CapX, London (2026)

07/01/2026

The UK is the place where free markets first unlocked what the economist Deirdre McCloskey calls the ‘Great Enrichment’ – the extraordinary wealth and human flourishing made possible by the industrial revolution. Yet today, the UK – as well as much of the rest of the western world – is economically stagnant, and has drifted away from the free market ideals that made it rich. So the question is – how can we release the power of free markets once again in the 21st century?

At Próspera, a startup city in Roatán, Honduras, we believe that the answer is to reinvent the very way governments provide services to their residents – its governance framework. Próspera’s model is to partner with countries to deploy its governance model, which includes a set of laws, regulations, taxes and dispute resolution forums.

The basic insight driving Próspera is this: to get a truly free commercial market, you need to inject market mechanisms into the underlying framework that governs that jurisdiction.

Without good governance, particularly rule of law, you can’t have effective markets or meaningful growth. It was only because the UK was the first country in history with real rule of law that the industrial revolution could take off almost 100 years before the rest of continental Europe.

✍️Lonis Hamaili

The system in Britain that made the Industrial Revolution possible has crumbled

07/01/2026

‘Britain doesn’t need to become great again – iit already is.’ That’s the flattering verdict of the former Polish ambassador to both the UK and USA, Piotr Wilczek, writing in the Spectator.

After the year-long gloom fest that was 2025, Wilczek’s positivity will come as a surprise to many. Descriptions of Britain as ‘one of the most astonishing places in the world’ and reminders that we are in fact ‘the sixth-largest economy on earth’ and home to some world’s best universities don’t chime with the experience of 82% of Britons who think the country is in a bad state.

The Times soon published data which seemed to back Wilczek up. Almost 80% of Britons feel safe walking the streets, we are fifth globally in terms of defence spending and our average happiness is higher than that of the Americans and the French. This apparently gives us a final verdict of ‘surprisingly upbeat, given everything’.

These pieces are well-intentioned – they are intended to make us feel good about ourselves and the state of our nation. But they also make my nostrils flare and fists clench.

The hard truth that Panglossian commentators fail to swallow is what many of us feel reading their articles: that holding up the continued existence of certain institutions and meagre economic prosperity as proof of British glory is a coping mechanism in the face of near total stagnation. We should not be setting the bar for national success at not yet having fallen into oblivion.

Across the board, Britain does not work as it should, and our decision-making class is all too happy to give in and accept that status quo.

After mismanagement under the Conservatives, we now have a Government that, after promising to reverse that economic decline, is intent on making matters worse.

✍️Joseph Dinnage

From migration to driving tests, our decision makers get nothing right

07/01/2026

"The trust businesses place in the Government has dropped like a hanged man through the scaffold’s trapdoor."

Before Labour came to power, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves worked hard to win the confidence of Britain's business leaders. Their actions in office have already lost that trust – and even a leadership change will not bring it back.

✍️Eliot Wilson

68% of family businesses do not have faith in Labour's pro-growth rhetoric

06/01/2026

Kemi Badenoch had a rough start to her time at the Tory helm. When she was elected leader, the party had a net favourability of -30%. Yet after some time in the job, she has seemingly steadied the ship – with many Tory insiders declaring a ‘Badenoch bounce’. And now, as we head into the new year, the Conservatives are ahead of Labour for the first time since the general election. But now is not the time for complacency – Badenoch must continue to resist vested interests both from within the party and outside it.

While there were grounds for criticism at the beginning of her leadership, since the Conservative Party conference, a feeling of positivity has surrounded her. A flurry of policy announcements including pledges to scrap stamp duty and withdraw Britain from the European Convention on Human Rights received widespread support, and helped to position Badenoch as conference season’s biggest winner.

Coupled with this was her response to Rachel Reeves’ Budget in November. The message she sent at the despatch box was clear: the Budget was a failure, and Britons will be worse off as a result. She was quick to rally behind squeezed middle-income earners, and made the important point that welfare spending must be tamed, or risk public spending spiralling out of all control.

In other words, she provided an example of what today’s Conservative Party should look like. A party with an agenda that supports those who work hard and pay in.

These two standout moments have helped Badenoch warm to voters. Although her recent positive polling may seem a far cry from the heights of previous years, to be in such a position when Reform UK are vacuuming up so much of the centre-right vote should be commended. Indeed, these numbers may well be intoxicating to Badenoch and her team. Yet much of her recent success in the polls could reasonably be put down to Labour’s poor record in government, rather than any genuine fondness for the Conservatives.

✍️Oliver Dean

As Labour flounder in government, the Tories have bounced in the polls

06/01/2026

According to Ernest Hemingway, there are two ways to go bankrupt: ‘Gradually, then suddenly.’ It’s a lesson the UK would do well to remember.

Rather than fixing our frayed social contract, successive governments have merely tinkered with the public finances, doing just enough to keep the ship afloat. This deck-chair rearranging cannot continue forever.

New research from the Adam Smith Institute projects that, without serious reform of our spending commitments, the UK will soon fall into a debt spiral. By 2033, the UK’s debt-to-GDP will begin increasing at an accelerating rate. Even if this Government stays within its fiscal limits, our sclerotic economy will be unable to sustain ever-growing spending. To keep the cash flowing, the Government will have to take on even more debt.

Left unchecked, this trajectory sees public sector net debt soar to 330% of GDP by 2075 – a patently unsustainable scenario. And we can already see a few early warning signs. Lenders are already losing confidence in the UK, as shown by our relatively high bond yields. If this continues without correction, it could trigger a financial crisis. A once rich country can decline rapidly through political and fiscal mismanagement; just look at Argentina.

Some accelerationist libertarians might welcome this as a catalyst for a Milei-style revolution. But why should the public endure decades of stagnation just to restore some semblance of economic credibility? Britons deserve a functioning government now, not decades in the future.

The good news is that our fate is not yet sealed. Sensible and targeted spending cuts can still prevent disaster. The ASI’s modelling shows that, to keep net public debt below 120% of GDP until 2075, permanent spending cuts equal to 4% of GDP must begin in 2026.

✍️Mitchell Palmer

Piecemeal reforms combined with ever-higher taxes will not stabilise the state

05/01/2026

Zohran Mamdani and Zack Polanski have brought back the politics of ‘hope’. Many of their voters do not even know the policies involved or their unintended consequences; they vote based on vibe. The vibe of something new, something different, something that promises change. But this politics of hope is not new – and it is dangerous. Hugo Chávez was the most important face of this model of politics when he ran for president of Venezuela in 2002.

The most important ally of the politics of hope is the intellectual class. Six years after receiving the Nobel Prize in Economics, Joseph Stiglitz travelled to Caracas. He praised Chávez: ‘President Hugo Chávez appears to have had success in bringing health and education to the people in the poor neighbourhoods of Caracas.’

For Stiglitz and many left-wing intellectuals, Chávez was reviving socialism, fighting inequality and expressing scepticism toward economic growth. But like all socialist honeymoons, this did not last long. Today, more than 80% of Venezuelans live in poverty, 40% face food insecurity, a third of the population has left the country since 2015 and inflation reached 2,000,000% in 2018.

Why did socialism not work, again? The answer from the Left is American sanctions. At its core, this is a deep confession: for socialism to work, it needs help from evil capitalist countries. But even putting sanctions aside, the main reason Venezuela is poor is socialism itself.

The final chapter of Ludwig von Mises’s ‘Socialism’ is titled ‘Destructionism’. For Mises, destructionism is the essence of socialism: it does not create, it destroys. And its destruction lasts for decades. The legacy of communist systems can still be traced in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and many other Eastern European countries.

Socialist destruction operates on two fronts: psychological and economic. Psychologically, socialism makes people dependent on an official to tell them what to do, what to produce, how to think and finally what the ‘truth’ is. This is why so many Russians miss communism – not because it produced prosperity or freedom, but because it offered psychological comfort. Big Brother was looking after you. Capitalism is not only a change of institutions; it is a psychological shift toward personal responsibility.

✍️Mani Basharzad

Socialism does not create, it destroys, and its destruction lasts for decades

05/01/2026

Arise Sir Idris Elba, Sir Christopher Dean and Dame Jayne Torvill. This year’s New Year Honours list had a host of well-deserved gongs for famous and not-so-famous names, alongside the usual criticisms about back-scratching cronyism too.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of last week’s list, the idea of getting a gong or a title feels laughably unlikely for most of us. We assume they’re either inherited by people who are extremely posh, and who are descended from and probably married to other, equally-posh folk. Or perhaps that new ones are handed out by a magic circle of people who all know each other already, to other people who are part of the same gang. It’s a closed world. The last, most deeply-entrenched establishment crony club of all.

There’s more than a grain of truth in this ‘Britain’s-still-Downton-Abbey-really’ caricature too. Hundreds of families still inherit titles and, even though nominations for new honours are a bit more open and objective than they used to be, no one really knows why one person was given an MBE when another person wasn’t, or why someone else got an OBE instead of a knighthood either. It’s as murky and old-fashioned as a London pea-soup fog.

This can’t be right. Modern Britain should be an open, meritocratic society, where what matters is where you’re going, not where you’re from. Where people do well because of their talent, ability and hard work, not because of who they know, or who their parents are.

The answer is a reformed honours system that systematically and fairly recognises the country’s best and brightest people using simple, public criteria that we can all see and understand. If we can create a points-based immigration system, using clear criteria to choose and admit the world’s top talents when they want to come and work in the UK, why can’t we do it for our own people at home too? It would make British honours and titles into the fairest, most transparent, most meritocratic way of recognising and celebrating achievement in the modern world.

✍️John Penrose

Institutions like the New Years Honour list are seen as cronyistic and outdated

05/01/2026

New year, new Nimbys – it’s the first Nimby Watch of 2026, and we’re kicking off the year in the picturesque surroundings of West Yorkshire.

It’s a new year! The world is alive with possibilities; we can create everything anew and afresh – so where shall we start? How about the open market in Huddersfield, a charming town in West Yorkshire, home to a similarly charming Grade II* listed cast-iron framed building, which still hosts a market most days of the week.

I suppose you’re about to suggest it should be demolished and replaced with some high-rise housing? I do love high-rise housing, it’s true, but that doesn’t seem to be the plan on this occasion. Kirklees Council is proposing to restore, renovate and expand the market – so it has fixed stalls for things like butchers and fishmongers, removable ones for market days, a seating area so people stay longer and even a small stage for some live entertainment. The plan is for the market to open for longer hours, and on more days.

You seem to be selling this quite hard, which usually means there’s a catch. The old building’s going to get demolished and replaced with something that’s all concrete and glass, isn’t it? Nope, it’s a genuine restoration this time. The proposals involve repairing and restoring the existing shell, and restoring the building to its original red, pink and cream colour scheme. It’s all remarkably respectful.

Sounds expensive. Yeah, it probably is – but local residents won’t have to pay for it. The proposal is costed at £16.5 million, which Kirklees Council has secured from the Levelling Up Fund, meaning that it’s all paid for.

Hang on, wasn’t the Levelling Up Fund something the last government did? I feel like it’s been renamed at least once since then. It has. Kirklees secured the money for the renovation in early 2024, before the general election, and announced it was looking forward to consulting on its plans before beginning the works in 2025.

✍️James Ball

Nimbys across Britain are working against the restoration of Huddersfield's open market

04/01/2026

“Fighting a ‘war on bills’ sounds ruthlessly focused on what voters say they care most about. But it’s ultimately both a political and an economic mistake.”

One of our favourite pieces of 2025
✍️Ryan Bourne

‘Cutting the cost of living’ is an economic – and political – mistake

04/01/2026

“We need to give every NHS patient the right to take their health problems elsewhere, as they already can in most other walks of life.”

One of our favourite pieces of 2025
✍️John Penrose

Four competitive new bodies within the NHS would transform British healthcare

04/01/2026

“The British tax system is now so badly designed that almost any serious reform would be an improvement”

One of our favourite pieces of 2025
✍️Damian Pudner

Tinkering around the edges of our tax system will not do

04/01/2026

“This country has been saved, several times in its history, by movements of talented people that turn their attention to the national cause. We are once again in a moment of crisis, and once again some of the best of Britain are giving up their time, their energy and their efforts to saving the nation they love.”

One of our favourite pieces of 2025
✍️Lawrence Newport

We are living through a turning point in British political history

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