How to Win Friends and Influence People

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IN THIS BULLETIN:

* MODEST SMUGNESS: We’ve been rated the world’s No.1 independent think tank
* NEW REPORTS: How the immigration system fails people who should have a right to stay
* SUPERBLOG: Scottish politics, open societies, and how to crash the national grid

And much more!



** BUT FIRST...
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Thanks to the EU for bringing some innocent amusement into our lives. The collective vaccine purchase failed, M. Macron sold them a vaccine that didn’t work (before demanding more doses of another he said didn’t even work), and now it’s everyone for themselves. (And these guys think they could run an EU army? No doubt M. Macron would insist on French tanks: the jokes just write themselves.) Still, with its threat to block the movement of vaccines across the Irish border, the EU succeeded in something nobody else has ever achieved — uniting Leavers, Remainers, the DUP, Sinn Fein, Dublin and Brussels — albeit against them. (Well, they do believe in unity—Ed.) And Germany’s tourism minister fears that there are only going to be Brits on the beaches this summer. (Er, again, the jokes just write themselves.)

Indeed, the only cloud on the horizon is that a cardboard shortage is hitting delivery of the nation’s sustaining wine supplies. (Maybe Dominic Cummings could come up with a slogan. Belay your Amazon orders! Protect cardboard makers! Save Laithwaites!) (It’ll be ‘clap for cardboard’ next—Ed.) Oh, and that a socially distanced Valentine’s Day is going to cause a few problems.

We’re getting lazier too. A shock new report says we’re taking less exercise than we did in the summer lockdown. (Because it’s freezing, perhaps? These academics…!) Indeed, last Monday was National Sickie Day. (Maybe that’s why nobody turned up to the Hypochondriacs Anonymous meeting. For my part, I was in bed with a terrible case of inertia.) And it seems we’re all getting much better at jigsaw puzzles. (Though the Government’s back-to-school policy remains a puzzle to us all.)

But I digress...


** ASI is ACE

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We are chuffed to be rated Number One in the world among independent think tanks. That’s on the annual think-tank ratings compiled by the University of Pennsylvania, who survey thinkers and policy analysts around the globe. We’re also in the top five for the best domestic policy work and social media outreach, in the top ten for international economics, and in the top 25 for having the most impact on public policy.

And all that on a lean budget. Indeed, many of those scoring below us have budgets over 100x larger. So just think what we could do with just a little bit more in the bank. But you can help with that. Make a donation today to our work in economic and policy education. It’s easy! Do it now!
Donate to the Adam Smith Research Trust ([link removed])
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** Global Britons:
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Global Britons: A fairer pathway to British Citizenship ([link removed]) by Henry Hill and Andrew Yong

Let’s end the idea of second-class British citizens. The Windrush generation, veterans, citizens overseas and others are all victims of an over-prescriptive immigration system — barring long-term UK residents who don’t meet excessively rigid rules. And even those who do succeed face citizenship application fees of nearly £15,000 per family. Only now is the UK Government making it easier for British Nationals (Overseas) passport holders (like those in Hong Kong) to come in — but without permanent leave to stay, they are left in stateless limbo. The whole system needs an overhaul. So we say: simplify the rules and scrap the charges (especially for veterans, key workers and children). The report is endorsed by former Conservative Party Leader and co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China Sir Iain Duncan Smith ([link removed]) , and Policy Director of Hong Kong WatchJohnny Patterson. ([link removed])


** Worth a Shot:
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Worth a Shot: Accelerating Covid-19 vaccinations ([link removed]) by Jonathon Kitson, James Lawson and Matthew Lesh

I’m glad to say that the UK Government has taken many of the recommendations in our January report Worth a Shot: Accelerating Covid-19 vaccinations. And with obvious results. We came up with 22 different recommendations including using pharmacies, closed hotels and sports facilities, drive-ins, mobile vaccination centres, walk-ins for spare doses, online booking, crowdsourcing ideas and even home kits for people like diabetics who can and do inject themselves.
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Our webinars feature real experts challenging orthodox thinking on key issues. They get thousands of viewers and win praise from politicians (and normal people) around the world. To see them in real time, just reply to this email and I’ll send you invites.


** Coming Up:

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Join us on Tuesday 9 February at 6pm GMT, when my colleague Dr Madsen Pirie will be joined by Dr Anton Howes (A paradox! A paradox! A most ingenious paradox! Geddit? Pair o' Docs?—Ed.), a leading economic historian and expert on innovation and industrial revolution. He’s also head of innovation research at The Entrepreneurs Network and historian-in-residence at the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. He will be telling us how innovation can revitalise our economic prospects, and what we have to do to encourage it.
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Register Here ([link removed])


** Catch Up:
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The relevance of Rand: This week I chaired a live webinar to mark the birthday of novelist, thinker and commentator Ayn Rand, and to debate whether her ideas can tell us anything about our problems today — lockdown, cancel culture, free speech, even statues. I was joined by three experts, US philosopher Tara Smith, financial journalist Tom Burroughes and ideas activist Thomas Walker.

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The special relationship: Looking at the Biden Administration’s first 100 days, resident Yank Morgan Schondelmeier was joined by political experts Freddy Gray of The Spectator USA, Joseph Sternberg of The Wall Street Journal and ex-MP Douglas Carswell, who now heads a US think tank. How do they figure the UK will get on with the Biden team? Well, watch the discussion here to find out:
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The end of the great stagnation: How are we going to get back to economic normality? Cutting debt by raising taxes, dashing for growth with loose money, or supporting innovation and entrepreneurship? I know, silly question, really. But to discuss it, precocious upstart Matt Kilcoyne assembled three wonks who know the answer, Alec Stapp of the Progressive Policy Institute, Daniel Capurro of the Daily Telegraph and Sam Dumitriu of The Entrepreneurs Network. Watch their take on it here:
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** Podcasts:
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No pictures. Just great words.

Want something to listen to while driving to work? (OK, scrap that. While in the shower between bed and the bureau? While out cycling on your government-mandated limited exercise break?) You need to be tuning in to The Pin Factory our regular weekly word wallop. Topics include:
* EU vaccine woes, GameStop, Superforecasting
* Border controls, Biden, Jonathan Sumption
* The year ahead, vaccine rollouts, impeaching Trump
* The Brexit crunch, Australia v China, and the great reset
* Free speech and artificial intelligence
* Spending, Covid, and the green industrial revolution

Find The Pin Factory on all your favourite podcast providers: iTunes ([link removed]) , Spotify ([link removed]) , Stitcher ([link removed]) or Podbean ([link removed])
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Global Britons, released on Monday, started this week with coverage in The Telegraph ([link removed]) , CapX ([link removed]) , The i Newspaper and Wired ([link removed]) . Advocating for easier access to citizenship for residual classes of British Nationals, this report coincides with the change in policy towards Hong Kong’s British Nationals (Overseas) or BN(O)s. As I’m sure you know, the ASI has strongly recommended such support, including in a 2019 paper, Doing our Duty by Hong Kong ([link removed]) , and a 1989 call ([link removed]) for residency
rights for Hong Kongers. We also recently spoke ([link removed]) out against ([link removed]) Western companies which choose to align with China instead of honouring their obligations to Hong Kong customers.

One month on from our report on the UK’s vaccination strategy, we are still making the case for an all out ‘war effort’. We know that many of our recommendations have been adopted by the Government, but we will continue to push for a faster and more effective vaccine rollout. Our comments appeared in the Daily Mail ([link removed]) (across many different stories ([link removed]) ), Spiked ([link removed]) , and CapX ([link removed]) . Several more MPs are also publicly endorsing the report, including Imran Ahmed Khan MP in aHouse of Commons debate
([link removed]) and Sir Desmond Swayne MP on TalkRadio ([link removed]) and online ([link removed]) . And speaking of Covid, Matthew Lesh wrote for CapX ([link removed]) on why airport quarantine may not be enough.

We’re laying the groundwork early ahead of the budget announcements in March. Our comments urging Chancellor Rishi Sunak against a tax hiking budget appeared in The Sun ([link removed]) , The Telegraph ([link removed]) , and Morgan Schondelmeier appeared on Times Radio ([link removed]) to discuss when Rishi should shut off the taps. We’ll have a lot more to say on this topic so be sure to keep an eye out. And speaking of the Treasury, Matthew Lesh pushes back against the idea of Treasury North as nothing more than tokenism in CapX ([link removed]) .

And in the world of finance, ASI fellow Tim Worstall rained on the parade of cryptocurrency investors in CapX ([link removed]) , Morgan Schondelmeier advised against ([link removed]) strict regulation of buy now pay later schemes in the same publication, and Daniel Pryor reminded BBC readers ([link removed]) that CEOs make a lot of money because they provide a lot of value.


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** On our super-blog
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Yet another new Scottish Labour leader ([link removed]) : This February will see Scottish Labour’s fifth leader since the independence referendum of 2014. To lose one is unfortunate, two looks like carelessness, but to lose four and be on to the fifth looks like a descent into madness, concludes Hannah Ord. She reviews the runners and riders, from the red corner to the not-quite right field. I mix metaphors, but the alternative, when you read the dismal array of politicians on offer, is abject depression. Still, one’s going to come top and take on the SNP to take Scottish politics in a new (albeit still leftward) direction. So place your bets here!

How to crash the national grid ([link removed]) : Actually December’s energy white paper could do it easily, concludes ASI Fellow Tim Ambler. He chides it for giving no thought to the volatility of renewables — particularly as they are now up to about 23% of our supply — and the old-tech nature of PWR nuclear reactors. We’re not even thinking about new nuclear tech before the 2030s, when all those electric cars will be guzzling far more juice. And still we’re committed to zero carbon. It doesn’t add up, says Ambler. And he’s an accountant.

Protectionism: infant industries ([link removed]) : Over the next few days, I’m presenting some two-minute video blogs on the arguments for protectionism, starting with the infant industries argument. You know, we have to allow trade barriers so we can grow our industries and take on the world. Trouble is knowing which putative world-beaters to protect. And then you find they just get fat and lazy on subsidies, and never quite grow up. Try to wean them off the subsidy bottle and they’ll throw a tantrum. So consumers face continuing subsidies and higher prices for inferior home-produced goods.

Norberg on open societies ([link removed]) : My colleague Dr Madsen Pirie reviews Johan Norberg’s new book Open: The Story of Human Progress. It’s an instant classic, he says, a complex and wide ranging series of insights into what has led some societies to succeed and some to fail. Trade, for instant, is a key factor, with merchants importing not only goods but ideas from others. So those open societies thrive on a multiplicity of ideas instead of being trapped in a closed mindset. And that’s one of the reasons why they prosper.


** Seen Elsewhere...
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ASI Fellow Mark Oates wrote for CapX ([link removed]) explaining how leaving the EU will allow the UK to strike out on health policy and save lives. We've already seen it with the vaccine debacle, but the UK has an opportunity to save even more lives if it continues to diverge from the EU on vaping policy. The EU wants to regulate and restrict vaping, making it a less desirable alternative to smoking, while the UK is following a more evidenced-based approach to vaping, allowing for higher rates of switching.

ASI author Jonathon Kitson appears in CapX ([link removed]) outlining some more risks to the UK’s vaccination programme, and how to fix them. You’ll have seen Jonathon’s work in our paper Worth a Shot, but he continues to remain vigilant in his assessment of the Government’s vaccine progress –– as we all should.

In the Independent, Andrew Rosindell MP ([link removed]) points out the questionable practices of bank behemoth HSBC. He notes that if they choose to renege on their promises by cancelling bank accounts of Hong Kong dissidents who choose to move to the UK, they may have UK customers and regulators to answer to. You’ll have seen our Matt Kilcoyne making a similar case across the papers.

Former ASI-er Sam Dumitriu ([link removed]) explained the pitfalls that face big tech companies around moderating content, and why legislation which protects providers from liability, like Section 230 in the United States, is critical for the free flow of information online. (Don't worry, the interest of the producer is being attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the interweb consumer—Ed.)

AND I QUOTE...

An economist's warning for the incoming Chair of the Federal Reserve System:


I have studied the monetary history of the United States and written a book on the subject, and it’s my opinion that there have been more severe crises in the years since we’ve had a Federal Reserve System than in the years from the Civil War until 1914.
— Milton Friedman

Bye,

e

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