Celebrate liberty while being locked indoors

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** In this bulletin
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* Cost of government day—tell your grandchildren to look out for it!
* Why this lockdown sucks—and how to get Britain working again
* Your intellectual food parcel—delivered into your laptop


**
But first…
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My jaw dropped when I opened the email last week. Seems some upstart crow, beautified with my feathers, supposed he was well able to bombast out a Bulletin in the best of my style.* Even worse, some of you believed it was by me. Even worser, he was pretty good at it. One less invitation to my coming-out (of lockdown) party (Who do you think does the edits usually E? — Ed.).

Headline of the week is Belgium’s potato growers urging Belgians to eat more frites as 750,000 tonnes of potatoes pile up in warehouses. (In Britain, craft brewers have seen their sales fall 83%, so I’m standing by for their analogous call. President Trump has been mocked for suggesting that maybe a disinfectant injection could kill the virus. (Well, it would certainly kill the patient. But then, if you are worried about stupidity in high places, your best solution would be to get rid of high places.)

And on that subject, ministers are considering face scans to create ‘passports’ for immune people. (They’re also considering face masks. You work it out.) Meanwhile Tony Blair’s scientific adviser has set up a ‘’Shadow SAGE’ full of party supporters and donors. (Just crawl under a rock all you politicos—don’t you know there’s a war on?)

Coming soon! The new NHS tracking app! From the people who brought you the NHS IT scheme (late, 5x over budget, abandoned) and the (earlier) NHS app (unusably clunky, put on ice). And who ran such an outdated version of Windows that a ransomware attack hit a third of hospitals, led to 19,000 appointments being cancelled and cost £92m to clean up. Oh, and it’s not compatible with Continental systems (so you’ll still have to quarantine for a fortnight when you get off the boat at Calais).

And as we celebrate 75 years since the victory of the cause of freedom over the evil forces of tyranny in Europe, remember folks, you'll be fined if you leave your house more than once today!

But I digress…
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Madsen explains that nothing is quite as permanent
as a temporary Government scheme


** TAX FREEDOM DAY
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Tax Freedom Day is going to be upon us quite soon. We haven’t calculated it exactly, but it looks like 27 or 28 May to celebrate that day of the year, a full five months from 1 January, when we’ve at last stopped working full time for the government and now start working for ourselves. That is, if you’ve still got a job after this spectacularly damaging lockdown.

Of course, we don’t let governments get away with sneakily making Tax Freedom Day earlier by simply borrowing rather than raising taxes. So we also publish Cost of Government Day. This includes borrowing—which is really just a tax on our children and grandchildren. Or, the way things are going, great grandchildren.

Still, the champagne companies are still delivering, so order some and bring at least some small joy into a dismal year.


** TRACKING OUR IMPACT
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We haven’t taken a penny of public money. We haven’t furloughed anyone, we haven’t applied for any government loans or grants. We have upped our workload and more importantly, our output has increased.

This work matters. Today we hear that the Government is looking again at their track and trace app thanks to the tireless efforts ([link removed]) of the team in the office ([link removed]) to raise the issues ([link removed]) over privacy that threatened to destroy the app's efficacy.

Once again our work, both in the public eye and out of it, has brought an issue to the forefront of debate and forced the government to acknowledge its error and change tack. Once again, we've shown engaging the private sector and choosing a liberal approach is vital if we're to save lives and restart the economy.

To continue to do this, as we move from the initial phase of lockdown and we start dealing with the economic crisis coming our way, we need your help. If you’re a financial supporter, know that your help has had a direct impact on boosting Britain's response to this crisis. Thank you. If you’re able to give, please do. It really does make an enormous difference. ([link removed])
CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO THE ADAM SMITH RESEARCH TRUST ([link removed])
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** (Online) Events
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The audiences for our Tuesday night webinars continue to rise. (Indeed, I watch them myself, even when I’m not in them. Good excuse to go into the man cave and cuddle up to a pint of Brexit Beer.) Unfortunately for me but fortunately for you (or is that the other way round? — Ed.) I am in the next one. I'm joined by Otto Brøns-Petersen from Copenhagen, Nils Karlson from Stockholm, and Alberto Mingardi from Italy as we look at how everywhere has done things slightly differently in the face of the same pandemic. Who has been most successful and why?
RSVP TO THE WEBINAR NOW ([link removed])
This week Matt Lesh masterminded, hosted and presented a panel on Unfreezing the Economy with the FT’s Martin Wolf, US prof and author Deirdre McCloskey and Australian university research director Chris Berg. Hundreds of you watched, thousands more have viewed on Facebook, and it's now up on Youtube too. But if you're not one of those and you want to catch up, you can do so now!
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Matthew Lesh is joined by Martin Wolf, Deirdre McCloskey, and Chris Berg to look at how you can unfreeze an economy successfully.


** YOOF
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Young writer on liberty. We’re just going through the shortlist of entries—so thanks to all the young people who have entered the competition. We’ve asked for short blog-type pieces on environmental taxes and individual rights, so when we have picked the finalists, those will be put up on our superblog and a few young people will be better off in terms of both cash and books.

If you or someone you know is finishing school wants to spend a year working at the UK’s best-known think-tank, it’s your lucky day! Our Gap Year Internship programme is now open for applications here ([link removed]) . You’ll get to do a little bit of everything—from writing for national media to organising events with hundreds of attendees. All of the heart of Westminster (assuming this lockdown doesn’t last forever…) For more details, check out our website ([link removed]) or email [email protected]

Our Studentship programme honours the memory and furthers the work of the late and great John Blundell (1952-2014). Its purpose is to enable freedom-minded students to embark upon postgraduate study or research work that they could not otherwise afford.

John Blundell was a tireless promoter ([link removed]) of the free society and the free economy. Teachers, students, activists, professionals and politicians around the world were brought to an understanding of these ideas, and to become activists themselves, through John’s unique efforts ([link removed]) . To apply, click this link ([link removed]) !
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** Research (Yes, we're still doing that)
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I remain highly concerned about the damage we’re doing to our productive system—which our lives depend on. The economy isn’t a machine you can switch on and off. It’s a huge fabric of living personal relationships between customers, retailers, suppliers, producers, shippers and many more. Tear one bit of it and it ruptures in all directions. And you can’t ‘re-start’ what is in tatters. Sure, public health is the main priority—but we should be aware of all the costs of that. I wrote about that rather recently ([link removed]) .

How then are we going to get people back to work while still avoiding more infections and a second peak of the virus? One transition suggestion, in our latest paper ([link removed]) by Imperial’s Prof Keith Williamson and ASI’s Research Head Matthew Lesh, is ‘four days on, ten days off’. (Sounds like an ideal working week—Ed.) That means that people can go back to work 40% of the time. And if they are going to pick up the virus there, it’s likely to show before they go back in again. Clever, eh?

The papers certainly thought so, with glowing coverage in the Sun ([link removed]) , the i ([link removed]) , the Daily Mail ([link removed]) , CityAM ([link removed]) , the Telegraph ([link removed]) , the Metro ([link removed]) , Huffington ([link removed]) Post ([link removed]) , and the
Daily Mirror ([link removed]) .


** On the Superblog
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Permanent lockdown? When the Eiffel Tower was built, it was meant to last for 20 years, says Madsen Pirie ([link removed]) . That was 131 years ago. The London Eye, a millennium project, had planning permission for 5 years. It’s still standing. And now people say we need new taxes to pay for our lockdown costs. Yeah, like income tax, which was a temporary measure to help fight Napoleon. And after this war is over, we need to claw back those draconian emergency powers too.

The best way to help poor people is to buy their stuff, says Tim Worstall ([link removed]) . And half a billion people could be pushed into destitution by year end, because we are not doing that so much. And collapsed distribution and trading links don’t help either. But at least with Brexit still seemingly on track for January, we will be able to change that by cutting our tariffs and trading freely with the world’s poorest who need our custom most.

Back in 1940, Lou Witzman bought a fire engine and started a fire service in Arizona that completely outclassed the state fire service on speed, quality and cost. How, I ask? ([link removed]) By lots of little innovations—like having firefighters on all at their homes and workplaces, rather than sitting round playing cards in the fire station. There’s a lesson for our pandemic planning. Decentralised systems work better. While private labs, manufacturers and shops have been innovating, NHS managers have been floundering. Our NHS is simply too big to manage.

Bored in lockdown? At 400 pages, Raguram Rajan’s latest, The Third Pillar will keep you occupied for a while, says Charlie Paice ([link removed]) . It’s an attempt to find solutions to the despair and political unrest of forgotten voters—just the voters that the ultra-nationalists continue to capture. His solutions include devolving decisions, liberating entrepreneurship, boosting civil society. All very relevant for our exit from the Covid-19 lockdown.



** Meeja
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Beyond the plethora of coverage for our latest report (see above) I was the guest on The City View ([link removed]) , CityAM’s in-house podcast hosted by editor in chief Christian May. If you haven’t heard enough from me on why we need to think about easing lockdown restrictions and the damage we’re facing on the other side, best give this one a listen. You can also catch me on LBC ([link removed]) with Nick Ferrari discussing similar issues (we’ve got our star interns to put it up on ‘Instagram’ for posterity).

Matthew Lesh slammed universities in the Telegraph ([link removed]) for not selling their assets to fix their pension deficits and instead suggesting that the government sell taxpayers out to cover their irresponsible finances.

We’re in the Telegraph ([link removed]) once more as Matt Kilcoyne featured urging Boris Johnson not to forget his Churchillian commitment to free trade—just as Churchill risked his career to cross the aisle to stand up for free trade, Boris must be prepared to make the same statement.

ASI Head of Government Affairs (oh, were he actually in charge of the Government - Ed.) John Macdonald is in the Express commenting on the new Labour leader. It’s no easy job putting together a working opposition party but John is telling Keir Starmer where he might start with the herculean task he has ahead of him (not sure we should be giving him advice - Ed.).


** Your digital food parcel
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I know a good joke when I steal one, and I know a good idea too. So I’m taking a leaf out of the splendid Continental Telegraph ([link removed]) ’s book and serving you up a few morsels to keep your brain nourished during lockdown. Let’s start with the basics.
A Beginner’s Guide to Liberty ([link removed]) : Richard Wellings, Dan Mitchell, Pete Boettke, John Meadowcroft, the completely uncontroversial Kristian Niemietz, Anthony J Evans… this star-studded cast of liberal thinkers and do-ers talks about how markets work, free trade, property rights, government failure, welfare, banking—with a leavening of sex and drugs. Hooked you now, haven’t I?. Get it free here.

Secrets of the Magna Carta ([link removed]) : Ok, I know it should really be ’Secrets of Magna Carta’ but it’s a pretty good film even so. Produced by us at ASI, it’s kinda edgy and irreverent, as you’d expect. (I’m not sure thate Downton Abbey actor Hugh Bonneville expected that when he agreed to do the narration.) It looks at the origins of our individual liberties and asks whether they are so much under threat today that we need a new Magna Carta. Silly question, really, when we're all locked up under government decree.

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Madsen joined the Institute of Economic Affairs for their School of Thought series and told viewers about the importance of Adam Smith


** And I quote...
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* Just in case you didn’t get the reference:

“There is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.

— Robert Greene (1558-92) on Shakespeare.

Bye…


E

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