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IN THIS BULLETIN:


Saving the High Street: We find it’s government and planning that’s strangling it.

Artificial intelligence: Well, do you really think we could afford the real thing?

Other stuff: Reducing drug deaths; defending Uber; and not worrying about the green economy.

But first…

I’ve recently been at BBC Broadcasting House to record a piece for Newsnight. In their plush offices, I realised how committed to recycling the BBC were. They never actually throw out rubbish, they just make it into TV programmes. (And increasingly, into news programmes.)

I’d guess that Prince Charles is secretly pleased that Harry and Meghan have gone. (Who wants to have a 35-year-old kid still living with them?) They say that Meghan could even play herself in The Crown. (Silly, of course: they’ll really want a proper actress for that.) And talking of grand people, I don’t know why the Saudi Crown Prince bothered to hack Jeff Bezos’s phone. They could have just shared it when they got to the corporatist love-in at Davos. (Or the Saudis could have just bought it from Huawei, who probably hacked it years ago.)

When you look at the contenders for the Labour Leadership, Jeremy Corbyn seems like a giant. Now he’s freed from following the Party line, I wonder if he’ll be at the Brexit celebrations on 31st popping a champagne cork? (He probably only drinks RED wine—Ed. You know the trick with that, don’t you? Open the wine and give it a chance to breathe. If it doesn’t seem to be breathing, give it immediate mouth-to-mouth.)

HS2 is looking a lot like the Trump impeachment: costly, heated and unlikely to go anywhere. (Though the Trump thing isn’t going to destroy 8 listed historic buildings, 17 ancient woodlands, 1 site of special scientific interest, and 435 buildings including 227 homes. (When I think of HS2, I often wonder: How can something that’s so fast actually come along so slowly?—Ed.)


But I digress…


** Future of Food Panel
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** 3rd February
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**
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Combating and mitigating the effects of climate change is top of political agendas across the world. Agriculture plays a key role in the climate debate and innovative technologies like GMOs, gene editing, lab-grown meat and vertical farming have the potential to shrink emissions while improving the resilience of our food supply.

This panel event—held in association with the Genetic Literacy Project ([link removed]) , British Conservation Alliance ([link removed]) and Consumer Choice Center ([link removed]) —will examine how emerging technologies are likely to affect the environmental footprint of agriculture in the UK and beyond.

Speakers:

Jon Entine (Executive Director, Genetic Literacy Project)

Bill Wirtz (Senior Policy Analyst, Consumer Choice Center)

Matthew Lesh (Head of Research, Adam Smith Institute)

Michael Horne (National Policy Director, British Conservation Alliance)

Chair:

Frederik Roeder (Managing Director, Consumer Choice Center)

Schedule:

We open doors at 6pm and (following a drinks reception) the panel will begin at 6.30pm, with an audience Q&A session taking place afterwards at approximately 7:30pm.
Find Out More ([link removed])

============================================================

THINK TANKING

In our 2020 research, we’re focusing on prosperity, opportunity and dignity. So give me your ideas on how to maximise any one, two or three of them!

NEW REPORTS

Saving the High Street. No, it’s not Brexit or climate change or transphobia or any other fashionable excuse that’s turning ** our city centres into ghost towns ([link removed])
. It’s national and local government policy. Regulations, taxes and minimum wages drive some shops out of business. The rest are clobbered with poorly designed business rates (which is why charity shops are all that’s expanding). But even worse is the ‘primary shopping areas’ (PSAs) imposed by the planners. PSAs don’t allow retailers to adapt to changing markets. They squeeze shops into one small zone, rather than letting them set up where needed. And limited supply means higher rents. They should go, says our author (and town planning consultant) Thomas Walker.

And look out for our upcoming reports on e-scooters, the ‘factory tax’ and how we can help veterans return to normal life on civvy street.

EVENTS

What a pity you missed our Roaring Twenties party complete with flappers, dandies and other degenerates from inside government. And Dr Anja Shortland's talk on the economics of kidnapping. But you can still come to see top libertarian economist and Machinery of Freedom author David Friedman, who joins us for another think-in on 4 March. Watch this space for details.

And we have another of our ISOS schools conferences on 5 February. If you would like our roadshow at your school, contact our Head of Programmes Daniel Pryor [email protected].

ON THE BLOG

We can curb drug overdose deaths—which in Glasgow are more than a thousand times higher than the EU average—with supervised shoot-up rooms, ** says our Vice expert Daniel Pryor ([link removed])
. Experience from Germany, France, Canada and Australia show that these facilities reduce deaths, improve health, reduce syringe litter and engage users with rehabilitation and healthcare services. What’s not to like?

Don’t let London’s transport authority drive out Uber, ** says Julia Behan ([link removed])
. That’s their plan, but the taxi interests on the TfL Board should learn from Europe that resisting competition will win them no friends. Some 3.5m Londoners use Uber regularly—because it’s reliable, cheaper, easy to use and safer for women and children because all journeys are tracked and customers rate drivers. And it gives flexible employment for 45,000 drivers. So let’s stop the stitch-up and keep Ubering. (Is that a real word? I guess it is now.—Ed.)

Tim Worstall is overjoyed that ** the UK’s ‘green economy’ is shrinking ([link removed])
. The number of businesses fell by 6,000 in just four years, and the number of people employed in renewable energy and related occupations fell by 11,000. Why isn’t that a problem? Well, everyone agrees that UK emissions are falling. If it takes less work and fewer workers to achieve that, we’re all better off, aren’t we? QED.

AROUND THE WEB

Why do women live longer than men? ** Well, they don’t ([link removed])
, according to Danish epidemiologists. Men used to die a lot earlier largely because they smoked and women didn’t. When women started smoking more, the gap narrowed. Now that very few people of either gender smoke, the gap is still narrow (about two years)—but then both men and women are living longer.

It looks like we’re a nation of utilitarians. ** Researchers from the University of Exeter ([link removed])
have found that three out of five Brits would push an overweight man off a bridge to stop a runaway train killing five people in the infamous 'trolley problem' thought experiment.

Remember prohibition? It began 100 years ago and ** ASI Fellow Chris Snowdon ([link removed])
has taken a look at some of the propaganda used to justify one of the dumbest ideas in American history.

MEEJA

As I mentioned, I did Newsnight on international trade financing. (That’s beyond the call of duty, as you know two-thirds of diddly squat about THAT!—Ed.)

Anyway, our report on how inept national and local policy is strangling our High Streets was quoted far and wide, in the national papers as well as local-government ones. Struck a nerve, I think. We also gave Oxfam’s nose a tweak on its annual report that invariably finds that the richest -1% of the population own 120% of the world’s resources (or whatever it is). And yet again, we pointed out to them that being in debt doesn’t mean you’re poor—according to Oxfam’s funny figures, the poorest people on the planet are recent Harvard law school graduates!

Flybe Shambles - We have, of course, ** criticised the government bailout of Flybe ([link removed])
at ** every single opportunity ([link removed])
as a terrible example of ** crony capitalism ([link removed])
and the worst form of ** corporate welfare ([link removed])
, including ** on radio ([link removed])
.

Migrant Salary Threshold - Our Dan Pryor writes both on
** CapX on migrant salary threshold ([link removed])
, and a ** Guardian letter ([link removed])
on lab grown meat and free market environmentalism, as well as BBC Radio 2 on executive pay.

New Planning Regulations - Our ** Ben Southwood ([link removed])
writes about how we welcome out new governments commitment to building some houses at long last.

Saving our High Street - Our ** Matt Kilcoyne ([link removed])
writes about saving our high streets after our recent report and read some reports about the subject ** here ([link removed])
.

Davos Virtue Signalling - Our
** Matthew Lesh ([link removed])
had some comments on Oxfams's and the whole of Davos virtue signalling (ed. or new branding fad?) on inequality.

Digital Tax - Our
** Morgan Schondelmeier ([link removed])
debates on whether we should swap our digital service tax.

Factory Tax goes global -
** It seems ([link removed])
that our latest campaign is catching on across the pond - look out for more on this.

AND I QUOTE…

Davos reminds me of Adam Smith’s famous observation:

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."

Bye…

E.


** ([link removed])
Matthew Lesh rips into the idea that taxpayer cash should be used to bailout private losses

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** Website ([link removed])
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