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“We are living in the Anglosphere moment, which started with the Industrial Revolution in Britain, grew across the Atlan...
24/12/2025

“We are living in the Anglosphere moment, which started with the Industrial Revolution in Britain, grew across the Atlantic after 1776 and eventually turned into a liberal world order after the Second World War. We have had a good run over these 200 years. But few golden ages survive longer than that. What happens now? There are ominous signs.”

One of our favourite pieces of 2025👇
✍️Johan Norberg

The most gratifying thing about studying golden ages, like ancient Athens, Rome, Abbasid Baghdad, Song China, Renaissance Italy and the Dutch Republic, is that you can’t help but be inspired by the remarkable potential of mankind. Whether they are pagans, Muslims, Confucians, Catholics, Protestant...

“We cannot pretend the problem of bank bailouts will go away if we avoid talking about it for long enough.”One of our fa...
24/12/2025

“We cannot pretend the problem of bank bailouts will go away if we avoid talking about it for long enough.”

One of our favourite pieces of 2025
✍️Andrew Lilico

Bank bailouts make the ‘pro-market’ case a defence of economic injustice.

“Free societies don’t just depend on free markets for goods and services – they rely on free and functional markets for ...
23/12/2025

“Free societies don’t just depend on free markets for goods and services – they rely on free and functional markets for information. What happens when that information market is broken – when attention, not accuracy, becomes the currency?”

One of our favourite pieces of 2025
✍️Justin Hempson-Jones

Free societies don’t just depend on free markets for goods and services – they rely on free and functional markets for information. Liberal democracy assumes that, given access to accurate facts, diverse viewpoints and open debate, truth will win out. But what happens when that information marke...

“As HL Mencken pointed out, to every complex problem there is a solution that is clear, simple and wrong. But not so for...
23/12/2025

“As HL Mencken pointed out, to every complex problem there is a solution that is clear, simple and wrong. But not so for the UK’s current budgetary woes. I have a clear and simple solution that would make Rachel Reeves’ accounts problems disappear into the ether, and I can even lower tax rates as I do so. The answer is 60/40.”

One of our favourite pieces of 2025
✍️Tim Worstall

Our measure of poverty is unaffordably high

“...most of us are profoundly unaware how unusual and precious our freedoms and comforts are. They are an inheritance wh...
22/12/2025

“...most of us are profoundly unaware how unusual and precious our freedoms and comforts are. They are an inheritance which all too often we take for granted.”

One of our favourite pieces of 2025

✍️Konstantin Kisin

Capitalism creates unprecedented prosperity by harnessing our self-interest.

"As Los Angeles burns, with ten dead and over 10,000 homes destroyed, a deeper story emerges about how well-intentioned ...
22/12/2025

"As Los Angeles burns, with ten dead and over 10,000 homes destroyed, a deeper story emerges about how well-intentioned red tape has turned a natural disaster into a regulatory catastrophe..."

One of our favourite pieces of 2025

✍️Matthew Kilcoyne

As Los Angeles burns, with ten dead and over 10,000 homes destroyed, a deeper story emerges about how well-intentioned red tape has turned a natural disaster into a regulatory catastrophe. The fires raging through Pacific Palisades and beyond aren’t just revealing the physical vulnerability of Cal...

Did you know the Government is hiding mince pies from you?There are lots of Christmassy foods that are restricted or mad...
19/12/2025

Did you know the Government is hiding mince pies from you?

There are lots of Christmassy foods that are restricted or made more expensive as a result of the Big Government Grinch. The Health and Care Act (2022) specifically states that ‘unhealthy’ foods cannot be advertised on television between 5:30am and 9pm, advertised on the internet at all, positioned at the entrance, exit and checkout of supermarkets, or included in discounts, like buy-one-get-one-free (BOGOF) deals.

HFSS (High Fat, Sugar, and Salt) foods are subject to these restrictions. This includes roast potatoes in goose fat, pork pies, pigs in blankets, yule logs, mince pies and Quality Street chocolates.

These foods cannot be at checkouts, aisle ends or entrances in supermarkets. The Government is literally hiding, not just mince pies, but all your favourite Christmas foods from you. And making them more expensive to boot.

Don't listen to the Government scolds. Festive cheer is not a public health emergency. Have a very merry Christmas.

✍️Reem Ibrahim

Did you know the Government is hiding mince pies from you?

Efforts to isolate one patch of soil as capitalism’s place of origin – Florence, Amsterdam or Manchester, for example – ...
19/12/2025

Efforts to isolate one patch of soil as capitalism’s place of origin – Florence, Amsterdam or Manchester, for example – have all proved insufficient. A new global history starts with the proto-capitalist community of traders who, in the twelfth century, plied their business in the port of Aden.

Capitalism did not ‘break out’ in Aden in 1150, but as its merchants brought the riches of Asia, Africa, Arabia and Europe back to their storage sheds, then distributed them to the far reaches of the known world, buying low and selling dear, there were early, scattered sparks of the revolution to come.

✍️Sven Beckert

Tracing capitalism’s origin to Florence or Manchester is insufficient

While peace proposals are circulating to end this ruinous conflict, any deal that results in a lasting peace will need t...
18/12/2025

While peace proposals are circulating to end this ruinous conflict, any deal that results in a lasting peace will need to ensure Ukraine is economically and militarily strong enough to resist future Russian aggression. That requires money – lots of it – to rebuild shattered infrastructure and maintain a technologically advanced military.

The obvious source for these funds is the €185 billion in Russian Central Bank assets frozen in Western accounts, the vast majority of which sits in Belgium at Euroclear. However, the Belgian government has rightfully hesitated. While they have agreed to use the interest on these assets to help Ukraine, they have resisted EU attempts to touch the principal.

Today’s meeting offers a chance to break this deadlock. The answer lies not in the immediate confiscation that Belgium fears, but in a clear legal mechanism familiar in normal commercial disputes: a lien.

✍️Fen Osler Hampson, Allan Rock & Tim Sargent

If a neighbour owes you money, you do not simply seize their property

Prices in the year to November rose by 3.2%, the lowest since March, falling faster than the Bank of England – and many ...
18/12/2025

Prices in the year to November rose by 3.2%, the lowest since March, falling faster than the Bank of England – and many economists – expected. Disinflationary pressures are no longer confined to energy prices or base effects, but are broadening, reflecting weaker demand and fading pricing power across the economy.

At the same time, unemployment has risen to a four-year high of 5.1%. Private sector wage growth is easing, vacancies are falling and with business surveys pointing to further softening ahead, the UK economy is clearly losing momentum.

This is not an economy overheating. It is one slowing.

Yet there remains a vocal camp of respected economists arguing that the MPC should hold rates today, not cut. Inflation, they note, remains above target. At 3.2%, it is still some distance from the Bank’s explicit mandate of price stability, defined as a 2% inflation target, which is meant to come before all other considerations.

They are right about the mandate. And that is precisely the problem.

✍️Damian Pudner

The UK’s monetary policy framework is no longer fit for purpose

Will France need to be bailed out under the latest of the European Central Bank’s (ECB) damage limitation devices, the m...
17/12/2025

Will France need to be bailed out under the latest of the European Central Bank’s (ECB) damage limitation devices, the magically named Transmission Protection Instrument? France’s minority government under embattled Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has finally succeeded in passing a social security budget – by including a provision temporarily suspending President Emmanuel Macron’s flagship pension reform – but negotiations will now begin on Friday on a draft state budget bill, which needs to pass by the deadline of December 31.

A fiscal collision between France and Germany, the two biggest economies in the euro area, looks well-nigh inevitable in the next 18 months. France is preparing for a presidential election in (or before) April 2027 that could well bring a far-right leader into the Elysée Palace. This would represent a grave test for cohesion between France and Germany, a partnership that has been a cornerstone of European integration for 70 years.

✍️David Marsh

A fiscal collision between France and Germany looks inevitable

Donald Trump’s political future is uncertain, but the dissatisfaction as well as a peculiar ideological mélange that he ...
17/12/2025

Donald Trump’s political future is uncertain, but the dissatisfaction as well as a peculiar ideological mélange that he defined is not going to go away regardless of what happens to the man himself. Individuals certainly matter in history, but deep economic and political currents and subcurrents matter at least as much. After four years of Trump’s first presidency, policies that, in the beginning, appeared unusual have been adopted by the rest of the body politic. They remained, and were even developed, post-Trump I. Thus the new political and economic order is already here. Trump’s second administration is continuing along the same path, and even accelerating the change.

✍️Branko Milanovic argues that a new 'ideological package' is spreading across the West: national market liberalism

The invisible hand is giving way to 'businessman’ economics

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