This was meant to be a do-no-harm Budget. If that was really the aim, it has failed miserably. It’s a Budget that raises taxes by £7 billion and attacks entrepreneurs, savers and the rental market in particular. The first point to note is that the increases in income tax on savings and property income are […]
The lifeblood of the economy. The backbone of Britain. When it comes to small businesses, it’s easy to lapse into cliché. But that’s because they really, really matter. The overwhelming majority of businesses in Britain are small businesses. They employ more than 13 million people. And it’s almost impossible to exaggerate how tough things are […]
Since Andy Burnham became the Mayor of Manchester in 2017, the term Manchesterism has taken on a new meaning. To him, it stands for the expansion of the public sector and a managerial state. Now, with Keir Starmer on the brink of resignation and Burnham’s Makerfield by-election win clearing his path to Westminster, Britain may […]
Some are saying they don’t know what Andy Burnham’s big ideas are. They don’t know what he will try to achieve when he becomes prime minister. On GB News earlier this week, Boris Johnson described Burnham as a ‘mascaraed Mancunian mystery’. It is a peculiar concern. Burnham’s ideology seems to me no harder to identify […]
The UK has the lowest business investment of any G7 country. The last time its business investment stood above the G7 median as a proportion of GDP, John Major was Prime Minister. The Labour government’s instinct, both in its manifesto and in practice, reflects the old Keynesian mindset that “The duty of ordering the current […]
Viewers of ‘Clarkson’s Farm’ – now back for another season – will be familiar with Jeremy Clarkson’s long-running battle with the bureaucrats of West Oxfordshire District Council. When his Diddly Squat farm shop boomed, the council dragged their feet over planning permission for a car park extension, bizarrely decreed he could only sell goods from […]
In the leafy district of Bassetlaw, council officers want to get tough. Although not in the way you might expect. Last Wednesday night, local politicians weren’t discussing bins, planning or district improvement projects. Instead, they busied themselves going after the humble ‘cake shed’. In recent months, a baked-goods revolution has swept the nation. Stalls have […]
Britain is stuck in a growth ‘doom loop’. Public spending has ballooned, taxes are at a 70-year high and the same pattern repeats each year. The result is a country that works harder, pays more and gets less. It’s a policy environment that is hitting business hard at all levels, and is toxic for young […]
British businesses have faced numerous challenges over the past few years, not least extortionate energy bills. According to the International Energy Agency, the UK has had the highest non-domestic energy prices of any member state, creating a significant barrier to growth and investment. What’s more, the government has imposed additional regulatory costs on businesses, such […]
Quite the latest idea is Limitarianism. Laid out in a book of the same name by the Dutch-Belgian philosopher Ingrid Robeyns, the underlying thesis is that, just as there’s a physical limit to how much stuff we can all have, there should be a limit to how much wealth any one person may have. The […]
The past 15 months have underscored one truth: Britain needs a stronger economy. Businesses, not government, drive growth. The UK’s 5.4 million small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) employ 16.6 million people – one in three voters – and generate £2.8 trillion in turnover. They are not only the engine of our economy but a vital […]
London Tech Week arrived with optimism and bold declarations. Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised £1 billion to scale the UK’s compute capacity for artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, praised the UK’s research credentials and private investment, declaring our AI ecosystem ‘perfect for take-off’. His only concern? The absence of sufficient computing infrastructure. It […]
The fact that there are currently over nine million adults in the UK economically inactive, including over 3m people on long-term disability benefits and nearly 1m people aged 16-24 not in employment, education or training, is a national scandal. Thinkers like Fraser Nelson have done an impeccable job at highlighting the explosion in inactivity since […]
Donald Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States last month was rich in symbolism. One of the most striking images was the parade of ultra-rich technology entrepreneurs who had declared their support for him. Most prominent was Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and named by Trump as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, […]
Last week, Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 jet became the first civilian aircraft to break the sound barrier since Concorde when the US company’s demonstrator aircraft achieved supersonic flight over a Californian desert. The aircraft, which accelerated to 10% faster than the speed of sound, is the company’s trailblazer product, leading the way to the development of […]
I do not generally indulge in what Eleanor H Porter’s Pollyanna called ‘the Glad Game’, although the current political climate makes it tempting, as ideological opponents become poisonously irreconcilable enemies. Counterintuitively, however, amid the rising polarisation, there is still one idea to which most mainstream political opinion subscribes: that the key to making Britain great […]
You needn’t be an expert psephologist to know that immigration was a key reason behind the Conservatives’ capitulation to Labour in July’s general election. So, as the Tory leadership election moves towards its business end, it’s no surprise to see that all of the candidates vying to replace Rishi Sunak have pledged to slash the […]
Peter Mandelson had a crack at one in 2009. Theresa May had another go in 2017. And there have been a raft of other economic strategies too. Yet despite this we’re going to go round the block again – the new Government is going to write another industrial strategy. If this one isn’t to join the […]
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Centre for Policy Studies and the 10th of CapX, we’ve been republishing CPS pamphlets from our archive. This week, it’s Hugh Thomas’ foreshadowing of the modern culture wars, History, Capitalism and Freedom, which includes a foreword from Margaret Thatcher. Foreword by the Rt. Hon. Mrs Margaret Thatcher MP […]
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Centre for Policy Studies and the 10th of CapX, we’ve been republishing CPS pamphlets by some of the most influential figures in the history of British conservatism. For this week’s edition, we’ve republished Chapter 1 of Shirley Robin Letwin and William Letwin’s 1986 pamphlet, ‘Every adult a share-owner’. […]
If alien anthropologists tasked with studying humanity were to have arrived on Earth during the end of the 19th century there are a few findings they would no doubt have reported back to their extraterrestrial home. One of the most remarkable would be that, after hundreds of years of relative global technological stagnation, the people […]
Napoleon Bonaparte once called Britain a ‘nation of shopkeepers’. He meant this as an insult, but we wear it as a badge of honour – every generation of Britons have been great entrepreneurs. Now as an independent trading nation, we must build on this legacy – and grow, modernise, and enhance our economy to deliver […]
Watch or listen to CapX’s weekly podcast ‘The Capitalist’ wherever you get your podcasts.
