‘We came into work on a manifesto to make work pay’, Jo Stevens, Labour’s Welsh Secretary, told Radio 4 this week. ‘And that’s exactly what we’re doing.’ Well, Ms. Stevens, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has a different story to tell. Youth unemployment is now at its highest level in 11 years. Almost one […]
Despite reviving economic growth being an avowed priority for every government since the Covid-19 era, the record has been lacklustre. The obvious question is why? What are the constraints that hold back ministers who want to support investment, innovation and growth? Of course, there are some fundamental limitations that any government has to operate within. […]
Student loans have been in the headlines recently, with backlash over a freeze in repayment thresholds spilling over into anger with the student loan system in general. Many graduates accept they should pay back what they borrow, but are frustrated that high interest rates mean they end up owing much more. This frustration is understandable, […]
Say what you like about him – and I often do – but Tony Blair remains inescapable. Perhaps that is why, almost 30 years after he first entered No.10 as Prime Minister, Channel 4 has a new three-part series following his journey from Fettes to Iraq. The series features interviews with Blair’s wife Cherie and […]
Monetary policy errors are rarely obvious in real time. More often, they emerge slowly – the product of frameworks that persist beyond the conditions that once justified them. Britain now risks drifting into precisely such a moment. The Bank of England spent the better part of two years extinguishing the most severe inflation shock in […]
Poverty was once the norm. A quarter of babies died in their first year of life. In 1980, around 40% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty. Today only 10% of people do. Much of this is thanks to fossil fuels. The burning of wood, then coal, gas and oil, enabled us to prosper. […]
Ministers have tried for months to hand-wave away Britain’s increasingly desperate jobs figures with unconvincing excuses. ‘It’s AI, it’s global factors, it’s post-pandemic adjustment, it’s bad data,’ go the refrains of the unlucky few foisted on the media round for the monthly ONS release. The increasingly obscure ministers Labour HQ have put up may play […]
In a move intended to signal Reform UK’s maturation from insurgent force to serious contender, Nigel Farage has unveiled the beginnings of his shadow front bench. At the heart of this announcement are three key figures: Farage himself as the guiding force, Robert Jenrick as Shadow Chancellor and Richard Tice retaining his dual role as […]
A couple of years ago, the Free Market Road Show was touring European capitals, with prominent classical liberal economists making the case for free enterprise. Deirdre McCloskey was one of them. In Vienna, after a speech on the role of the entrepreneur, an enthusiastic journalist told her: ‘I loved your talks, and love the idea […]
‘Who governs Britain?’ asked Ted Heath in the February 1974 general election, only to receive an answer he neither liked nor expected. But today, when a Prime Minister with a majority of more than 150 seats is said to be fighting for his political life; when a Cabinet Secretary departs after barely fourteen months; when […]
‘It’s nice, isn’t it. The quiet.’ ‘This is what serious government looks like. This is how it makes appointments.’ This was the sentiment of the chattering classes upon Labour’s election victory in 2024. Britain, according to them, was about to become a safe heaven of peace and stability. Yet it’s now 2026, and the Government […]
This week’s edition of Nimby Watch comes to you from the under-reported and frankly underrated borough of Islington, North London… I see we’re really pushing out the boat on the Nimby Watch travel budget this week, then? Yes, we are in what is indisputably London’s greatest borough – Islington. And yes, that does happen to […]
How times change. It was only last autumn when I outlined here in CapX how an already-sleazy new Government needed an integrity reset to clean up politics and save its own reputation at the same time. Now it is increasingly clear that we are facing a growing integrity crisis in UK politics – and the […]
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 […]
Christmas may now be a distant memory, but I finally got to watch Frank Capra’s classic ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’. It really is a wondrous film, and not even my tipsy uncle talking all the way through it could dent it. One lovely line came back to me this week, where James Stewart’s George Bailey […]
How can people without capital be expected to believe in capitalism? This is the challenge of our age, as ‘own nothing and be happy’ hardens into a new dividing line in Western politics. Westminster risks ignoring the emerging political economy of housing, even as public anger grows. Green Party leader Zack Polanski is already courting […]
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