We need to talk about Prevent
The Government is withholding important information
Beware of LinkedIn: the Chinese spies in your DMs aren’t just after your thought leadership.
The war of words between the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence turned hot today, as the Government prepares to push the red button on its long-awaited Defence Investment Plan. Unsurprisingly, given the state of the world, the MoD is in line for more taxpayer cash. But officials are now briefing that the department has a ‘delinquent’ attitude to spending and that responsibility for the GCAP fighter programme will have to be moved under Treasury supervision to prevent it becoming ‘the next HS2’. In the words of Darren Jones, ‘It doesn’t fill you with confidence.’
It’s been a lucrative first quarter of the year for Reform UK, as they received more than £9 million in donations, £7 million of which came from two British crypto billionaires based overseas. The Tories were the party with the second-biggest haul from donors, with just over £6m in total.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX made all such numbers seem small by announcing it is seeking to raise up to $86 billion – dwarfing the previous largest-ever IPO – on a valuation for the company of $1.78 trillion. Musk himself, though, was rebuked by Keir Starmer for interfering in British politics over the Henry Nowak case.
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
We need to talk about Prevent
Anne Strickland
‘Prevent has now drifted dramatically from its counter-terrorism purpose.’
The Government has taken an anti-transparency approach to its counter-terrorism programme, Prevent. Rather than allowing researchers to scrutinise how much money is being spent on Prevent and where, officials are withholding important information. This is not the appropriate way for such an operation to be run, and most importantly, it doesn’t make Britons safer. Read More
The real reason people resist free markets
Erik Lidström
‘There is a fundamental mismatch between our hunter-gatherer brain and the market economy.’
Humans lived as hunter-gatherers for close to 2 million years, some 70,000–80,000 generations. The division of labour was rigid, and there were strict rules about the need to share what was hunted. You might think that as society has developed, we no longer think in such a way, but these instincts are still in play, and they run contrary to the market economy. If we want prosperity, we must collectively put them to one side. Read More
Are you ready for the future of crime fighting?
James Price
‘For the victims of crime, new technologies may prove literally the difference between life and death.’
Flotillas of drones, fleets of Tesla Cybertrucks and ultra-modern tech are being used by the Las Vegas Police Department in a bid to make Sin City the safest place in America. This has also made Vegas the test bed for a suite of technologies that are transforming both policing – and the debate around it. This technology is immensely exciting, but also carries serious ethical implications. Read More
Stat of the Day
The CapX Reading List
The best of the web today
Labour's anti-business profiteering
Ryan Bourne, The Times 🔒
‘A market price is not a moral confession.’
The Competition and Markets Authority will soon get rapid powers to investigate ‘unjustified price hikes’ by companies ‘taking advantage of crises’. Regulators may scrutinise margins, publicly name offenders and impose interventions. This is not 1970s crude price control, but legal intimidation that ignores the discipline of competition and consumers’ right to walk away. Read More
Police policies must be reformed
David Spencer, The Critic
‘Police recruits are taught, explicitly and implicitly, that allegations of racism are uniquely charged.’
The circumstances of Henry Nowak’s tragic death in police custody is an outworking of the conclusions reached nearly thirty years ago by William Macpherson’s inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence. The Lawrence case set the platform for the last three decades in policing; the Nowak case should now do the same. Read More
What to do about AI and jobs
Anton Leicht and Dean W. Ball, Threading the Needle
The Capitalist
With Donald Trump back in the White House, tariffs have become front-page news, and advocates for free trade find themselves on the back foot. Is this a passing phase, or a permanent shift?
Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown argue that with great powers now using trade as a weapon, there can be no simple return to the settled order of rules-based global trade that dominated the late 20th century. Their new book, ‘How to Win a Trade War’, provides a tour through the toolkit of the trade warrior.
In this week’s episode of the CapX podcast they join Marc Sidwell to discuss the new world of economic conflict, why tariffs are like a party drug – and how trade wars can still spiral out of control.
And if you want more...
– How Chicken Cottage conquered Kashmir (Vittles)
– Milei’s Argentina is about to let AI own a company (Financial Times 🔒)
– Britain needs prosperity, not equality (ConservativeHome)
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