Third time lucky for Burnham?
Plus: Student loans are a stealth tax, and why we need more postcode lotteries
Third time lucky? It may be hard to believe, but the Labour leadership fight officially kicked off today, with Andy Burnham’s team pushing hard for a swift coronation.
Burnham reached out beyond Labour’s MPs with a piece in The Times, in which he promised to rebuild Britain’s hard power, back British workers and businesses and forge an ‘even closer relationship’ with Europe. But as Ben Ramanauskas has pointed out for CapX, those two goals don’t sit comfortably together.
Elsewhere, Keir Starmer is promising a bank holiday if England win the World Cup, and the Timms review of disability benefits concluded that Personal Independence Payments are ‘not fit for purpose’ and that continued increases in their cost would be unsustainable, but stopped short of offering plans for future savings. One more problem for Burnham’s in-tray.
And the IMF upgraded its global growth forecasts for next year, saying that the world economy had proven surprisingly resilient to the shock of the Iran War. With the recent ceasefire in tatters, let’s hope that lasts.
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
Why Andy Burnham fears the future
Joseph Dinnage
‘Burnham’s resistance to tech does not bode well for Britain’s prospects.’
Andy Burnham is not a forward-looking man. His musical interests stop at around 1998, his approach to industry is straight out of the 1970s and his favourite football team hasn’t won a trophy for over 30 years. It’s little surprise then that he takes a dim view of the ongoing tech revolution. But this does not bode well for Britain’s prospects. Read More
Student loans are a stealth tax
Damian Pudner
‘Students didn’t sign a normal contract, so ministers feel they can move the goalposts after the event without consequence.’
The Treasury Committee’s report this week called the student loan system broken and unfair, found that governments had repeatedly changed the terms after borrowers signed and said the failure to properly disclose retrospective changes amounted to mis-selling. It’s time to admit the much-hated system is actually a tax – and one ministers would rather graduates did not recognise. Read More
Stat of the day
Best of the Web
Postcode lotteries are a good thing
Ryan Bourne, The Times 🔒
‘A whopping 91.8% of government revenue flows to Whitehall, far above the OECD average of 53.2%.’
Andy Burnham wants to decentralise UK government power. Quite right – we are one of the world’s most centralised democracies. But he also wants ‘equivalent living conditions in all parts of Britain’. You can’t have both. Demand equal outcomes and Whitehall will always have to step back in, blunting the entire point of devolving power. Read More
London doesn't need more social housing
Emma Revell, City AM
‘We do not have a shortage of social homes… we do have a planning system which jacks up costs and piles on uncertainty, while empowering anyone who wishes to prevent building in their local area.’
Our presumptive prime minister’s capstone policy to fix Britain’s ills is to build more social housing. But has Burnham even considered if his plan is affordable? A new briefing from the Centre for Policy Studies sets out what our existing social housing stock costs the taxpayer. The numbers aren’t small. We don’t need more social homes. We just need more housebuilding, full stop. Read More
Ukraine's defence secret? Free markets
The Capitalist: Towler – Farage under fire
And if you want more...
– Mamdani’s ‘socialist’ success story is anything but (City Journal)
– Count Binface is the monster Farage helped create (UnHerd)
– This fund wants to pay you to fix Britain (UK Dynamism)
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