What Thatcher can still teach us
Britain needs a Thatcherite agenda for the 21st century
Andy Burnham wants you to know that he really loves small businesses – so long as they stay small. In his first policy announcement since confirming he intends to run for the Labour leadership, the Mayor of Greater Manchester said that as PM he would abolish business rates on cafés, shops and hairdressers – but only if they operate from a single location. Given the state of the global economy, he’s going to need to start thinking a lot bigger.
With even the would-be replacements for Keir Starmer lacking new ideas, our editor-in-chief Robert Colvile has entered ‘hot essay summer’, republishing his piece from last year arguing that fixing Britain means rebuilding a responsible society on Thatcherite lines – see more below.
Meanwhile, the EU is looking for overseas sites where it can deport failed asylum seekers, with contenders in Central Asia or North Africa. Just a few years ago, German officials were critical of Britain’s attempts to do the same. But the mood is changing, and now even the body that supervises the ECHR seems to be offering grudging support. Just don’t mention Rwanda.
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
What Thatcher can still teach us
Robert Colvile
‘Our core problem today is the same one Thatcher diagnosed, namely that the state has grown large and the people have grown too small.’
It’s over 100 years since Margaret Thatcher’s birth, so why do we still care? It would have seemed strange, in Thatcher’s day, to write a diagnosis of the country’s problems, or even the Conservative Party’s, based on the life and thought of Stanley Baldwin. Yet Thatcher resonates now more than ever. Read More
To fix the housing crisis, we need to build better
John Myers
‘We can craft housing policies where existing renters and owners also stand to benefit from new development.’
The scale of the housing crisis is sobering. Britain has the worst housing shortage of any major developed nation. Anyone with half a brain knows that correcting this requires major planning reform to make it easier to build new homes. But what if we’ve been thinking about these reforms in the wrong way? We need to deliver a future where more homes are built with communities, not against them. Read More
Britain needs a brand new tax system
John Penrose
‘Could Burnham’s idea contain a tiny, glowing ember of good sense buried under Labour’s jealousy-driven, benefits-loving, profit-distrusting instincts?’
Andy Burnham has recently been commenting on the unfairness of our tax system, arguing for greater simplification. He’s right, but for all the wrong reasons. While his version of simplifying the tax code would amount to a tax raid on savings, pensions and investors, another version could generate untold economic growth. Read More
Stat of the Day
The CapX Reading List
The best of the web today
True neoliberalism has never been tried
Michael Simmons, The Spectator 🔒
‘The denunciation of “trickledown economics” as a neoliberal failure gets things precisely the wrong way round.’
Is ‘40 years of neoliberalism’ really to blame for the problems faced by workers in Makerfield, and indeed beyond? The banking crisis, low growth, youth unemployment, decaying high streets: the trope goes that it was neoliberalism wot dunnit. This is completely wrong. The real culprit is a political culture that has brought about the replacement of aspiration with dependency. Read More
The Government is failing the young
Matthew Elliott, ConservativeHome
‘Since the last King’s Speech, the number of young people not in education, employment or training has risen to more than one million.’
The Prime Minister declared last month that the King’s Speech was ‘a King’s Speech for the young people whose gifts lie in their hands, and who work hard.’ But the young people graduating from university or leaving school this summer could be forgiven for concluding that it was nothing of the sort. From welfare to job creation, the King’s Speech was silent on the issues that would actually help. Read More
Make Britain prosperous again
Albie Amankona, Fighting for a Freer Future
The Capitalist
In this week’s episode of the CapX podcast, economists Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown 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 to fight back against Gen-Z socialism (The Economist 🔒)
– When three-foot scorpions ruled Britain (Phys.org)
– Britain swapped freedom for vetocracy (City AM)
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