffer in silence or experience overwhelming stigma, and sufferers can find communities of people facing similar challenges, along with a wide range of mental health professionals. This is […]
The horrific death of George Floyd has shone a spotlight on police brutality in America. For years there has been a powerful, underlying force which has enabled officers to escape accountability following police brutality. That force is the police unions. Like other unions, they exist to protect the rights and wellbeing of its members; they […]
Ordinarily one of the most contentious topics in British political discourse, immigration has largely taken a back seat in recent week as political and economic life has been almost totally absorbed by the pandemic. The respite was only brief, however, as last night MPs voted through the first stage of the Government’s new Immigration Bill, […]
Driven to Netflix by mandatory quarantine, I recently discovered Dirty Money, an entire documentary TV series devoted to short, deep dives into “stories of corporate corruption, securities fraud and creative accounting”. Most episodes are on topics you’ll probably be acquainted with, from Donald Trump’s dealings to the Volkswagen emissions scandal. But one fascinating episode exposes […]
Labour’s plans to reduce rail fares by 33% takes from the poor to pay for the travel of the rich while inevitably providing less money for maintenance and upgrades. As usual, with Labour’s giveaways of other people’s money, they are hoping that no one will look too closely at the detail — although given this […]
Today marks ‘Equal Pay Day’, a campaign pushed by the Fawcett Society which purports to highlight the day of the year from which women ‘work for free’. Their argument is that ‘gender pay gap’ calculations show women are being discriminated against in comparison to their male counterparts so drastically that their annual earnings are 13.1% […]
