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Policy

Savvy the Squirrel will not fix UK investing

The British investment industry wants everyone to be familiar with a cartoon squirrel. Savvy, the character fronting a 20 million pound advertising campaign, is the latest attempt to boost investment in the UK. The government-backed ‘Invest for the Future’ initiative, launched last Thursday, is supported by some of the biggest financial services firms in the […]

Policy

Why levelling up could make Britain poorer

Disruption is what venture capitalists seek to do. Good disruption, that is. Investing in early-stage companies, creating jobs, backing innovation and technologies that can move a country, or perhaps a region of a country, forward. But there’s a catch: economic displacement. This happens when policy intervention that boosts economic activity in one location has the […]

Policy

Your pension is not the Chancellor’s piggybank

This is the transcript of a speech delivered by the Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions during the Commons debate on the Pension Schemes Bill on April 15, 2026. Who knew that the Pension Schemes Bill would become so controversial? It is a Bill on which there was so much consensus; a Bill […]

Economics

The Bank of England is fighting the last war

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 […]

Ideas

Why Britain needs popular capitalism 2.0

During the Thatcher premiership, popular capitalism came to the fore, focused on boosting home ownership and broadening share participation. It was a period when the City was growing and finance was helping drive economic success, and there was a desire for more people to share in this. The Big Bang reforms of 1986 transformed London’s […]

Investment

Politics

Cosying up to China won’t save Britain’s economy

So, never-here-Keir is on, by my counting, his 38th overseas trip since entering Downing Street. This time, it is to Communist China, in what must feel like something of a homecoming for Starmer. The Prime Minister has declared that this trip will make Britain richer, which is a surprising goal given he is doing seemingly […]

Policy

Punishing firms won’t fix Britain’s water crisis

As much as I hate to admit it, there is a lot to like in the Government’s water white paper. But there’s a reason for that: the best ideas are lifted straight from the Conservative Party. Stripped of the hollow slogans and performative toughness about tackling sewage that have dominated the debate in recent years, […]

Policy

Let’s make London the home of start-up capital

Britain has a long and proud history of innovation – stretching from the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions right through to modern successes in the fintech and life sciences sectors. Unfortunately, in recent years another trend has emerged, of start-ups incubating ideas in the UK before listing their businesses overseas, primarily in the US. Of the […]

Technology

At the CMA, the process has become the punishment

There has been a blizzard of important announcements for the future of the digital economy from the Competition and Markets authority in recent weeks. New investigations into search engines and mobile ecosystems, provisional findings from its long-running cloud market investigation, investigations into reviews. However, the regulator’s relationship with the Government has also become evidently strained, […]

Economics

Britain’s pension system is bust – it’s time for radical reform

With all the fuss about Labour’s ‘heat or eat’ decision to means-test pensioners for their winter fuel allowance, and the ‘did-she-or-didn’t-she’ media hyperventilation about Kemi Badenoch questioning the future of the pension triple lock, it’s easy to forget that Britain’s state pension is basically broke.  It was set up when most people only lived a […]

Ideas

Despatch: Heathrow airport – an allegory of our decline

Heathrow shows why Britain can’t build… . . Listen on Apple Podcasts.

Ideas

Bitcoin is thriving: is this the future of money?

CapX does not offer investment advice. This article is for information only. You are not guaranteed to make money from buying cryptocurrency and you may lose your entire investment. It is now almost 15 years since Satoshi Nakamoto announced his new invention, bitcoin, to the world. Since then, it has grown and grown. Following the […]

Politics

Why is the Prime Minister picking a fight with Elon Musk?

A newly elected government organises a global summit to encourage inward investment. Hypothetically, it would be sensible to include the world’s richest man on the invitation list, but it seems as if Elon Musk (estimated net worth: $270.5 billion) has been snubbed by the British Government and will be absent from the event in London […]

Policy

Handing yet more power to unaccountable regulators betrays the spirit of Brexit

Brexiteers have long-argued for the need to restore control over Britain’s laws to the British Parliament and British courts. For too long, the Leavers argued, bureaucrats in Brussels had been tightening their grip on the UK statute book without rigorous accountability from the British people. Leaving the EU was supposed to change that. The Digital […]

Economics

Don’t panic – it’s only the Budget

The forthcoming Budget will be a seat-of-the-pants affair. Former Chancellor Sajid Javid handed his successor, the suave Rishi Sunak, an extraordinarily difficult balancing act: somehow, Sunak has to deliver on the implied promises made to those who voted Tory for the first time in the December election, while still paying lip service to the Government’s […]

Ideas

In defence of UK aid

Are we paying too much in aid? Too little? Do we spend it wisely? Could we do more?  Our international aid budget provides a rich seam of debate amongst politicians, advisors and commentators – but all too rarely do those who have led HM Government’s work overseas get a role in the conversation. I have […]

Ideas

Design Thinking: What Boris Johnson could learn from art school

The Conservatives’ unexpected success in breaking down the Red Wall gave Boris Johnson a surprise Christmas present. But it also presents him with an unexpected challenge – to make a real difference to the parts of the UK that successive Governments tended to forget. It’s a real opportunity to create a legacy where most people […]

Ideas

The Queen’s Speech marks a radical departure

“My Government’s priority” the Queen told us yesterday “is to deliver the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union”. Let that sink in. For years, those of us who advocated leaving the EU were frequently demonised by the mainstream media. We were, it was routinely implied, extremist – indeed, xenophobic! – for wanting Britain to […]

Policy

Homelessness shames the nation – politicians should take it seriously

With Boris Johnson’s election win early Friday morning, he has won over a huge number of working class voters. It would appear his vision of one nation Conservatism championed by Benjamin Disraeli is back. One issue that must be addressed is one that does not discussed often enough: homelessness and rough sleeping. Chancellor Sajid Javid […]

Ideas

Five ways Boris Johnson can reboot and rebalance the economy

A political leader who has just secured a large majority has rarely regretted doing too much, too quickly. Boris Johnson’s extraordinary opportunity for radical reform of the structures of government and economy must not be wasted. The challenge of delivering a successful economy for everyone is immense. So here are five ideas for the new government […]

Ideas

The coming battle for modern conservatism

A little over two weeks ago, in typically unorthodox fashion, Dominic Cummings uploaded his thoughts about the ongoing election onto his personal blog. For the most part, the Prime Minister’s strategist stuck largely to his campaign’s core script, albeit with more capital letters and tirades about Dominic Grieve. Yet towards the end of the article, […]

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