No, not the Government - a real one!

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** IN THIS BULLETIN:
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* Reports: why the online safety bill threatens all our safety and more
* Movie projects: Communism and Adam Smith (no, they’re not the same)
* Superblog and meeja: comments on policy, politics, and priorities


** BUT FIRST...
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As Liz Truss concluded her party conference, she must have thought of the three words that any woman would want to be said at her funeral: “She’s still breathing!” BNP Paribas says we need 3,000 new retirement villages (presumably anticipating an influx of ex-Tory MPs; and maybe the hot air they generate can be used to keep the places warm). Mind you, inflation and house price crashes mean no early retirement for most of us (except bonus-enriched bankers, of course).

After the mini-Budget last month, a maxi-Budget is planned for 31 October (presumably in the hope that it will be lost among the other horrors of Halloween).

It looks like King Charles’s coronation will be on 6 May (though if the train strikes carry on, you’ll be watching it on TV). And the Supreme Court has ruled that the Scots can go ahead and hold an independence referendum (so he might not be King of much anyway).

Health Secretary Thérèse Coffey has told her civil servants to drop the Oxford comma, which is a bit much from someone with both aigu and grave accents in her name. (And must have confused anyone who went down to the canteen and found the menu now comprised bread and soup and fish and chips and rhubarb and custard and coffee and cream and lemonade.) (When is she going to do something about greengrocer’s apostrophe’s, I wonder?—Ed.)

Ben Bernanke is one of the winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in economics. A friend in Washington DC says the last time they met, Bernanke predicted that inflation would fall over 2020. (Which fully conforms to the high standards of forecasting we expect from economists.)

I was out and about at the old Hornby factory in Margate this week, where the Museum of Communist Terror is storing a Russian T-55 tank while they look for permanent accommodation. Last used in Prague Spring, cramped, very clunky and smelling of diesel, 2mpg, several careless owners. (Brings whole new meaning to Director of a Think TANK, geddit? –Ed.)
But I digress...


** FINISH THE YEAR STRONG
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The end of the year is fast approaching and there's still so much to do! We have more events, more research, and more media bids in the pipeline, along with so many exciting projects for 2023. Our work educating politicians, the general public and the next generation is so important and we couldn't do it without your help.

If you'd like to help us finish the year strong, help us shore up our coffers to keep our good work going. It's easy! Just click this button below.
Donate to the Adam Smith Research Trust ([link removed])


** IN THE THINK TANK
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** Research
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The online safety bill ([link removed]) sure doesn’t make privacy, security or the economy much safer, writes the ASI’s John Macdonald. Giving governments access to encrypted communications just invites blackmailers, criminals, corrupt officials and hostile governments to exploit flaws in security — making the UK an unsafe place to do business.

The latest salvo ([link removed]) in our bombardment of civil service numbers hits the Department for Work and Pensions. It’s doing lots of things very badly, says Tim Ambler. It needs clear targets, and several of its satellite bodies should be closed or privatised—saving over 20% of its staff.

Tim has also ([link removed]) been tilting at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. He reckons that at core it needs no more than 500 staff, and various of its satellite bodies should be closed. It might even be amalgamated with the Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland offices, saving three seats at the Cabinet table — and 88% of its staff could simply go.

Freeports ([link removed]) or ‘Investment Zones’ are back on the agenda. Prior to the mini-budget, economist and writer Sam Ashworth-Hayes wrote a paper for us on how tailoring the freeport model to address the UK’s unique policy failures can boost growth and provide a proof-of-concept for beneficial future reforms to the wider economy.


** Videos
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We are gearing up our documentary project on The Real History of Communism. A good wodge of today’s yoof, particularly students in the US, think that the system that killed about 100m people is really cool, so our plan is to disabuse them. Taking Russia, China and now Venezuela as case studies, we look at what makes communism seem so attractive and why it always ends in poverty and oppression. And we’ll be taking our message around the TV stations of the world. To contribute to this project and find out more, email [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]?subject=Real%20History%20of%20Communism) .

June next year marks Adam Smith’s 300th birthday. (No, he’s not still alive, except in spirit.) So naturally we’re organising a birthday party, I hope in the House of Lords. And I am also hoping that we can make another TV film about the great man’s life and work, and to bring his ideas to a new generation and a wider, international audience. Again, if you would like to support this worthwhile project, just reply to this bulletin and I will give you the details.


** Events
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Standing room only at our events around the Conservative Party Conference (Well, who would want to be in the actual thing itself?—Ed.). Topics included letting public demand decide the priorities for government agencies (with Liam Fox MP, Tom Harwood of GBNews, ex No-10 Pollster James Johnson and CapX editor John Ashmore ), the online safety bill (with Cambridge Prof Ross Anderson, Jun Pang of Liberty, internet lawyer Graham Smith, and commentator Sam Ashworth-Hayes), and intergenerational inequality (with Mark Harper MP, Alice Denby of CapX, commentator James Dickson and Aria Babu of the Entrepreneur’s Network).


** NEW ADDITIONS
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We’ve been joined this week by two gap year interns, Eddie Bolland and Sofia Risino. They won’t be chained to the photocopier like most gap years, but will become full members of the team like our previous interns — some of whom have gone on to be ministerial advisers and other kinds of high-flyers. They'll be with us for the next 10 months, so expect our output and effectiveness to soar!

Our team featured in various media outlets to discuss the fall-out from the mini-budget - Morgan Schondelmeier was on Newsnight ([link removed]) , and in the Daily Express ([link removed]) , I was on GBNews ([link removed]) and Daniel Pryor was on BBC Radio 2 ([link removed]) .

Our reaction to Keir Starmer’s and Liz Truss’ Conference speeches made their way into Sky News ([link removed]) , and the Telegraph here ([link removed]) and here ([link removed]) , whilst John Macdonald analysed Truss’ speech for the Daily Express. ([link removed])

In miscellaneous media news, Daniel co-signed a letter to The Times ([link removed]) calling for a replacement of ineffective land subsidies, Emily Fielder was quoted in CityAm ([link removed]) on countering local objectives to vital national infrastructure projects and in The Telegraph ([link removed]) on uprating benefits with inflation, John was in French newspaper Les Echos ([link removed]) on ‘Trussonomics’ and in CapX ([link removed]) discussing end-to-end encryption, I was in CapX ([link removed]) on reducing the number of bureaucrats in Whitehall, and Sam Ashworth-Hayes, the author of our ‘Full-Fat Freeports paper, was in CapX
([link removed]) on how they can boost growth.


** SUPERBLOG
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The key to tackling climate change ([link removed]) , we suggest, is pricing. For example, to create new aluminium from bauxite costs about $1000 per tonne; to remelt existing aluminium costs about $50 per tonne. So that’s $950 of electricity recycled. But we don’t recycle the rare metals in computer hard drives because it just ain’t worth it. Unfortunately, Greenpeace, Greta et. al. want us to recycle just about everything — and that’s just wasting scarce resources.

And on that theme ([link removed]) , the shadow climate change secretary, Ed Miliband MP, wants to see more investment in renewables. and the Green Party’s Caroline Lewis says that renewables are now nine times cheaper than fossil fuels. Well, if they really were, investment would already be flooding into them. Greedy capitalists would be investing where costs are lowest and therefore profits are highest. If they’re not, maybe renewables aren’t actually all that cheap at all…

Is there really no fat ([link removed]) for the government to cut, as the high-profile London doctoral student Rosie Collington writes in the Guardian? Don’t be daft. Start with what the state doesn’t have to do and does badly, things it shouldn’t do at all, and the cost of all those things the state must do but messes up. Just cancelling HS2, for example, would cut 10% of government spending...


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** AND I QUOTE...
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"Inflation is probably the most important single factor in that vicious circle wherein one kind of government action makes more and more government control necessary. For this reason all those who wish to stop the drift toward increasing government control should concentrate their effort on monetary policy.”
— F A Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty

—Which rather makes one think that the Bank of England is pretty laid back about increasing government control, doesn’t it?

Bye,


e

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