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IN THIS BULLETIN:
- How UK consumers support an Australian trade deal — latest ASI polling
- Gap Year opportunities — we’re looking for enthusiastic young freedom fighters
- What’s wrong with international minimum taxes — so very much
And much more!
BUT FIRST...
In recent news, Donald Trump has been banned from Facebook for two years. (I’m sure he can still cause a lot of trouble writing in the Mar a Lago Gazette.) Oh, and apparently he’s campaigning to be President again. (If he’s off social media, how does anyone know? — Ed.). I’m sure that everyone on America's late-night shows will be voting for him — they’ve been rather short of material since the last election.
In the UK, Chancellor Rishi Sunak is pleased that he’s got big governments to agree on minimum taxes for international companies. (Of course, if big businesses formed a cartel to fix minimum prices, they’d all be in the slammer. Just like private insurers would if they ran a Ponzi scheme like the state pension.)
The Boundary Commission has published its views on the next electoral map (i.e. just as big and bloated as it is now). Quite why we need 650 MPs and 800 Lords when the US, with five times the population, manages with 435 Representatives and 100 Senators, I don’t know. Well, actually I do know, it’s to keep everyone’s pals in a job at public expense.
Dom Cummings’ blistering attack on the Prime Minister and Health Secretary didn’t seem to have much impact (maybe because the public has already built up herd immunity to the political class). About 112,000 Brits are annoyed that they’ve had to truncate their holidays in Portugal now it’s been put on the amber list. (I think the Government should simply put every country on the red list and pay airlines to hand out virtual-reality headsets so frustrated travellers can experience a holiday while sitting on the tarmac at Heathrow.) A petition demanding that Transport Secretary Grant Schapps self-isolate would also probably get 112,000 signatures in no time. (A Michael Gove equivalent would double that — Ed.)
Still, if you do have to travel, at least you can get a home testing kit (designed for those who prefer to panic in the comfort of their own home). And you’ll soon be able to hop on a new ‘Boom’ supersonic airliner. (Apparently it cuts the journey to Tokyo down to three hours — that’s one hour in the air and two hours queuing up at the airport.)
But I digress...
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There’s less than a week to apply for the ASI’s flagship programme — a free week-long summer school in Cambridge learning about liberalism from leading academics. If you or someone you know is a keen student of economics, politics or philosophy, now is the time to apply for a place.
Freedom Week is open to over-18s who are currently attending or about to start university. The week is entirely free to attend: there is no charge whatsoever for accommodation, food, tuition or materials. Get your application in now!
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TODAY’S GLOOM SECTION
OK, let’s get it over with...
Bad news and worse news on the tax front. First, the bad news. This year, the average UK citizen worked 150 days just to pay their taxes. That’s the equivalent of working from 1 January to 30 May — before reaching 31 May, ‘Tax Freedom Day’. At ASI, we’ve been tracking Tax Freedom Day since the 1990s, and can you guess which direction the tax burden has gone? Back in 1996, Tax Freedom Day fell in April; it got later under John Major, later under Tony Blair, later under Gordon Brown, later under the Coalition, later under Call-Me-Dave Cameron, later under Theresa May and it’s gotten later under Boris too.
Ah well: “In this life,” wrote Benjamin Franklin, “nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” (Unfortunately they come in the wrong order — Ed.)
The worse news is all the G7 finance ministers’ plotting to create a minimum tax on international companies. It’s the end of tax competition, of course — why should governments strive to work efficiently when they can all get together and raise taxes enough to bail out the laggards? It’s a global tax cartel, says our Matt Kilcoyne. With one bound, the big-spending governments have given up any pretence of going for a low-tax high-growth recovery — and given up Parliament's right to set the UK's taxes. So much for ‘Take Back Control’. Moreover, Rishi’s once-trumpeted policies of ‘super deductions’ and free ports are now threatened.
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TODAY’S CHEER SECTION
Shorter, as you’d expect, but good
We’ve been in the news across the world for our report on public attitudes to UK-OZ trade, by Dr Michael Turner of research and strategy firm C|T Group RTR, and our new Fellow, and Matthew Lesh of global superstars the Adam Smith Institute. Based on 1,500 person polls in both countries, we found that Brits think Australia is the number one country we should be trading more with — and opening up new travel and work opportunities too. Most even say that, if necessary, they would prefer to trade with Australia than the EU! A clear majority of Brits want more Aussie wine, beef and lamb (Even Kangaroo — Ed.) and believe that UK farmers can and should compete globally, not be protected from competition. Australians, for their part, are keen to diversify trade away from China (which recently slapped a 200% tariff on their wine because they demanded a proper inquiry into the origins of Covid) and see the UK as a key partner too.
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TODAY’S CHANGING THINGS SECTION
The real history of communism; It’s amazing, but the system that killed 100m people is in vogue again, and not just in benighted places like Venezuela or North Korea. In the UK and US too, extreme socialists like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn still have a strong following, especially among the young. That’s because few people under 35 remember the Berlin Wall or Pol Pot’s genocide — while a third of them think that George Bush ‘killed more people than Stalin’.
So we’re going to tell the real story in an 80-minute made-for-TV documentary that we will be translating into several languages (including Russian and Mandarin) and getting shown around the world. We have the award-winning filmmaker Martin Durkin lined up, along with experts such as Deirdre McCloskey, Niall Ferguson and post-communist leaders such as Mart Laar and Leszek Balcerowicz.
We aim to change the understanding of an entire generation. All we need is your support. We have raised a good chunk of money, but need £200,000 to produce and circulate the film — and the supporting book and educational materials.
If you think you can help us, or know someone who can, please reply to this email, or donate via the button below! It’s really important that we make this project a success and warn the masses of the true reality of communism.
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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.
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Coming Up:
The Planning Bill: Serious Reform or Missed Opportunity? Next Tuesday, our Daniel Pryor will be welcoming housing bods John Myers, Anya Martin and Anthony Breach to chat about the Government’s Planning Bill. Supporters claim that the legislation will deliver the homes desperately needed to alleviate the UK’s long-running housing crisis, boosting growth and innovation across the country.
But critics from both sides of the housing debate are sceptical. Many MPs—fearful of constituent backlash and ‘overdevelopment’—believe the Bill is likely to reduce the voice of locals in planning decisions. Long-standing advocates of planning reform are concerned that the reforms will end up being too watered down by rebel MPs to make a meaningful difference.
Join in the discussion and register here!
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In conversation with David Davis: Just a day after the (increasingly precarious) June 21st “victory over Covid” day, John Macdonald will be joined by the Rt Hon David Davis MP to discuss the impact of Covid policy, lessons learned, and whether the Government is up to the post-pandemic challenge. Register here!
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Catch Up:
The changing tax consensus. The ASI’s Morgan Schondelmeier asks Steve Baker MP and tax expert Richard Teather why it is that suddenly everyone is talking about raising taxes — even though we know that the tax take in the UK and many other European countries is well above the growth-optimising level. Is there a way to keep taxes under control and still grow our way out of our Covid debts? Watch it here.
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Podcasts:
The dulcet tones of an Aussie lad and the not-so-dulcet tones of an Essex boy.
Find The Pin Factory on all your favourite podcast providers: iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Podbean.
Delaying Reopening, Global Minimum Taxes and Market Environmentalism. The ASI’s Matthew Lesh and Daniel Pryor welcome Julian Morris, Senior Fellow at Reason Foundation and Senior Scholar at International Centre of Law and Economics. In this podcast they discuss rumoured delays to reopening on June 21st, Biden’s global minimum corporation tax and how free markets can help the environment.
Cummings’ Covid Claims, Great British Railways and the Australia-UK Free Trade Deal. The duo chat through Dominic Cummings’ criticisms of the Government’s crisis handling, proposals for effective renationalisation of Britain’s railways and negotiations for an Australia-UK free trade deal with the IEA’s Head of Public Affairs Emma Revell.
The Great Unlocking, Vaccine Patents, and Covid Fictions. Our hosts are joined by King's College London's Dr. Stuart Ritchie to discuss the risks posed by the Indian variant, vaccine patents and the use of science during the Covid pandemic: covered in Stuart’s recent book Science Fictions.
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We’re looking for a few good, er, men/women/others. Specifically, we are looking for one, or if we’re really feeling generous, two, students aged 18-20 to spend a Gap Year with us between A-levels and university. You need to be freedom-minded, inquisitive, friendly, intellectually curious, eager to learn and interested in policy.
You won’t be slaving over a hot photocopier too much, but you will be formatting our publications, doing research for our writers, helping run the website, setting up events, being helpful to our friends and supporters, writing blog posts and articles, learning about policy and economics, making contacts in Westminster, socialising (a lot) with the staff and generally becoming a genius, like many of our previous Gap Years. If that isn’t reward enough, we pay just enough to keep you in stale bread crusts and secondhand clothes from the charity shop.
Sounds like fun? Visit the Gap Year page and apply!
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Our work on Tax Freedom Day was featured in The Telegraph, and on TalkRADIO, while I wrote for ConservativeHome and Harry Phibbs wrote for CapX on Tax Freedom Day and the free market tradition.
The landmark polling on British and Australian attitudes towards a free trade deal featured in The Telegraph, The Express, The Sydney Morning Herald, CANZUKInternational, and Wired, while Matthew Lesh explained the results for CapX.
On the topic of international corporation tax minimum, Morgan Schondelmeier appeared on Sky News’ Ian King Live to dismantle the idea and wrote further in CapX. Lesh appeared in The Telegraph and The Express and Matt Kilcoyne wrote for ConservativeHome and his comments featured in SkyNews, The Times, The Telegraph, Daily Mail, i Newspaper, Yahoo News.
In a flashback to the 1940s, Dan's comments on rail nationalisation featured in The Telegraph, MSN and Matthew Lesh wrote on the topic for The Telegraph (I go on holiday for one week and the rails get nationalised! –– Ed.).
ASI Fellow and all around good fella Mark Oates wrote for CapX on why Britain must stand up against WHO’s anti-science approach to tobacco harm reduction, and also spoke about anti-science bans on smoking in Oxfordshire on BBC Radio 5 Live.
In never-ending news, Lesh commented in The Telegraph on Biden’s Trumpian approach to China and Kilcoyne calls the EU a hostile foreign power in The Express; Kilcoyne's thoughts on how the SNP’s independence drive would cause incredible economic harm featured in The Express; and continuing to push back against online harms, Lesh featured again in The Telegraph and Principa Scientific; in a popular piece, research associate Hannah Ord encouraged us all to acknowledge the faults of the NHS so we can work to create a health system that works in CapX; and for good measure, Lesh wrote for The Telegraph on the merits of private equity and how it’s a force for good.
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KNOW SOMEONE WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN OUR E-BULLETIN?
SEND THEM THE LINK BELOW!
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On our hyper-blog
If you want to produce affordable housing, says Tim Ambler, don’t bureaucratise the process — as we are doing. “With the Affordable Homes Programme, Homes England and Homes for Londoners,” he says, “the government has created a dense layer of expensive bureaucracy.” It’s a top down process that should be driven bottom up. Local people have a far better idea of what and where housing is needed than distant bureaucrats, beholden to the Treasury. His conclusion: let's get rid of the “Kafkaesque meddlers.”
On the same theme, Tim Worstall despairs at how government initiatives systematically mess up the market. The First Homes Initiative, for example, gives first-time buyers a whopping 50% discount on new-build homes. But ‘experts’ say the demand for these cut-price homes will probably exceed supply. “The very price itself is what creates the shortage, Worstall groans. “People queue up to buy stuff at lower than market price? Gerraway!"
Elsewhere
Jethro Elsden of the Centre for Policy Studies wrote in CapX on tariff-free trade and farmers — noting ASI research.
Jason Reed, the founder of Young Voices UK, wrote for ConservativeHome on the misguided Government approach towards tackling obesity and quoted ASI work on the Mad Ad Ban Plan.
In a big scientific development, researchers believe they have found a way to extract high-purity lithium from seawater — and it’s economically efficient to boot.
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AND I QUOTE...
Following on from Ben Franklin on taxes, and paraphrasing slightly Will Rogers, whose homespun wisdom seems entirely appropriate to the G7 finance minister’s cunning scheme to raise taxes internationally:
"The difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time the policymakers meet up"
Bye,
e
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