IN THIS E-BULLETIN:
* Media-star economist Johan Norberg on creativity and progress
* The neoliberal manifesto. There’s a great future our there if we use the (market) force
* The prime minister’s 40 years in office (no, not this one—yet)
But first...
Raise a cheer for Boris—the first politician in years who had no intention of breaking his promises. (Sadly, Parliament and the Courts decided this was against the politicians’ professional code, so they're going to break his promises for him.) Canada’s PM Justin Trudeau is also redfaced, having once blacked up to go to a costume party [He said he went as Aladdin, but he looked more like a lad in blackface to me— Ed.] And yet more red faces alongside the red banners in Brighton, too, as Labour reveals its policy is to campaign for a deal and then vote against it.
Boris is probably kicking himself that he didn’t Thomas Cook it to New York—as he might not have got back in time to write his letter to Brussels. Still, expect some big shake-ups at No. 10—I hear that the person in charge of staging coups is being replaced by the person in charge of silencing MPs, who in turn is being replaced by the head of misleading the public. Only the constitutional outrages team will emerge unscathed.
Yet I digress...
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After a packed meeting on drug reform at the LibDem conference we’re planning a series of events at the Tory conference—if it ever happens. On Monday we’re launching a neoliberal policy agenda, explaining why we need to deregulate aviation, and solving the housing shortage by, er, building more houses. On Tuesday we’re giving the green light to legal cannabis, saying no to the nanny state, and talking about free trade and free movement.
Our under-30s Next Generation Group meet again on Tuesday 8 October, where Paul Goodman, ex-MP and now editor of the highly successful ConservativeHome blog site, asks the question “Where’s Britain Going?” [Darned if I know—Ed.]
Don’t think for a minute that this is a how-to-do-it manual, but in January Dr Anja Shortland of Kings College London is telling us about The Economics of Kidnapping. It’s an economic analysis of the ransom business, looking at it from the kidnappers’ point of view. Abducting people, it seems, is easy-peasy, but working out how much they’re worth and negotiating the deal is much trickier.
But if you are intending to kidnap someone, you might want to get a robot to do the hard work for you. In February Roger Bootle, Chair of Capital Economics, will talk about Work, Wealth and Welfare in the Robot Age. He’s optimistic—yes, some jobs will be lost but others, more enjoyable ones, will take their place and at the same time, leisure time will increase. Four-day week, anyone?
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Ayn Rand Annual Lecture
Thursday 14 November
City of London
Star filmmaker and author Johan Norberg delivers this year’s Ayn Rand Lecture at the swank Drapers’ Hall in the City of London. His topic: Progress: Who Needs it?
Human creativity has given us a golden age of health, wealth and truly amazing technologies. But there are always people—Rand’s ‘parasites’—who prefer to live off these achievements, rather than help create them. Norberg argues that we need to embrace freedom and see off the parasites if we are to progress—and why failing to do so could produce an anti-industrial revolution and mounting poverty.
He’s a great speaker, by the way. You’ll love it.
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The neoliberal manifesto: We’ve teamed up with 1828, the neoliberal news and opinion site, to outline the challenges that lie ahead for the UK—and the world—and how to solve them. We’re excited about the future, with creativity, trade and technology pushing progress. And we figure that markets are the best way of promoting those and driving forward humanity’s prospects. We’re launching our agenda soon. Watch this space!
We’ve said it before and we’re saying it again. We should offer British National (Overseas) status to everyone born in Hong Kong after the 1997 — but with the full residency rights of UK citizens. Hong Kong residents, with their high levels of education and skills, would be net contributors to the UK economy. Sure, very few would probably want to come; but the mere fact that they could would put limits on how far China could bully them.
Still stressed out: Our new report by Professor Kevin Dowd of Durham University argues that the UK banking system is still an accident waiting to happen because the Bank of England’s so-called stress tests are too mixed up, limited, easy and unrealiable enough to stress-test a rubber band. (Well, he doesn’t quite say that, but you know what I mean.) Worrying.
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Dr Eamonn Butler interviews Dr Madsen Pirie in the last of the Freedom's Fighters series.You can catch all the videos on our YouTube channel.
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John McDonnell has gone Caracas, says Matt Kilcoyne to The Sun, while warnings that his spending plans, pension raids and new labour regulations could crash the economy were picked up by the Daily Express and the Daily Mail.
Matt Kilcoyne also warned the The Sun and the The Daily Mail that Corbyn's attacks on drugs companies making money from research and development of new medicines will mean lives lost in future as fewer discoveries are made.
Matthew Lesh is on the right track bashing the hypocrisy of rail union bosses in The Sun and The Telegraph who, when they strike and cancel your services, just hop in a posh car to get where they need to be.
Matthew Gillow busted myths about renationalisation for CapX.
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Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez and his Spanish Sociaist Party have produced 370 new policy statements. Well, not quite, says our gap-year analyst Julia Behan, because quite a few of them are repeats. And the rest are kinda mixed up virtue-signalling and bullying. Sound familiar?
Back in 1735, Sir Robert Walpole became the first Prime Minister to walk into 10 Downing Street. Sure, says Madsen Pirie, he wasn’t called ‘Prime Minister’ at the time, and the door was round the corner, and the bricks were yellow instead of black, but you get the picture. He was premier for more than 40 years and had an amazing record of getting difficult bills through Parliament. Boris can only dream of such a career! [How many prime ministers does it take to change a light bulb? Who knows, they’re never in office long enough any more.—Ed.]
This green new deal thing—a US idea now current here. It’s strong on justice, equity, social and economic equality. But as Tim Worstall points out, none of those have much to do with climate change. Is climate change—a very worrying prospect, sure enough—being used to sneak through a very different, political, agenda? No point letting a good crisis go to waste.
AND I QUOTE
I feel it’s getting close…
Whenever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.
– John Locke (1632-1704)
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