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SOMETHING a bit different this time: I thought I would recap some of the achievements and outcomes that our great young team here at the Adam Smith Institute has achieved over what was — and still is — a difficult year for just about everyone.
BUT FIRST...
The year started with Education Secretary Gavin Williamson announcing that the summer’s A-level exams would be replaced by teacher assessment, saying he would ’trust in teachers rather than algorithms’. (Maybe — if you can find any who’re actually willing to work). The Supreme Court ruled that Uber drivers should be entitled to minimum wage and holiday pay. (So if you wondered why Ubers had suddenly become higher in price and fewer in number, now you know why.) Amazon launched its first UK cashierless grocery shop (demonstrating how efficiently the minimum wage can eliminate starter jobs).
Six Premier League clubs joined a new breakaway Super League. Boris Johnson condemned this, and they backed out. (There are people in Downing Street who seriously believe these events are related.) The BBC reported that almost 50 of the UK’s biggest employers did not plan to return to the office full-time. (Unfortunately the House of Commons is not one of them.) Former Tory MP and Commons Speaker John Bercow defected to Labour. (I mention this because there is no other evidence that anyone noticed.)
July brought a heatwave and the unveiling of a kitsch statue of Princess Diana (sparking concerns of new highs in global warming and bad taste). The SNP and Scottish Greens announced a new power-sharing agreement. (Why do politicians never announce power-giving-away agreements?) Boris Johnson announced the government’s new social-care reforms. (They were so detailed that he had to use the back of two envelopes.)
Tesco also introduced cashierless shops and the contactless card limit rose to £100, making it possible to do all your shopping without any human interaction at all. (Mind you, we’d all got used to that during lockdown.) And there’s been more grumbling about Boris’s doing-up of the Downing Street flat (though I bet his wallpaper didn’t cost the £80 a roll that Blair’s Lord Chancellor spent on his).
But I digress...
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THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT WAS
As I say, our young team had to spend much of this year working from home, some of them under less than ideal conditions in shared accommodation. So it has been amazing how many reports, webinars, newspaper articles, TV and radio appearances, and (finally) in-person events we have been able to produce. Indeed, we have had an exceptionally productive year. You can hear Matthew Lesh, Daniel Pryor, Morgan Schondelmeier, and John Macdonald's favourite (and least favourite) moments of the year in our Christmas Special edition of The Pin Factory!
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For example, we joined with several free speech and human rights organizations in the Save Online Speech Coalition. We defended the Adam Smith Statue in Edinburgh from the Woke Taliban. We made the Treasury squirm by pointing out that Tax Freedom Day now fell on 31st May, meaning that the average Brit works five full months solely for the government.
We had a hugely successful Freedom Week at which we taught enthusiastic students all about free markets and individual freedom. And school events too, in person and online. We got the government to ‘Repeal the P**n Laws’ so that people wouldn’t have to give their credit-card details to dodgy websites. The government endorsed our policy of ‘safe standing’ areas at football matches, and street votes for housing development got ministerial backing. Plus we're gearing up to produce a film on The Real History of Communism.
And much more - as you can tell by our yearly media output:
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BTW, we calculate that our Head of Research, Matthew Lesh, has written 32 Telegraph articles over the past year — from Privatisation and taxation, to Jacinda Ardern and Joe Biden. We’ll miss him but wish him all success in his new role at the Institute of Economic Affairs. (He’ll come crawling back pretty soon — Ed.)
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AND I QUOTE...
Looking back through the year reminds me of Robert E Lee’s comment: "A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday does not know where it is today". This might of course be why, as the economist John Kenneth Galbraith noted: "Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory".
OUR YEAR IN REVIEW
Well, I told you… I don’t know that I’ve remembered everything (Old age, huh? — Ed.) but here’s just a taste of what we got up to last year, promoting individual and economic freedom — against overwhelming odds, I have to say! Still, it’s eight of us versus 650 MPs, 783 lords, and 464,000 civil servants, so it’s a fair fight…
If you think you can help us, please consider donating to our work. Your contribution would help us achieve even more in 2022.
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Bye… And compliments of the season and a prosperous New Year to you.
e
Dr Eamonn Butler
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JANUARY
Speeding vaccinations, ending stagflation, and the special relationship
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As Joe Biden was being sworn in and Trump supporters stormed the capital, our year-opening, er, shot was Worth a Shot: Accelerating COVID-19 vaccinations by ASI Fellows James Lawson and Jonathon Kitson, and our own Matthew Lesh, explaining how to boost the vaccine roll-out. Not only did it feature in the major papers (Times, Telegraph, Mail, i Newspaper, Mirror etc), but the Government did actually take up many of our suggestions and the roll-out went quicker and smoother as a result. (MBEs for everyone involved! — Ed.) Plus, keeping an eye on the economics of it all, we commented in The Telegraph why corporation taxes must not rise and Morgan Schondelmeier appeared on Times Radio to discuss when Rishi should turn off the spending taps
Our webinars continued to pile on viewers too. In The End of the Great Stagnation former ASI Deputy Director Matt Kilcoyne was joined by leading economic and political voices to discuss the next era of Western economies. In What’s next? The Special Relationship in the First 100 Days our panel discussed Biden’s administration, goals, and the future of the 'special relationship’.
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FEBRUARY
Immigration and integration, Rand, innovation, and vaping
As Boris hailed the vaccine rollout as an ‘unprecedented national achievement’, Harry and Meghan quit the Royal Family, we hosted three more webinars, Rand on Our Times on the birthday of Atlas Shrugged author Ayn Rand, I hosted a panel on what she might have made of our current concerns, such as lockdowns, free speech, cancel culture, identity politics, tearing down statues and more. My colleague Dr Madsen Pirie then hosted leading economic historian and Industrial Revolution expert Dr Anton Howes, on the subject of innovation and its importance in getting us out of our present economic and medical stresses in The Power of Innovation. Our vice expert Daniel Pryor brought us Vape Nation with three other experts in the field of tobacco harm reduction to discuss how the UK can lead the world in embracing safer alternatives to smoking.
February also brought our report Global Britons: A fairer pathway to British citizenship by author Henry Hill and lawyer Andrew Young, on how to promote integration and make UK citizenship fairer. James Lawson was quoted in the Daily Mail, about the ways to accelerate the vaccine rollout, we were mentioned in The Telegraph, saying why a Rishi tax-grab is the wrong post-pandemic approach and Matthew Lesh criticised the witch hunt of company directors in The Telegraph.
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MARCH
Criticising tax hikes, the Budget, free speech, open societies, and Adam Smith
In March, Rishi Sunk presented his Budget and there were riots in Northern Ireland (They must have felt very strongly about it — Ed.) Our comments on the budget featured in The Sun, The Express, Conservative Home, The New Statesman, GuidoFawkes, the i Newspaper, and many other places. Plus, keeping an eye on Covid, James Lawson was quoted in the Daily Mail, on the worrying strife between second Covid jabs and the speed of transmission.
Our webinars were coming thick and fast. In Kick ‘em While They’re Down? The case against COVID-19 tax hikes, Matt Kilcoyne was joined by a series of experts to discuss the damaging effects of tax rises on our current economy. In The Budget: Best or Bust for Britain? an expert panel discussed the Budget’s likely impact on the economy. In The Perpetual Battle for Free Speech Dr Liam Fox MP and Jodie Ginsberg explored the issues in civil society, law, and the philosophical battle over what we should be able to say, when, and where. Then, Dr Madsen Pirie and author Johan Norberg engaged in a one on one conversation about open societies, progress, prosperity and why that’s all worth fighting for in Open Societies: Drivers of Progress and Prosperity.
We also found ourselves defending Adam Smith's legacy from Edinburgh City Council, which put his statue — an initiative of ours back in 2007 — on its investigation list, prompted by the ‘woke’ movement. We easily pointed out how Smith opposed slavery (on both moral and economic grounds) and didn’t think much of colonialism either. But we shouldn’t have needed to. In Adam Smith’s Legacy our expert panel discussed the pioneer economist’s relevance for today - including statues, slavery, empire, free speech, culture, community and identity and we had an article in The Spectator on the topic.
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APRIL
The problems of red tape, race disparities, and elections
April, sadly, brought the death of the Duke of Edinburgh. The European super league started (and ended) and we brought out Ignorantia legis: How the growing red tape burden undermines the rule of law and economic prosperity (the title pretty much says it all) by Prof Robin Ellison, which was reviewed online by several policy news websites that MPs and officials rely on. On the webinar front came Race and Britain in which our panel discussed the recent report by the Government’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities which investigated the extent and nature of racial disparities in the UK, as well as providing recommendations for policy change. Then in The British Midterms, Matt Kilcoyne was joined by experts from the media to examine the likely results and consequences of devolved elections.
Matt Kilcoyne roundly critiqued the Government’s plans to add calorie count labels to all alcohol drinks in CapX with comments in the Daily Mail, the Daily Mail again, the Mirror, Daily Express, i Newspaper, and Simple News. ASI Fellow Jonathon Kitson could be found commenting on the EU’s vaccine troubles in Financial Times, while Matthew Lesh featured in The Telegraph on the same topic.
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MAY
Tobacco harm, NHS rationing, defence, online safety, tax freedom day
The Conservatives won Hartlepool for the first time since 1974, and Dominic Cummings told MPs how useless the Government was (I think they probably knew that already — Ed.) On the 31st, we celebrated Tax Freedom Day, meaning that the average citizen now works five full months of the year solely to keep the government in socks.
We also produced The Golden Opportunity: How Global Britain can lead on tobacco harm reduction and save millions of lives (These self-descriptive titles are saving you a lot of work — Ed.) by our own Daniel Pryor, which featured in papers from The Sun to CityAM and online too. Plus, The doctor might see you now: Healthcare rationing in the NHS before and after the COVID-19 pandemic by medic Dr Robert Sutton showed how the NHS is failing to meet its central goal.
May’s webinars included The Role, Regulation, and Development of the Private Military Sector which explored the world of private military companies, looking at the role they play, how to regulate them when they act beyond their powers, and the direction of travel in the field. And in Safety Without Freedom? The Online Safety Bill our panel discussed what the Online Safety Bill could mean for the future of the internet, whether it will make the UK the safest place in the world to surf the internet, or whether it will simply censor legal speech.
Our response to the Online Safety Bill featured on TalkRadio, GB News, The Critic and was quoted in The Australian about the ultimate futility of this proposed bill. Matthew Lesh also wrote in The Telegraph that hurt feelings are no need to cancel free speech online.
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JUNE
UK-OZ trade, taxation, planning, the economy
In June, Matt Hancock resigned after being caught breaking covid rules by snogging with a work colleague. My own, higher-minded, colleague, Matthew Lesh, teamed up with C|T Group RSR director Dr Michael Turner on Ever closer mates: The deep support for a United Kingdom-Australia free trade deal which detailed our opinion polls showing that most Brits wanted closer links with Oz and were very happy about the trade benefits. Not only did this appear in UK papers like The Telegraph and the Express, it also featured in the Sydney Morning Herald and other antipodean media.
Plus, our comments on the Mad Ad Ban Plan featured in The Telegraph, The Sun, and The Telegraph again, while Morgan Schondelmeier wrote about it for ConservativeHome.
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June’s webinars included The Changing Tax Consensus in which our own Morgan Schondelmeier was joined by experts to discuss how the appetite for high spending and higher taxation is increasing following COVID. In The Planning Bill: Serious Reform or Missed Opportunity? our panel discussed whether the Planning Bill will make a significant impact on the UK’s housing woes, or be too watered down to make a meaningful difference. Then with In Conversation with Tyler Goodspeed we talked to the American economist, and our latest Senior Fellow, about his experience in the White House, the direction of the global economy, and his latest research.
On the topic of international corporation tax minimum, Morgan Schondelmeier appeared on Sky News’ Ian King Live to dismantle the idea and Matt Kilcoyne wrote for ConservativeHome and his comments featured in SkyNews, The Times, The Telegraph, Daily Mail, i Newspaper, Yahoo News.
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JULY
Against food nannies, global healthcare options, and the pingdemic
In July, England lost to Italy in the Euros final and lockdown rules were lifted. We continued as normal with webinars such as Sweet or Salty? Evaluating the National Food Strategy in which we discussed whether proposals such as increasing taxes on sugar and salt would combat the cost of Britain’s obesity crisis and lead to more healthy alternatives, or simply raise the prices of food without changing eating habits. Our Health Provision Around the World: Problems and Solutions webinar tackled the largest questions facing healthcare provision and the various problems and possible solutions that have arisen following the pandemic.
In the big narrative of July, our calculations on the impending 'pingdemic' –– millions of people forced to isolate by the NHS app –– were reported widely across the papers, including the front page of The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Sun, Guardian and Financial Times.
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AUGUST
Planning our immediate future, and teaching the long-term future
As the Taliban took over Afghanistan and I went to Scotland, we spent our time preparing our reports — and in-person events — for the autumn. We also had a very successful Freedom Week, our week-long intellectual boot camp for promising young student enthusiasts. Our attendees heard talks ranging from big tech and free market capitalism to the case against paternalism and the economics of the gender pay gap.
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SEPTEMBER
Green markets, life with Covid, and making building popular
National insurance went up, Emma Raducanu won the US Women’s Open, and the UK annoyed Monsieur Macron greatly by joining AUKUS. For us it was (another) busy month. Our scathing comments about the NI hike and calls for the triple lock to be scrapped entirely featured in the Independent, The Telegraph, Daily Mail, Metro, Express, Wired, GuidoFawkes, Newsfeed, BBC News, GB News, BBC Radio 4, TalkRadio, and we even elicited positive coverage in the The Guardian, multiple times
Then came It’s easy being green: Embracing nuclear energy, a bored-adjusted carbon tax, and clean free trade which we published with the British Conservation Alliance (BCA), and which was authored by BCA policy director Connor Tomlinson, outlining a market-centred approach to tackling environmental issues such as climate change. Again it appeared in papers and across the electronic media including Times Radio, TalkRADIO, and GB News.
September also brought Life With Covid: Boosting vaccines, injecting resilience and protecting liberty by ASI Senior Fellow James Lawson and Head of Research Matthew Lesh, outlining how to protect human life while not re-entering lockdowns in the face of endemic Covid-19. (So far, so good, sort of — Ed.) Again, it was featured across the print and online media.
And to top it off, we published, with C|T Local, Build Me Up, Level Up: Popular homebuilding while boosting local communities by Dr Michael Turner and Matthew Lesh, detailing our groundbreaking new poll about attitudes to housing reform — and showing that, yes, more building to help ease the housing shortage is potentially popular, if it’s done in the right way. Lots of coverage once again.
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OCTOBER
Competition, microschools, global taxes, market environmentalism, online safety, planning
October brought the tragic death of the popular Sir David Amess MP and a conference speech by Boris that was thought big on style but small on policy. Our quote saying just that made the front pages of The Guardian, CityAM, and The Independent. It also featured in The Times, The Telegraph, The Wall Street Journal, the Daily Mail, Sky News online, The Independent, Evening Standard, The National. Our excellent team furthered the buzz on Sky News (more than once), LBC, Times Radio, TalkRADIO, and GB News.
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Meanwhile, we teamed up with the Competitive Enterprise Institute on Submission: Competition and Markets Authority’s Facebook, Inc / Giphy, Inc merger inquiry on the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) investigation into the completed acquisition by Facebook, Inc of Giphy, Inc. Our report School’s Out: How microschools boost educational choice and quality by education policy expert Sophie Sandor outlined how microschools could boost educational outcomes and was featured in various influential outlets. Then, policy analyst Julian Morris explained how the global minimum tax proposal would endanger the UK’s national interest and economy in Draining Our Pockets: How the global tax cartel could cost Britons billions which was featured in The Telegraph, on GB News, and more.
We also organised seminars at the political party conferences, including Barriers to a Green Revolution outlining the core principles of free market environmentalism and showing how they can lead to a greener, freer, more prosperous society for future generations; The Golden Opportunity: How Britain can embrace tobacco harm reduction on how the UK has been successful in embracing safer smoking alternatives, what reforms could help more smokers make the switch, and what steps we can take to safeguard and advance this approach at the international level; Online Safety and Free Speech on the unprecedented threat to free speech posed by the Online Safety Bill and examined the unintended consequences of such a draconian approach; and Back Better Builds where, with new polling by the Adam Smith Institute and C|T Group, we explained public attitudes towards building, housing development and the solutions to the housing crisis we can all get behind.
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NOVEMBER
Net zero, Covid debts, better regulation, the state and Covid, stolen art, entrepreneurship, poverty
Glasgow ground to a halt under COP26 (bonus points for anyone who spotted our Matthew Lesh up there, making the case for free market environmentalism –– Ed.), inflation reached 4.2% and there was huge loss of life in the Channel. For our part, energy experts Tim Ambler and Profs Peter Edwards and Michael Kelly explained the uncertainties and challenges facing the UK’s Net Zero by 2050 strategy — and proposed a potential solution in Blind man’s buff? The UK Net Zero Strategy. Soon after, in I Owe You: A Churchillian Solution for the COVID Debt, Gabriel Stein and I argued that the Government could finance debt accrued from Covid-related spending in the same way as Britain has done for past wars: using ‘consols’. The idea featured in all the financial media, and was even endorsed by the Financial Times (Which must have been worrying to both sides — Ed.) Then we responded to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS)’s Reforming the framework for better regulation consultation in Submission: Reforming the framework for better regulation consultation with a submission by lawyer and consultant Robin Ellison, with our own Matthew Lesh.
Guido Fawkes posted a video reviewing our latest contribution to humanity: our ‘Spirit of the Invisible Hand’ whisky.
And we published Against The Man of System: Innovative Dynamism after COVID-19 in which Prof Dr Arthur M. Diamond, Jr, argued that the state lacks the entrepreneurialism and innovation provided by the private sector, struggled to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, and should not get more involved in issues such as climate change, semiconductors, infrastructure, and jobs. In-person events resumed, including Recovering Stolen and Looted Art in which Dr Anja Shortland, Professor in Political Economy at King's College London, explained how the market developed a private art recovery alternative to expensive litigation: a firm specialised in negotiating voluntary restitutions, profit-sharing between claimants, and (occasionally) ransoms.
Then there was the Ayn Rand Lecture where, in the beautiful Drapers’ Hall, Luke Johnson, serial entrepreneur and acclaimed author, talked on "Entrepreneurs – the Last Best Hope”, defending the idea that entrepreneurs are society’s finest defence against a risk-averse, overcautious culture. Government and big business are not the answer to our challenges. Then it was Tackling Poverty with Planning Reform at which John Penrose MP launched his forthcoming paper, Poverty Trapped, which emphasizes spreading opportunity by equipping people with the skills, education and attitudes — rather than equalizing incomes.
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DECEMBER
Singapore’s success, the benefits of gene editing, friends in high places
Boris announced Plan B after Allegra Stratton resigned over the 2020 Downing Street, er, wine and cheese gathering. (We used to play ‘living or dead’, but now we play ‘resigned or still in office’; it’s much faster-moving — Ed.) Most ordinary people would be exhausted by now, (Exhausted by this government, for sure — Ed.) but we pressed on, publishing Singapore-on-Thames: What the UK can learn from the Lion City by King’s College London academic Dr Bryan Cheang, outlining what the UK can learn from Singapore’s high-growth economy and social welfare system. It featured in The Telegraph, CityAM, CapX, Sky News and elsewhere. Then just last week came Splice of Life: The case for GMOs and gene editing by Cameron English, Director of Bio-Sciences at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), outlining how the UK can benefit from embracing gene editing and GMOs. And not one, but two Cabinet ministers –– Lord Frost and Nadhim Zahawi MP –– spoke at our annual end-of-year party near the Palace of Westminster.
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We need your support...
I’ve told you once, but let me say it again. We don’t take any government grants, and over the last 18 months we’ve resisted taking furlough payments and loans from taxpayers who are well overburdened enough. That means we rely exclusively on the financial support of people who understand the importance of what we do, for rational public debate and for freedom and prosperity in the United Kingdom and beyond.
If you thought our work this year was valuable - and we hope you do - please consider helping us continue our work with a donation to our efforts today.
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