Rachel Reeves is getting her excuses in early ahead of next month’s Budget, which looks set to be a painful repeat of last October’s ‘one off’. The Chancellor has already blamed ‘external headwinds‘, ‘Tory austerity‘ and ‘the ongoing impact of Liz Truss’s mini-Budget‘. It is no surprise that she has now dropped the ‘B-word’ too. […]
There is nothing wrong with the zeal of a convert – if you happen to be an adherent to the cause that has been embraced. St Paul’s decision on the road to Damascus to stop persecuting Christians and become an apostle was thoroughly welcome. So I am keen to take the Housing Secretary Steve Reed’s […]
Are you looking for growth? With the UK’s year-on-year per capita growth at just 0.7% in the second quarter of this year, everyone in Whitehall should be getting out of Westminster, out of their comfort zone and looking further afield. Leading by example, I went to Taiwan which boasts over eight times Britain’s per capita […]
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 […]
In this week’s Nimby Watch, we’re off to the Cotswolds – an area of outstanding natural beauty in Oxfordshire. Okay then, let’s go find some Nimbys – whereabouts this time? We’re off to perhaps the most archetypical bit of verdant, rolling, English countryside there is – the Cotswolds. Sadly for us, we’ll be spending our time […]
Exactly 42 years ago this week, Ronald Reagan stood in a grand hall at the University of South Carolina, confidently telling new graduates that ‘[there] are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits on the human capacity for intelligence, imagination and wonder’. Since that moment, the world’s GDP has increased […]
Europe is in steep structural economic decline. The decline is now so embedded that Europe is at a crossroads. Either she rediscovers her dynamism, or the continent faces increasing global marginalisation and a relative fall in living standards. Just a generation ago, the European Union accounted for almost a quarter of global GDP on a […]
Britain stands on a precipice. Not of a recession or political upheaval, but complete systemic collapse. The arithmetic is clear and unforgiving: the implication of the last Government Actuary’s Department report is that the UK will default on welfare commitments, including all pension commitments, by 2043-44, as the National Insurance Fund runs dry. With debt […]
Scotland once punched far, far above its weight. In the 16th century, despite having a population under a quarter the size of its neighbour, England, whose king Henry VIII tried repeatedly to subdue it, it was the smaller nation that prevailed. It is the blood of the cunning and patient James VI and I, and […]
Keir Starmer is reportedly becoming more and more frustrated at the sluggish reality of government within the current system. Who can blame him? Government is beset by a sclerotic Civil Service and continuous legal battles, while the minds of ministers are full of the same Westminster-bubble preoccupations that have now led to a cratering in […]
In politics, as in life, good intentions aren’t enough – it is outcomes that matter. While Labour’s goal of building 1.5 million new homes and improving Britain’s infrastructure is commendable, their proposed changes to inheritance tax on top of the recent rise in National Insurance could undermine the very businesses needed to achieve these objectives. […]
This article is the first in a fortnightly series of policy proposals from John Penrose and the Centre for Small State Conservatives. ‘Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run, it’s almost everything’. This famous aphorism, coined by Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, should send shivers down every British spine. UK productivity trails France, Germany […]
Exports face stiff headwinds, supply chains are shifting and Britain’s position as a trading nation is being tested. One growth engine stands strong, with opportunities for those ready to seize them: digital trade. As E-Commerce Export Week begins, it highlights how even the smallest UK maker or retailer can reach Boston, Berlin or Bangkok with […]
Energy is the great enabler. It comforts us by cooling our offices in summer and heating our homes in winter; it nourishes us by synthesising fertilisers and purifying water; it raises our infrastructure by forging steel and melting silicon into glass; it connects the world by mobilising cars, trains, and aeroplanes; it generates electricity, that […]
Isn’t The Guardian just delightful at times? Take this recent piece, seemingly about fishing. Look beneath the surface, and the reporting actually manages to both diss the Left’s new favourite economist Mariana Mazzucato, and also show that central, let alone state, planning isn’t how productivity and economic growth happen. Of course, being The Guardian, they’ve […]
If, like me, you have a sadistic streak, there’s much to enjoy about this Government. It’s rare that we’re able to see the shoulder devils and angels of policymaking exact their torment in real time, tugging their plaything in one direction before yanking it in the other. Under Keir Starmer’s premiership, we get to see […]
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