Back in Spring, Jeremy Hunt effectively put 4p on the basic rate of income tax, and he did it without the headline rate moving. In an act of fiscal ‘blink it and you’ll miss it’ the Chancellor hit us with an effective tax rise by freezing income tax thresholds. The Tories loved going after Gordon […]
The Prime Minister has promised caution and pragmatism, and last week’s ‘steady as she goes’ Budget was no exception. But there’s nothing sensible about perpetuating the status quo. Britain is in decline, and we will not escape it by reflexively turning to higher taxes and increasingly elaborate spending plans. We had known for some time […]
Jeremy Hunt is expected to use his Budget today to raise the lifetime allowance for pension savings. The lifetime allowance was introduced in 2006, and since 2011/12, has been gradually cut – from £1.8m to £1.07m today. Before today’s change it was due to be frozen at the current rate until 2026, potentially increasing the […]
In military jargon, a kill zone is an area completely covered by direct and effective fire which can be used to devastating effect on any enemy forces unlucky enough to try crossing it. Pulling off such a slaughter is a two-stage enterprise. First, you must construct the site: placing your entrenchments and batteries, checking your […]
Regular readers of CapX are probably used to hearing about how we can’t get anything right in this country – our housing market is broken, childcare is exorbitant, and our energy system is dysfunctional. But for all that doom and gloom, there is a bright spot. Over the past decade or so, the UK has […]
Back in July 2022, when he was in the running for the Conservative Party leadership, Jeremy Hunt had a very different view on corporation tax to the policy he enacts today. At the time, he told Sky News that corporation tax was the tax that mattered most to businesses. He said that while it wasn’t […]
What does it mean to be a liberal? The basic programme of liberalism has been remarkably consistent over the centuries, but the emphasis has changed with the times. For the very early liberals, the issue of religious toleration loomed large. This is because liberalism emerged, in no small part, in response to the European wars […]
AstraZeneca’s plan to build a $350m pharmaceuticals factory in Ireland rather than the UK was 100% predictable. And it’s not just a tragedy for Britain’s life sciences. As a paper published by the Centre for Brexit Policy in November showed, the long-term failure of UK pharma highlights how UK policy discussion is light years behind our […]
Few political questions are as basic, or as pressing, as how a government raises the money it spends – and the last year in British politics has provided ample examples of the political pitfalls of tax reform. In principle a good tax system should be a winning combination of fairness, efficiency, smooth revenue raising and […]
The Government is self-sabotaging its own Levelling Up agenda and nobody’s talking about it. By this point we’re all pretty familiar with what that agenda entails: remedying economic imbalances between regions of the UK. These imbalances are exacerbated by chronic underfunding, poor transport links, and limited job opportunities, resulting in scores of young workers heading […]
Tax reform is one of the main levers the government can pull in its quest to boost the economy over the long run. Improving a country’s tax system can attract business and investment, encourage entrepreneurship and work, and eliminate deadweight costs that hold back growth. It was encouraging to hear Chancellor Jeremy Hunt say last […]
The England that AJP Taylor wrote about in the introduction to English History, 1914-1945 is a very different country: ‘Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked… […]
If there is one thing worse than a big, expansive, expensive state, it must surely be a big, expansive, expensive, and badly run state. Perhaps the two simply go hand-in-hand; certainly, the proposition ought to make intuitive sense to small-state conservatives, if any remain. But whatever your view on the high theory, the recent damning […]
Well, it could have been worse. That was my initial reaction to the Autumn Statement – relief brought on by the Chancellor steering clear of the worst policy options that were aired ahead of the latest fiscal event. On the overall stance of fiscal policy, I was worried Jeremy Hunt would tighten too much as […]
As Jeremy Hunt prepares to deliver today’s Autumn Statement, the UK’s cost of government crisis has never looked more acute. While much is made of fiscal ‘black holes’ and the need to raise taxes, far too little attention is paid to the scale of existing government spending. Just take a look at the figures for […]
Newspaper readers have over the past couple of weeks been subject to a bizarre series of government leaks revealing apparent planned tax rises. It is difficult to understand the rationale for this operation. Perhaps the powers that be think portentous leaking will make the tax rises they do enact seem less harsh. There’s a risk, […]
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