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Like this bulletin? Tell your friends. Don’t like it? Tell me. — E
IN THIS ADAM SMITH INSTITUTE E-BULLETIN:
- REPORTS: Energy security and saving 2 million years of life
- EVENTS: Join us in person or online
- STUFF: Schools, podcasts, media, and more
BUT FIRST...
Well, here I am slaving over a hot laptop when I could be out sunbathing. (Quite right too. These electrons don’t move themselves, you know—Ed.) So let me start with a round up of the recent news.
As the cost of living crisis continues, the boss of Appliances Direct says that fridge-freezer prices are up by 30% (Which is of little consequence, since nobody can afford food to put in them any more.) While Boris is being fined for attending lockdown ‘gatherings’, Nicola Sturgeon will not face a fine for failing to wear a facemask in a shop. (But then Boris doesn’t live in a one-party state like Scotland.) Sir Keir Starmer dismissed Boris’s apology to Parliament as ‘a joke’. (But since for the last two years he’s been calling Boris ‘a joker’, what does he expect?)
There are local elections across the country in a couple of weeks, and Grant Shapps has gone on TV to announce he’s selling a million rail tickets cheap. (These two things are obviously unconnected.)
Jacob Rees-Mogg has told ministers to stop civil servants working from home. (Actually, if they simply stopped civil servants working at all, we’d be better off.) And asylum seekers are being sent to Rwanda (hopefully with Home Office civil servants accompanying them).
But I digress…
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Shocking Statistics: Energy Security in a Net Zero World
The cost of living crisis and massive disruptions to the global energy market have sharpened focus on what steps are necessary to solidify the UK’s future energy security. In our most recent paper ASI fellow Tim Ambler and Professor Peter Edwards point out that figuring out the perfect mix of renewable, nuclear, and oil & gas to safeguard continuous supply and distribution is not an easy task. Of course if you look at the Government’s energy security strategy it’s a piece of cake and they’ve got it all sorted. I’ll leave you to decide who might take a more realistic stance on the situation.
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2 Million Years of Life: How Safer Smoking Alternatives Can Level up Health and Tackle the Cost of Living Crisis
The Government is constantly going on about levelling up, cutting the cost of living and seizing the benefits of Brexit. All well and good, but they aren’t seizing the opportunity to do all three at once via—you guessed it—vaping. Resident wonk Daniel Pryor and Fellow Mark Oates have crunched the numbers and found that if the smoking rate in the North was reduced to London’s by smokers switching to vaping, nearly 2 million years of life would be saved. At a time of squeezed wallets, the average smoker in these regions could boost their annual disposable income by upwards of 10% if they switched to a safer alternative. How to make this happen? Scrap EU-era red tape and ensure the Government takes other reduced-risk products seriously.
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We've got a lot planned for this year. With events restarting, more interest from schools for ASI talks than ever, and a pressing cost of living crisis and levelling up puzzle, we are not short for ideas or policies. What we need now is the resources to put these into practice.
If you think you can help us, please consider donation to our work. We rely entirely on donations and didn't avail ourselves of any Government Covid support, so contributions like yours really make a difference.
It's easy! Just click the button below or send an email to Morgan and she will help you.
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Misrepresenting Adam Smith. On 4 May, David Friedman, author of The Machinery of Freedom, takes on the critics who claim that Adam Smith supported progressive taxation, state education, antitrust laws and much else. Email [email protected] for invites to the live event or catch it on Zoom here.
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What did medieval Iceland ever do for us? Well, it showed us that a society with a rule of law but not much in the way of a government establishment could survive for centuries and produce rather beneficial results, it appears. To highlight just how, Gabriel Sein and John Nugee have written a novel — a modern saga called Sailing Free — set in this interesting world.
Resource depletion? Don’t Worry! Earlier this month, Hawaii-based business professor Gale Pooley explained why hand-wringing about overpopulation and resource depletion is baloney. Resources have actually become more abundant over time, thanks to human ingenuity and market-led entrepreneurial discovery. So sleep soundly and don’t listen to the doomsayers. Catch up online here.
Free market road show. I’m touring Europe on the roadshow, bringing free market and free society ideas to groups around various European cities. Recently I spoke on the social benefits of freedom to the energetic new Portuguese think-tank Mais Liberdade in Porto, and next week it’s London and Zurich. Then later next month I’m in Poland to speak at the Atlas Network Europe Forum in Warsaw. Phew!
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The Pin Factory. Each week we and our guests discuss matters of moment, and aim to raise a smile or two along the way, in our regular podcast.
Recent episodes include Privatising Channel 4, Civil Service Culture and the Energy Security Strategy, Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sunak’s Mais Lecture and the Policing Bill, and the very special Spring Statement Special.
Plus, after so long listening to Daniel and Matthew Lesh’s dulcet tones, you may be glad to hear that our newest addition to the team Emily Fielder is making a splash as a frequent podcast host.
Listen on Spotify or any other fine podcast provider.
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The Spectator's James Heale on Civil Service culture for The Pin Factory
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ISOS at Burford School. Next week we’ll be making a return visit to Burford School in Oxfordshire to speak to their business and economics students. I’ll cover what’s wrong with politics (remember you only have 45 minutes––Ed.), Daniel Pryor will be doing the economics of immigration, Morgan Schondelmeier will cover trade vs aid, and more. If you’d like us to visit your school (or have a kid in your life still subject to lessons) please email Daniel - [email protected].
School visits. Morgan and Daniel both ventured to area schools this week, with Morgan speaking to Year 12s and 13s at Swakeley’s Girls School and Daniel returning to his very own Westcliff High School for Boys to chat to the young'uns following in his footsteps (hopefully not too closely––Ed.)
Freedom week. There’s just over a week for incoming and current university students to get their application in for our fantastic Freedom Week seminar in Cambridge! Successful applicants will spend the week immersed in talks from some of Britain's leading thinkers on classical liberalism in Cambridge (and more importantly explore the city’s excellent drinking establishments in the evenings––Ed.) Find out more and apply here.
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Prioritization. Madsen Pirie, the fons et origo of the Citizen’s Charter — which gave us the right to compensation when public services mess up — has another suggestion for tightening up Whitehall’s work. Government doesn’t have unlimited resources, he says. Like the rest of us, departments need to prioritize, do what’s important, and forget the rest. What should the police, the NHS or schools be focused on producing? And what not?
Are CEOs worth the money? President Macron doesn’t think so. He wants an EU limit on executive pay. Which Britain might well welcome, because it will drive executive talent here, says Tim Worstall. Japanese firms famously pay their CEOs much less than American firms do — nearly half in some cases — which might explain why US firms earn far more than Japanese ones.
Why is the defence ministry so bad at procurement? Delays, financial overruns and equipment failures (such as unusable tanks and aircraft carriers with no aircraft) cost taxpayers billions and draw the teeth of our armed forces. But that’s what happens when ministry officials interfere in every purchase. Tim Ambler asks: Why not just let the armed forces go straight to suppliers — like anyone else would do — rather than get bogged down by the bureaucrats?
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Our comment on the Government’s plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was particularly picked up by the media, and was included in The Guardian and The Mirror. Emily Fielder and Fiona Townsley criticised the deal with Rwanda in CapX and 1828 respectively.
Our team has been further bemoaning the lack of evidence-based policy making in government over the last month. Emily highlighted the damaging impacts of the new mandated calorie counts on menus in CapX, whilst Fiona analysed the negative economic and social outcomes of this nanny-state policy for 1828.
Turning to sound government policy, Emily wrote for Conservative Home and appeared on GB News, and Fiona wrote for 1828 to discuss privatising Channel 4, something which the ASI has been calling for since the 1980s.
Following the publication of our Shocking Statistics: Energy Security in a Net Zero World paper, Morgan Schondelmeier highlighted the need to put in safeguards to ensure a continuous supply of energy in CapX. She was also quoted in CityAM criticising the lack of onshore wind development in the face of NIMBY opposition. Our other research papers appeared in the media too; Fellow Mark Oates discussed our 2 Million Years of Life paper in CapX.
Our other team members have been keeping busy; Charles Bromley-Davenport has been in 1828 making the case for childcare deregulation and in CapX to analyse the Economic Crime Bill. Our President, Dr Madsen Pirie, was also on GB News explaining the concept of privatisation, and how it can benefit the British economy.
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AND I QUOTE...
As you reflect on the cost of living — and as Rishi reflects on how he can now pay back all that debt with devalued banknotes — remember the wise words of Nobel economist Milton Friedman:
Inflation is taxation without legislation.
Says it all, really.
Bye,
e
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