“We are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes.” So famously said Peter Mandelson at the height of New Labour’s power and influence. Often that quote is truncated to remove what is the fairly important point about paying tax, so it became a phrase focused on high earnings....
If you can’t measure it you can’t manage it – so the mantra goes. As Philip Hammond gets ready to deliver his budget speech, I’m reminded of that phrase, which I myself have used on occasion in order to justify gathering more data in business in order to be able to make decisions. You can...
Centrism is one of those terms that people put a lot of effort into claiming. It doesn’t seem to matter where the political Overton Window is, people (and parties) always try to insist that they have the centre ground. People tweet about how centrism is the best way. That being a centrist means realising your...
Many Leavers have suggested we need someone like Donald Trump in the Brexit Campaign. Someone with a strong track record in winning negotiations. Someone confident who isn’t afraid to stand up to world leaders. I can understand the appeal. The same has been said of Margaret Thatcher, suggesting she’d come back from Brussels with them...
There’s been lots of talk recently about a “People’s vote” or, as I’ve heard it more accurately described, a “Losers’ Vote”. The arguments are as follows: More information has come to light since the referendum. People should be able to change their minds in a democracy. The first point shouldn’t really need arguing against, but...
Just got back from the Big Tent Ideas Festival near Cambridge. If you’ve not heard of it, it’s a gathering of all sorts of political types, journalists, think tankers with open discussions and debates on all manner of topics. There are tents on Society, Hopes and Fears, Politics, Economy, Innovation, Technology, Global Britain. In particular...
It seems that every day some virtue signalling celebrity comments on how they should pay more tax. We discuss this very issue in the latest edition of Sounding Board. If you haven’t listened already, it’s available here. In it, we analyse statistics from the British Government on how much people actually donate to the treasury....
On Sunday, August 12th 2018, A second white supremacist rally was held in Washington DC. “Unite The Right 2” was planned as a sequel to the first rally, one year ago in Charlottesville, Virginia, where far right protestors and far left counter protestors clashed violently, resulting in the death of a young woman (and many...
I’ve just been delayed on my flight abroad by more than 3 hours. It’s actually going to be the other side of 4 hours. With two small children, my wife and I have been feeling the strain and using up the myriad ideas, techniques and distractions that we had already planned for the flight itself...
People who are “literally” communists are basically saying they could have done communism better than all the ways that have already been tried. Ignoring the fact that all the ways tried so far have all been communism or socialism, it leads me to think that this highlights an important part of why government does or...
I suppose I’d just got used to it. Hearing big state, high-tax talk from Conservatives. Theresa May with her interventionist, remainer views has always surrounded herself with advisers that think the same as her – see Olly Robbins, who has masterminded the circumvention of the Department for Exiting the EU, or basically anything written by...
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