38,000 – that’s how many taxpayers on average income it would take to replace the lost revenue from the billionaire Chris Rokos, who is relocating from the UK to Greece. And Rokos isn’t the only one getting nervous about tax changes in the upcoming Budget – see our Stat of the Day below.
Meanwhile, England has good reason to be proud of its performance in the latest PISA international league tables for education – we are in the top 10 for maths, reading and science.
It’s a remarkable achievement, and all the more so when compared to the declining performance of Scotland and Wales. The devolved nations are seeing the results of ducking the education reforms brought in by Michael Gove. That’s a lesson that Labour’s Education Secretary Lucy Powell would do well to learn, given that she plans to reverse them.
Across the Atlantic, the US-Canada trade war ratcheted up another notch today as Canada’s counter-tariffs came into force. As Mark Carney warned his people of tough times ahead, Janet Bufton wrote for CapX about the dilemma America’s northern neighbour finds itself in – and the limits to defiance.
Below you’ll find all the latest pieces from CapX, plus what we’re reading from around the web.
Marc Sidwell
Editor, CapX
Today’s Takes
Fresh thinking from CapX
Next has won a victory for common sense on pay
Harry Phibbs
‘The real culprits are not the lawyers but the legislators, the politicians, for passing bad law in the first place and then failing to repeal it.’
The British clothing retailer Next won an appeal allowing it to keep paying warehouse workers more than sales consultants. The comparison was always chalk and cheese but not under equalities legislation, which, by demanding equal pay for work of ‘equal value’, opened the door to huge discrimination claims. The latest ruling is welcome, but we need politicians with the courage to change the law. Read More
Canada is fighting back against US tariffs
Janet Bufton
‘The uncertainty, the tariffs, the loosening of commercial ties with the world are not costs the US is paying to get to some end goal – they are part of the end goal.’
Canada’s counter-tariffs against the US came into force today, supported by a huge majority of Canadians despite the economic pain they will incur as a result. Canadians are willing to stand up for themselves and pay the price as an act of defiance but they can only do this for so long. Read More
Stat of the Day
Best of the Web
How to wreck an education system
Fraser Nelson, Substack
‘It’s tragic seeing Scotland reduced to this level, as if learning maths and science are now too tough for the country whose Enlightenment created so much of the modern world.’
Education used to be Scotland’s great advantage. No longer. Thanks to devolution, the Scots were not offered the choice in education pioneered by New Labour and extended by Michael Gove in England. Those reforms worked amazingly well, as the latest PISA data show. Yet now they are being dismantled by a Labour government eager to disavow the Blair legacy. Read More
🎧The UK needs to back open-source AI
Damian Green
What should the law do about AI?
Julian Braithwaite, The Spectator
‘How should the law treat an artificial intelligence capable of acting independently in the world?’
As AI agents become more powerful, the question for regulators is not whether they are conscious, but whether they need a legal identity. The law has been creating artificial persons for centuries. As with companies, this could make sense for future AI models, and help control technologies that may soon think faster and better than we do. Read More
🎧 The Capitalist
Julian Jessop: Burnham’s growth plan won’t work
And if you want more...
– Renew conservatism to fight the hard Right (The Times 🔒)
– When government separates choices from consequences (The Daily Economy)
– How Swedes learned to love the super-rich (The Conversation)
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