Aside from a windfall from higher inflation which the Chancellor used to make tax cuts, the underlying picture for the economy is essentially flat. That being said, some welcome pro-growth measures were announced at the Autumn Statement, most notably the decision to make full expensing permanent. But is it too little too late? To analyse […]
In a world saturated with information, we have more choices than ever – but how freely do we make them? In their new book Free Your Mind – Tthe new World of manipulation and how to avoid it, journalist Laura Dodsworth and behavioural scientist Patrick Fagan argue that there is a war on our minds […]
. Trash, garbage, litter or rubbish – whatever you call it the world is producing ever more of the stuff. But where does it all go once it’s left our colour-coded bins? And what about all those clothes you leave at the charity shop thining you’ve done a good turn? The fascinating tapestry of grime […]
He’s best known for popularising the terms ‘death tax’ and ‘climate change’, so it’s fair to say Frank Luntz knows a thing or two about political communication – making him an ideal guest for the CapX Podcast. We sat down to discuss his latest project for the Centre for Policy Studies delving into how the […]
How do we really live now? For his latest book This Is Europe, Ben Judah tried to answer that question by speaking to the people whose labour makes the freedom and prosperity the rest of us enjoy possible, interviewing everyone from a Romanian truck driver to an Amazon deliveryman and a factory production line worker. […]
As with so much modern political theatre, the debate on artificial intelligence has become polarised to a point that is often profoundly unhelpful, with a false dichotomy between ‘doomers’ and utopians who see AI as a solution to the world’s many problems, both technical and social. Between those positions is a world of nuance and wildly […]
There are few political questions as vexed as how to tax hard-pressed motorists. For many years, the Treasury has treated British drivers as a cash cow, levying high taxes while investing relatively little in the road network. Now, however, things are changing rapidly. The take-up of electric vehicles and the upcoming ban on new petrol […]
Just what is National Conservatism? That’s the question we’re grappling with this week, following the big National Conservatism Conference in London. While the three-day event certainly generated lots of media heat, it’s still not particularly clear what this US-imported idea actually stands for. Indeed, the answer seemed to vary depending on which of the eclectic […]
Our guest this week played an instrumental role in the UK’s departure from the European Union. As Boris Johnson’s Europe adviser and then chief negotiator in the exit talks with the EU, Lord Frost drew on a lifetime of experience as a civil servant and foreign office diplomat to help get the Trade and Cooperation […]
Did you know that every time you fill up your car, you are paying for the UK’s biofuels mandate, the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO)? In fact, some 6% of the price Brits pay at the pump goes on biofuel being blended into petrol and diesel. More concerning still at a time of soaring food […]
Things can seem a bit gloomy at the moment, and no one is better suited to explaining why than our guest this week, the Tory writer and self-proclaimed doom-monger Ed West. In an eclectic career that has spanned lad mags, religious publications and a very popular personal Substack, Ed has become one of the most […]
Breathless predictions of AI-induced doom are all around, with some experts in the field saying the technology has already advanced beyond the point of no return. The recent open letter signed by the likes of Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak and Andrew Yang was just the latest example of the unease that programmes such as Chat […]
How did an NHS clinic end up prescribing young people potential dangerous medical treatment with next to no data on the long-term effects? And why did that same clinic not respond to the concerns not just of outsiders, but its own staff? These are just some of the many questions posed by BBC journalist Hannah Barnes […]
It’s that special time of year again when the Chancellor delivers a Budget, before commentators, policy wonks and political opponents rush to tear it apart in the ensuing days. In that noblest of British traditions, we invited our editor-in-chief, Robert Colvile and the Centre for Policy Studies tax and policy guru, Tom Clougherty, for a […]
How bad was the British Empire? That’s the question Nigel Biggar, Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford, has attempted to answer in his book Colonialism a Moral Reckoning. But in doing so, he has confronted those who don’t just want to tell a one-sided story of an imperial […]
This week we’re talking about moola, lolly, dough or dosh – the thing that makes the world go round…Money. In his recent book Money in One Lesson the economic journalist Gavin Jackson tries to answer a seemingly basic but very tricky question: what is money and how does it work? It’s a grand tour of […]
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