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* TALKING POINT, BY CHRISTOPHER SNOWDON
* IN THE MEDIA
* YOUR CHANCE TO WIN!
* FREEDOM WEEK
* YOU'RE INVITED

TALKING POINT, BY CHRISTOPHER SNOWDON

So farewell then, Public Health England. ([link removed]) After seven inglorious years, the agency that promised to ‘protect the public’s health from infectious diseases’ but seemed more interested in regulating the sugar content of sponge cakes has been closed down.

It will be replaced by a new organisation, the National Institute for Health Protection, that will focus solely on infectious diseases. It sounds an awful lot like the Health Protection Agency, which was replaced by Public Health England in 2013.

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You can watch my interview on this with IEA Director General Mark Littlewood over on our YouTube channel here ([link removed]) .

Announcing the decision on Tuesday, Matt Hancock made a distinction between health protection and health improvement, with the implication that Public Health England had been preoccupied with improvement at the expense of protection. It is a crucial distinction.

Collective action is sometimes required to protect individuals from airborne diseases and environmental pollution but, as I explained in Killjoys ([link removed]) , individuals can decide for themselves what to eat, how much to drink and whether to smoke.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us what a real public health problem looks like, the nanny state has continued to expand.

Boris Johnson resurrected David Cameron’s paternalistic anti-obesity plan and presented it as a crucial part of his war on coronavirus. Spain recently banned smoking outdoors on the baffling grounds that '‘infected smokers could blow droplets carrying the virus when they exhale’ (how do they think nonsmokers get air out of their lungs?).

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The USA has used COVID-19 as an excuse to pursue its war on vaping. As I argued in the Telegraph ([link removed]) , unserious politicians are behaving as if we live in trivial times.

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The South African government used lockdown as an excuse to ban the sale of alcohol and tobacco. As was discussed in an IEA webinar ([link removed]) in May, these prohibitions worked about as well as historians would have predicted, unleashing an epidemic of crime and losing the government huge sums of tax revenue. The good news is that the government has finally seen sense and repealed the bans.

There was further good news last week when Bernard Matthews announced the return of Turkey Twizzlers. They were taken off the market fifteen years ago after Jamie Oliver demonised them in his school dinners campaign. Millennials have never forgiven him and they will now be able to recapture the taste of their youth.

Public Health England - gone. Prohibition - ended. Turkey Twizzlers - back on the menu. It’s been a good week.

Christopher Snowdon
Head of Lifestyle Economics, Institute of Economic Affairs

QUANGO FIASCO

In bidding farewell to Public Health England, IEA Director General Mark Littlewood reflected on Britain’s ‘quangocracy’.

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Writing for The Telegraph ([link removed]) , Mark argued that the “the fiasco over the calibration of A-level results and the closure of the risible Public Health England expose the hopeless and inefficient nature of the growing, bloated and unresponsive quangocracy that wields so much power in the Britain.”

Mark added, quangos “need to adopt the disciplines, risks and attitude to responsibility of the [private sector] if we want public sector agencies to begin to function properly.”

And Christopher Snowdon responded to reports that hospital admissions for Covid-19 were over-reported at the peak of the pandemic.

Quoted in The Telegraph ([link removed]) , Chris said: “People often overestimate highly publicised risks while underestimating more common risks… The hysteria is understandable to some extent but, while all the attention is on the 40,000 people who have died with Covid, 600,000 people die in Britain every year without much fanfare.”

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Looking across the pond, IEA Economics Fellow Professor Philip Booth reacted to California’s proposed wealth tax. In an article for CapX ([link removed]) , he argued that it would amount to a “direct attack on property rights which has no obvious limits”.

He added that, “most countries which have had a wealth tax have abolished it in recent years, after finding it impossible to administer and/or finding that wealthy individuals simply moved to other jurisdictions.”

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On a more positive note, IEA Economics Fellow Julian Jessop responded to stats from the Office of National Statistics, showing that UK retail sales have returned to pre-pandemic levels. Julian commented that this “reflects the flexibility of a free-market economy” and that “while some retailers are clearly struggling in the new environment, others have thrived.”

He added that “the UK’s relatively flexible labour market is also good at creating jobs and should be able to replace those that will inevitably be lost, provided it is allowed to work properly.”

Read his full comments here ([link removed]) .

YOUR CHANCE TO WIN!

Register now for our IEA Book Club event with author and businessman, Richard Koch and be in with the chance of winning a signed copy of his latest book, ‘Unreasonable Success and How to Achieve It: Unlocking the Nine Secretes of People Who Changed the World”

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The event will take place on Tuesday, 25th August from 6-7pm. You can register to attend here ([link removed]) .

Those who ask the five questions with the most Zoom upvotes will receive a signed copy of the book.
Watch our TRAILER featuring the author here ([link removed]) .


** FREEDOM WEEK
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This week we held our annual Freedom Week - with a difference.

The one-week seminar brings together like-minded students to learn about classical liberal, free market, neoliberal and liberal perspectives on economics, politics, history and society.

Because of the coronavirus, we had to take the event online this year - but participants still received a full schedule of expert talks and discussions hosted by staff from the IEA and the Adam Smith Institute.

Talks included: the economic value of human life with IEA Economics Fellow Julian Jessop; contemporary challenges to liberalism with IEA Head of Education Dr Stephen Davies; sin taxes and paternalism with IEA Head of Lifestyle Economics Christopher Snowdon; the persistent myth of socialism with IEA Head of Political Economy Dr Kristian Niemietz; and the gender pay gap with IEA Media Manager Emily Carver.

We've had some excellent feedback from the participants so far, including:

"This programme exposed me to many novel perspectives and reinforced my beliefs in drug legalisation, anti-communism, and digital freedoms. Very intellectually stimulating!"

"Some arguments I hadn't considered before and so it was interesting to hear from another perspective. My views have mostly stayed the same, but for some issues which I hadn't thought about, I was given a great introduction into the arguments."

If you’re interested in joining us at the IEA, you can search our available internships here ([link removed]) . We accept applications throughout the year.


** YOU'RE INVITED
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Are you interested in going to Oxford or Cambridge? If so, the IEA is hosting an Oxbridge Training Day on 30th September, from 1-3.30pm.

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The Day will include lectures from Dr Steve Davies, the IEA’s Head of Education, who will talk you through the 'Dos and Don’ts for Oxbridge Applications', an open Q&A session and a discussion with IEA Editorial and Research Fellow and Cambridge Economics Graduate, Professor Len Shackleton.

If you, or someone you know, would like to attend, register here ([link removed]) . You can also find out more by emailing [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) .


** WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS...
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These are difficult times for every individual and organisation, including the IEA. Understandably, your priorities will be to look after your loved ones, your family, your work or your business.

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But if you do have a little extra cash available to help the IEA during these uncertain times, your contribution – no matter how small – would be deeply appreciated.

As an educational charity, the work we do work is entirely funded by donations. If you are able to help please click here ([link removed]) or contact [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]?body=Dear%20Angela%2C) . Thank you.

And why not get Amazon to donate too? All you have to do is to start shopping on [link removed] and pick the IEA as your chosen charity. The IEA will then receive 0.5% of your spending on most items. Everything else remains the same (and at no additional cost to you).

"I just want to say that the online stuff you guys are doing is absolutely astonishing! I’ve watched every Live with Littlewood in entirety and just finished watching the latest. It’s been superb entertainment."

"Thanks for making this crisis more of an age of enlightenment."

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