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Like Lieutenant Frank Drebin, I am a great lover of a well-stuffed beaver. Until a decade ago, the medium of taxidermy w...
03/03/2025

Like Lieutenant Frank Drebin, I am a great lover of a well-stuffed beaver. Until a decade ago, the medium of taxidermy was the simplest route by which one could see a Eurasian beaver in England. Castor fiber were hunted to extinction for their fur, meat and scent glands – originally used in castor oil, hence the name – and have been absent from our waterways since the 16th century.

But the dam has broken. A rogue release in the early 2010s saw beavers cropping up – somewhat incongruously – on the River Otter in Devon. Having planned to trap them, the then-government backed down after public protest and commissioned a report into the impact the sedulous infrastructure devotees were having. After five years of studying, the industrious aquatic rodents got a thumbs up.

Yes, there were downsides. Farmland was waterlogged, and paths were blocked by trees the beavers had felled. But the study found that these negative impacts were more than outweighed by the beavers protecting homes from flooding, cleaning up water supplies and working in harmony with fish, birds and voles. New habitats were created, and the trout in the pools their dams had created were bigger.

This good news prompted a wave of beaver fever among Conservative ministers. After asking his environmentalist father to release some on his estate, Boris Johnson promised to ‘Build Back Beaver’ at the 2021 Conservative Party conference, seeing in them fellow enthusiasts for grand projets. Michael Gove had already brought about a beaver release trial back during his Defra renaissance.

But as with so much of those long 14 years, while ministers talked a great game about their desire to reintroduce beavers across the land, the planned new licencing regime to allow their release never quite materialised. While Natural England beavered away on the specifics, ministers were content to grant them protected status back in 2022, making it illegal to kill them or damage their habitats.

Nonetheless, even with the change in government, a new dawn for the English beaver seemed inevitable. But – disaster! Even after the plans had been signed off by Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary so beloved by our farming community, Natural England’s work was reported to have been flushed down the drain by Number 10. Beavers were considered too much of a ‘Tory legacy’ issue.

✍️William Atkinson

Like Lieutenant Frank Drebin, I am a great lover of a well-stuffed beaver. Until a decade ago, the medium of taxidermy was the simplest route by which one could see a Eurasian beaver in England. Castor fiber were hunted to extinction for their fur, meat and scent glands – originally used in castor...

We are on the cusp of a nuclear renaissance.Keir Starmer wants the United Kingdom to build more nuclear power plants. An...
28/02/2025

We are on the cusp of a nuclear renaissance.

Keir Starmer wants the United Kingdom to build more nuclear power plants. And not before time.

‘This country hasn’t built a nuclear power station in decades,’ Starmer said last month. ‘We’ve been let down and left behind.’ His solution: to slash red tape and fast-track Small Modular Reactors.

The Prime Minister is right to go all in on nuclear energy. It is safe, clean and will unleash economic growth.

But do not pop the champagne just yet. If the Government is serious about nuclear energy, it must also win the public argument. That means debunking long-held myths.

For instance, according to polling by Radiant Energy Group, 80% of British people are either ‘concerned’ or ‘very concerned’ about nuclear waste management. In fact, nuclear waste is one of the most common arguments against building new reactors.

Take the Sizewell C project in Suffolk. It could deliver electricity to 6 million homes for decades. It could cut Britain’s carbon emissions. And it could create well-paid jobs in the region.

Yet opposition remains fierce. The Stop Sizewell C group, for example, opposes the project over fears that nuclear waste will pollute the coastline. The reality is far different. Nuclear waste is not the glowing green sludge from ‘The Simpsons’; it is mostly spent fuel, which is solid, contained and safely stored. There is no risk of contamination.

The British nuclear industry is held to strict safety regulations – and it meets them. As the Government puts it, ‘the annual radiation dose to an adult living beside a new nuclear plant is much less than taking one trans-Atlantic flight or eating 100g of Brazil nuts – neither of which have heavy radiation.’

If nuclear power were as dangerous as some claim, France – where 70% of electricity comes from nuclear – would be a post-apocalyptic wasteland by now, rather than a country famous for wine, cheese and indignant waiters.

Yet concerns about nuclear energy persists, especially among women. According to Radiant, there is a 38% gap between male and female support for nuclear, with men generally in favour and women more sceptical.

So, what is the Government doing to make nuclear popular across British society? It will take more than a few slick videos of Ed Miliband, decked out in his orange hi-vis, to shift public opinion.

✍️Thomas Munson and Theo Zenou

Women are 38% less supportive of nuclear power than men

Neither Suella Braverman nor Konstantin Kisin identify as English. It is odd that they have decided to declare new rules...
28/02/2025

Neither Suella Braverman nor Konstantin Kisin identify as English. It is odd that they have decided to declare new rules for who can be English – and ones which the broad majority of those who consider themselves as English would reject.

‘He is brown and Hindu – how can he be English?’, Kisin, the fast-talking host of the ‘Triggernometry’ podcast, asked about Rishi Sunak. His assertion that both Sunak’s race and faith should be barriers to others accepting Sunak’s English identity has been endorsed by Suella Braverman too.

We should respect that both Kisin and Braverman identify as British, not English. But we should seek a little reciprocal respect too for those whose English identity they simply dismiss as unlikely, fake or meaningless. The core flaw is that neither Kisin nor Braverman demonstrate even a minimal level of curiosity in understanding the broad English consensus on how people become English.

Kisin’s confusion about the English is easy to anatomise. Born in Russia, before coming here as a schoolboy, he is proud to have naturalised as a British citizen but does not believe Englishness is open to him. In this, he follows what most migrants who have come to England over the centuries have always done. His personal experience underlines something true: that being English is not quite so civic as a British identity. Having spotted that, Kisin mistakenly jumps to the binary assumption that it must be a blood-based ethnic identity instead.

The truth is rather more interesting. English identity today is the product of a little recognised and paradoxical-sounding phenomenon, that of ‘inclusive nativism’. Kisin does not believe that his children, born in England, can identify as English, because of ‘blood’. But they may well come to do so, because of birthplace. While migrants invariably identify as British, rather than English, across most of the last ten centuries, the children and grandchildren of migrants have often felt a birth-right claim to Englishness too, often surprising their Jewish or Irish parents, or increasingly their black, Asian and perhaps, in time, Russian parents too.

✍️Sunder Katwala

Neither Suella Braverman nor Konstantin Kisin identify as English. It is odd that they have decided to declare new rules for who can be English – and ones which the broad majority of those who consider themselves as English would reject. ‘He is brown and Hindu – how can he be English?’, Kisi...

Locational pricing for electricity is the idea that where there’s lots of electricity and not much demand for it, electr...
27/02/2025

Locational pricing for electricity is the idea that where there’s lots of electricity and not much demand for it, electricity should be cheaper. Equally, where there’s not much and high demand, it should be more expensive. As this is the basic idea of markets and prices – it sounds like an excellent idea. Let’s do it then.

But hold on. The locational pricing of electricity is an attempt to increase the profits of the renewables generators at the cost of us all. For what is being proposed is that the price consumers pay changes, but the profit producers gain does not. The difference between those two gets passed on the users of the system as a whole.

That, roughly, is the difference between real locational pricing and the proposal floating around which is called locational pricing. One’s great, and the other isn’t.

It is this which explains the substantial support stemming from the likes of Greg Jackson at Octopus Energy. He actually says this: ‘Britain suffers from a staggeringly inefficient market, reminiscent of the wine lakes and butter mountains of the old European Common Agricultural Policy.’ Which is, if we’re honest about it, a fairly accurate projection of what the plans he’s supporting would create. Even if he’s using it as a description of the current, rather than proposed system. He also mentions that ‘Renewables can deliver incredibly cheap power – as they do in places as diverse as Texas and Scandinavia – but only with the correct market structure’. This is true too, but he fails to remember one crucial point about that Texas market.

Others are supporting the idea, Britain Remade for example, and its Head of Policy Sam Dumitriu. Sam is correct on the technical details he addresses, as Sam normally is. Amazon and OpenAI seem to be in favour, as they could build AI data centres more affordably in areas where energy prices are lower. The independent energy analyst and anti-Net Zero campaigner David Turver is significantly against and he mentions the elephant in the room – Contracts for Difference. Which are, to me, the failure of the entire idea – and the thing that Texas doesn’t have.

✍️Tim Worstall

Locational pricing for electricity is the idea that where there’s lots of electricity and not much demand for it, electricity should be cheaper. Equally, where there’s not much and high demand, it should be more expensive. As this is the basic idea of markets and prices – it sounds like an exc...

Ever since ‘Doctor Who’ was revived by Russell T Davies, a man who at that time was most famous for shows like ‘Queer as...
27/02/2025

Ever since ‘Doctor Who’ was revived by Russell T Davies, a man who at that time was most famous for shows like ‘Queer as Folk’, concerned citizens of the online variety have been clutching their pearls, worried about what stories the show would be presenting to primetime viewers. However, it was under subsequent showrunners that the accusations, such as they are, of ‘wokery’ and ‘brain-washing’ ramped up. There have been countless column inches – mostly in the Daily Mail – bemoaning pregnant men, characters being told off for assuming other characters pronouns, transgender and non-binary characters, the casting of an actor who is also a drag queen, The Doctor having a crush on Isaac Newton (who coincidentally was being played by a non-white actor)… the list goes on.

The truth is, I don’t really know if ‘Doctor Who’ has gone woke or not.

Firstly, because the word has been so used and abused over the last decade that it has lost all meaning. Having a woman, and then a black man, play a 900-year-old alien after 60 years as a white man doesn’t seem innately woke, especially when Jodie Whittaker and Ncuti Gatwa are two phenomenally talented actors and the BBC was lucky to land them.

What is more objectionable is the seemingly clunky way these concepts and storylines play out. Science fiction has always been a genre where storylines which could be deemed ‘woke’ have been able to exist. It is about aliens, other planets and travelling across time and space. If alien species all looked, sounded and acted just like us, that wouldn’t be terribly imaginative. The idea that aliens might breed in a different way to humans shouldn’t be controversial, but if it feels like the concept has been shoehorned into a story to prove a point rather than arising organically, then what you actually object to is poor writing.

✍️Emma Revell

The problem is the clunky way its 'woke' storylines play out

Across the Western world, we live in an age of almost unlimited prosperity, freedom and opportunity. While much of the r...
26/02/2025

Across the Western world, we live in an age of almost unlimited prosperity, freedom and opportunity. While much of the rest of the world continues to suffer from the scourges that have plagued humanity since the dawn of time, the average Western citizen is remarkably free from the risk of starvation, preventable disease and crushing poverty. And although the threat of war has come closer, we have enjoyed close to eight decades of almost entirely uninterrupted peace. Yet 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, which instead we should cherish and protect.

What is more, even those of us who grasp the astonishing scale of these achievements frequently struggle to articulate how we reached them. Indeed, many of us are now confused about the concept of the ‘West’ itself. In recent years, some have begun to ask questions about why countries all over the globe, from Australia to the United States, are all described with the same geographical designation. This – often deliberate – confusion is a sign that we have forgotten who we are.

The critics are right: the West is not a geographical location. It is a set of cultural and philosophical ideas we have inherited from the ancient Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman civilisations. These ideas are not the same as they were 2,000 years ago. On the contrary, they have been refined, filtered and improved through the centuries to bring us the technological progress, individual liberty and prosperity we now enjoy.

Curiously, many Westerners now deny the very existence of our disproportionate success. To describe our extraordinary achievements risks being accused of being some sort of ‘supremacist’ who is merely describing his own sense of unearned superiority, and not the reality on the ground. But the evidence is very clear – the world is and has been voting with its feet for some time. One need only visit any Western country to see the extraordinary pull our societies have for those who, like me, were not fortunate enough to have been born here. Millions of people risk their lives every year to enter Western countries by any means they can, and no one does the opposite. This extraordinary fact, which we all take for granted, requires some sort of explanation.

✍️Konstantin Kisin

Capitalism creates unprecedented prosperity by harnessing our self-interest.

In her speech to Policy Exchange yesterday, Kemi Badenoch described her foreign policy position as that of a ‘conservati...
26/02/2025

In her speech to Policy Exchange yesterday, Kemi Badenoch described her foreign policy position as that of a ‘conservative realist’. Yet while she gestured towards plenty of welcome and overdue policy shifts on things such as the European Convention on Human Rights, it remains to be seen just how realistic the Conservative Party is yet prepared to be.

The crucial tell was in the section where the Tory leader focused on military spending. Badenoch is correct that Britain has coasted in the US’s wake for too long, and needs serious and sustained investment to deliver a capable and independent military which can stand up for our national interest.

But on the question of paying for it, things immediately got hazier. If increasing defence spending is presented as a zero-sum choice that requires cutting public services, declared Badenoch, politicians will struggle to get the public to back it.

That second part is true, so full realism points for acknowledging it. The problem is that the first part is also true: in the British state’s fiscal position, there simply is no way to deliver a structural increase in defence spending on anything like the scale required without severe cuts to public spending elsewhere.

True, it need not technically come at the expense of public services. The other obvious big-ticket spending target would be entitlements, such as the pensions triple lock. Yet Badenoch has committed to retaining it, and opposed Labour’s relatively trivial efforts to curb entitlement spending via means-testing the Winter Fuel Allowance.

✍️Henry Hill

In her speech to Policy Exchange yesterday, Kemi Badenoch described her foreign policy position as that of a ‘conservative realist’. Yet while she gestured towards plenty of welcome and overdue policy shifts on things such as the European Convention on Human Rights, it remains to be seen just ho...

The Prime Minister is correct to aim to make the UK an ‘AI superpower’ and the ‘best place to start and scale an AI busi...
25/02/2025

The Prime Minister is correct to aim to make the UK an ‘AI superpower’ and the ‘best place to start and scale an AI business’. To carry through this ambition, the Government will need to make difficult decisions: we will need to invest in energy infrastructure, provide datasets to developers and attract top global talent. We will also need to actually legalise building AI models in the UK – something that is currently obstructed by outdated copyright laws.

It is no accident that virtually no AI companies train their models in the UK. Under current laws, companies cannot train on publicly available data, discouraging investment and forcing firms to relocate to jurisdictions with more favourable copyright regimes. For example, Stability AI, one of the UK’s few companies training a foundation model, has established offices in the US and Japan in part due to these regulatory constraints.

Restrictive regimes like the status quo or an opt-out model (as proposed in current plans for copyright reform) are a lose-lose policy: they hurt economic growth without protecting the creative industry. Even if your content is protected under UK laws, companies operating from other jurisdictions (like the US or China) are not bound by our copyright rules. Thus, restrictive laws do nothing for rights holders – who would still see their data being used abroad – but they do harm our AI sector and businesses looking to adopt new technologies.

The impact of such a restrictive approach is severe. AI is a general-purpose technology with economy-wide implications. A restrictive copyright regime chills investment, slows tech diffusion and harms consumers. The best talent and startups will relocate. The best products – faster cancer treatments, cheaper logistics, smarter energy grids – won’t launch in the UK. The UK risks forfeiting at least £29.9 billion in economic growth over the next five years if it implements a restrictive regime like the opt-out model.

But the Government has at its disposal a cost-free intervention that would strengthen the UK’s AI capabilities: liberalising the text and data mining copyright regime. Japan is a great example of a country that has been able to balance exceptions to copyright law with an IP regime that protects its large creative sector.

✍️Julia Willemyns

Protecting the creative industries does not require restrictive copyright laws

In a video-call address to a summit being held in Kyiv on the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Prime M...
25/02/2025

In a video-call address to a summit being held in Kyiv on the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a further package of UK assistance to Ukraine accompanied by additional sanctions. He said the aim was to increase pressure on Vladimir Putin to make concessions in peace talks, declaring:

"Russia does not hold all of the cards in this war because the Ukrainians have the courage to defend their country, because Russia’s economy is in trouble and because they have now lost the best of their land forces and their Black Sea fleet in this pointless invasion. So we must increase the pressure even further to deliver an enduring peace, not just a pause in the fighting."

Starmer is correct on this point. Much commentary is very gloomy about the situation for Ukraine and more generally for Europe’s security in the event that Donald Trump’s apparent plans for Ukraine are implemented. President Trump’s team appears to be treating this as a situation in which Ukraine has been defeated and must accept whatever terms Russia seems inclined to impose. Yet Russia’s situation is precarious: it needs the war to end, and in the medium-term, Europe would be amply able to defend itself from Russia even if the US withdraws from Europe altogether.

Even with its current high level of mobilisation, Russia will not be able to sustain the current intensity of fighting for much longer. It will run short of manpower and equipment, and its economy will encounter severe capacity, fiscal and monetary constraints. Russia has already severely depleted its Soviet-era weapons and equipment stocks, and even at current levels of mobilisation, it is unlikely to be able to replace the ordnance it is using. For example, Russia is currently estimated to be producing about 250,000 shells per month, but firing 300,000 per month. It is increasingly dependent upon foreign assistance, with North Korea supplying about 60% of the artillery and mortar shells it has used in the past three months. Its ability to mobilise weapons production further is limited, as it already faces large labour shortages in the defence production sector as well as more broadly across the economy.

✍️Andrew Lilico

In a video-call address to a summit being held in Kyiv on the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a further package of UK assistance to Ukraine accompanied by additional sanctions. He said the aim was to increase pressure on Vladimir Putin to ma...

Yesterday, Germany went to the polls to elect the 630 members of the Bundestag following the demise of Chancellor Olaf S...
24/02/2025

Yesterday, Germany went to the polls to elect the 630 members of the Bundestag following the demise of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government in December. It is an invitation to the cliché of Teutonic efficiency, but by early evening an exit poll suggested that the results were broadly in line with predictions. Now attention is focusing on the assembly of a governing coalition.

Those results have been dramatic. The centre-right Union, the alliance of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister, the Christian Social Union (CDU), won just under 30% of the vote and 208 seats. It gives the CDU leader Friedrich Merz first refusal on the post of federal chancellor, as everyone expected. But his party only gained 11 seats compared to the last election.

The outgoing government was severely punished by a disappointed electorate. Scholz’s Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) managed only 16% of the popular vote, losing a third of its support, and only has 120 seats in the Bundestag. The last time the SPD, Europe’s oldest social democratic party, fell below 20% was the ill-fated election of 1933, which confirmed Adolf Hitler’s grip on power; and it is the SPD’s lowest share of the vote since 1887.

The undoubted beneficiary of the election was the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). After a campaign in which it was endorsed by Elon Musk and US Vice President JD Vance chose to meet its co-leader, Alice Weidel, rather than the sitting chancellor, the AfD doubled its support, winning nearly 21% of the vote and 152 seats. For a party which has only been represented in the federal parliament since 2017, it is an historic achievement.

✍️Eliot Wilson

Yesterday, Germany went to the polls to elect the 630 members of the Bundestag following the demise of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government in December. It is an invitation to the cliché of Teutonic efficiency, but by early evening an exit poll suggested that the results were broadly in line with ...

Last month, Rachel Reeves set out yet another economic vision for the country. Delivered at the Oxford branch of a Germa...
24/02/2025

Last month, Rachel Reeves set out yet another economic vision for the country. Delivered at the Oxford branch of a German healthcare company, her speech was filled with the usual tired promises: grand plans, infrastructure drives and state-led investment, as if prosperity can be drafted in Whitehall and willed into existence by committee. But here’s the brutal truth: growth cannot be legislated into being. It doesn’t come from government blueprints, five-year strategies or bureaucratic diktats. Growth is not granted; it is earned, risked and built. It is, above all, the child of capital. And after decades of policy failure, Britain is perilously short of the right kind of capital.

Once, the UK was a nation of capitalists driven by investment, innovation and an unshakable belief in enterprise. Before the 2008 crash, banks lent over £200 billion a year to small businesses, venture capitalists backed our brightest minds and pension funds anchored themselves in British industry. Our post-war GDP growth averaged 2.5% per year. Then came the storm, and with it the destruction of thousands of businesses and millions of livelihoods.

Capital fled, regulation tightened and Britain’s appetite for risk vanished. Bank lending collapsed and venture capital, once the engine of innovation, rebranded itself private equity, abandoned risk and turned into a machine for financial engineering. Instead of backing the next generation of businesses, funds piled into safer, established firms, saddling them with massive debts to extract short-term gains. The very industry meant to fuel bold new ventures became a vehicle for squeezing returns from what already existed, leaving true entrepreneurship starved of support.

At the same time, the shell-shocked British public’s engagement with capital markets collapsed. In the 1990s, household investment in equities was far more widespread, encouraged by initiatives like Personal Equity Plans (PEPs), which helped foster a culture of individual share ownership. But over time, retail investors retreated. Today, Britons allocate just 8% of their wealth to equities and mutual funds, compared to 33% in the US and an average of 14% across the G7. Instead of investing in businesses, UK savers now overwhelmingly funnel their money into property or low-yielding savings accounts.

✍️Kit Malthouse

The economy doesn’t need tweaks – it needs capitalist electric shock therapy

For this week’s edition of ‘Nimby Watch’, we’re off to Leith, just outside Edinburgh, where someone’s attempting to buil...
24/02/2025

For this week’s edition of ‘Nimby Watch’, we’re off to Leith, just outside Edinburgh, where someone’s attempting to build a mixed-use housing development…

Where are we? This week, we’re in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, which was facing the loss of an ‘iconic’ local landmark

If you’re suggesting demolishing the castle to build high-density housing, that’s a bit much even for me. Edinburgh Castle is safe for now. The site in question featured in the ‘Trainspotting’ film franchise, and would face demolition to build 46 flats for students, another 46 for anyone, and various gym and cinema facilities too.

It’s not the public loos from that scene, is it? I was hoping they demolished those decades ago. Apparently not. The fate of the loos, which hosted Renton’s famous swimming trip, is unknown. Instead, it’s the ‘iconic scrapyard’ from Trainspotting 2 that was at threat from the developers.

I didn’t see that one. Pretty much no one did.

What’s ‘iconic’ about the scrapyard, then? Well … that’s a good question. The word means ‘a representative symbol … worthy of veneration’, but the scrapyard in question is, well, a scrapyard. It’s been in operation since the mid-1990s, so it’s hardly a slice of ancient history.

So, what was going to be on the site, if it wasn’t a scrapyard? A large chunk of the site would have been given over to student housing, which is rarely popular with the locals because, fairly obviously, most of them aren’t students and the students that use halls of residence aren’t from the local area – so people don’t really see the benefit.

✍️James Ball

For this week’s edition of ‘Nimby Watch’, we’re off to Leith, just outside Edinburgh, where someone’s attempting to build a mixed-use housing development… Where are we? This week, we’re in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, which was facing the loss of an ‘iconic’ local landmark If...

The most important month for the public finances each year is January, because that is when self-assessment receipts com...
21/02/2025

The most important month for the public finances each year is January, because that is when self-assessment receipts come in. So economists’ eyes were peeled this morning, as the January 2025 data was released, particularly as that starts to give us the real picture about how much trouble Rachel Reeves’ Budget plans are in. The answer was: bad trouble, but it could easily have been worse.

Alongside Reeves’ October 2024 Budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) published its forecasts for the deficit. These are crucial to assessing whether Reeves’ is meeting her own (loosened) fiscal rules. The OBR had forecast that in the period from April 2024 to January 2025 the deficit would be lower than in the same period for 2023 to 2024. It actually went up, and is the fourth highest level on record, after only the Covid year and the two peak years for deficit in that period following the Great Recession.

The reason the deficit was higher than expected was not that public spending over-ran. Instead, tax receipts disappointed, particularly in terms of receipts from self-assessment and receipts from corporation tax.

The widespread expectation now is that when the OBR produces its next assessment of Reeves’ fiscal plans it will say she will break her fiscal rules without spending cuts or further tax rises. Spending cuts are unrealistic, in aggregate. To be sure, Labour will find a few programmes to cut, make a big play of how tough they are being and take some political pain in implementing the cuts in those areas so as to try to signal to financial markets that they will cut spending if necessary – much as they did in the case of winter fuel payments.

But, just as in the case of winter fuel payments, that will inevitably be window-dressing for rises in total public spending. Labour MPs did not go into politics to cut overall public spending and they won’t vote for that now. Rachel Reeves’ position is already precarious enough with recent attacks on her credibility. If she sought to cut aggregate public spending she would rapidly be out. Furthermore, recent developments have suggested additional, perhaps unavoidable, pressure for spending rises, particularly on defence.

Tax rises, then? But we have seen that even the tax rises there have already been have failed to produce the additional revenues hoped. Further rises in tax rates are liable to make this problem even worse...

✍️Andrew Lilico

The deficit has risen to its fourth highest level on record.

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🏗️ Bulldozing bureaucracy 🏡 Our out-of-control planning laws are bats 🦇, warns Michael Binyon from The Times. Is the Government finally ready to bring the wrecking ball to red tape? Listen to the full episode: https://linktr.ee/thecapitalistpod
🏗️ Bulldozing bureaucracy 🏡 Our out-of-control planning laws are bats 🦇, warns Michael Binyon from The Times. Is the Government finally ready to bring the wrecking ball to red tape? Listen to the full episode: https://linktr.ee/thecapitalistpod

🏗️ Bulldozing bureaucracy 🏡 Our out-of-control planning laws are bats 🦇, warns Michael Binyon from The Times. Is the Government finally ready to bring the wrecking ball to red tape? Listen to the full episode: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0ggQ_p0

💡 Energy wisdom from the field 👉 In the US, Trump's nominee for Energy Secretary is a former fracking executive, and will help craft smarter energy policies, says Dominic Pino. In the UK, we're concreting over our only experiments with fracking. Tim
💡 Energy wisdom from the field 👉 In the US, Trump's nominee for Energy Secretary is a former fracking executive, and will help craft smarter energy policies, says Dominic Pino. In the UK, we're concreting over our only experiments with fracking. Tim

💡 Energy wisdom from the field 👉 In the US, Trump's nominee for Energy Secretary is a former fracking executive, and will help craft smarter energy policies, says Dominic Pino. In the UK, we're concreting over our only experiments with fracking. Time to hire those who know the drill? https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0gcZPp0

From our new weekly podcast, The Capitalist: ❌ Why no big changes? 🤷‍♂️ Sir Keir Starmer’s majority hasn’t delivered. The Times' Michael Binyon says it’s simple: "A lack of will, clarity, and direction." Where’s the leadership? #TheCapi
From our new weekly podcast, The Capitalist: ❌ Why no big changes? 🤷‍♂️ Sir Keir Starmer’s majority hasn’t delivered. The Times' Michael Binyon says it’s simple: "A lack of will, clarity, and direction." Where’s the leadership? #TheCapi

From our new weekly podcast, The Capitalist: ❌ Why no big changes? 🤷‍♂️ Sir Keir Starmer’s majority hasn’t delivered. The Times' Michael Binyon says it’s simple: "A lack of will, clarity, and direction." Where’s the leadership? #TheCapitalist #UKPolitics Subscribe and listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0g98jb0

🎙️Welcome back to the CapX Podcast! 🗣️In this episode, CapX Editor Alys Denby sits down with CapX Editor-In-Chief and Centre for Policy Studies Director Robert Colvile to discuss what we can expect from this year's Conservative Party Conference. Click below to listen to the full episode👇 https://shows.acast.com/478fd892-5a47-4c5c-882c-4e43072cc7de/episodes/65169d8a14883400114b99b6?

NEW 🎙 | CapX Podcast: Frank Luntz on the language of freedom Is Frank 'depressing the country' or delivering some hard truths? Listen now 👇 https://capx.co/the-capx-podcast-frank-luntz-on-the-language-of-freedom/

🎙 CapX Podcast: This is Europe with Ben Judah Listen now 👇 https://ow.ly/PRF650OQcGz

Alys Denby | GB News | GDP Figure | 13/07/22
Alys Denby | GB News | GDP Figure | 13/07/22

💬To get the kind of long-term growth we need, whoever gets the top job will have to look at business taxes Our Deputy Editor Alys Denby responds to today's GDP figures on GB News

The culture inside Westminster | Alys Denby - GB News
The culture inside Westminster | Alys Denby - GB News

Our Deputy Editor Alys Denby spoke to GB News this morning about the culture inside Westminster Watch below 👇

"We have no business imposing our standards on other people - but in this case we don't need to, Australia has just as good standards on animal welfare as Europe does." Robert Colvile on BBC Radio 4 yesterday ⬇

"People feel patriotic about it, I think people feel like it's a civic duty to get vaccinated." Our Deputy Editor Alys Denby tells CBC Radio why the UK's vaccine rollout has been a success.

CapX Live with Ryan Bourne on 'Economics in One Virus'
CapX Live with Ryan Bourne on 'Economics in One Virus'

CapX Live with Ryan Bourne on 'Economics in One Virus'

CapX Live - Sir Paul Collier on 'The Future of Capitalism
CapX Live - Sir Paul Collier on 'The Future of Capitalism

Deep rifts are tearing societies apart and shredding old political allegiances: across the Western world, regions are rebelling against cities, workers against welfare claimants and the young against the old. For far too many, contemporary capitalism simply isn't delivering the goods. For Sir Paul Collier, one of the world's leading development economists, the response to this profound crisis is as much ethical as technical. His proposals for a capitalism based on both prosperity and morality have appeal beyond the traditional left-right divide - and he has a pragmatic plan to put them into action. We are delighted to welcome Sir Paul to our next CapX Live event, in conversation with our deputy editor, Alys Denby on Thursday 11th March.

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