Tim Dier is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies. He spent 15 years in senior roles at Morgan Stanley, and believes proven policy solutions from around the world can boost British prosperity.
Countless column inches are written about the downright mess that we find our country in. Successive Tory governments lost their way, and the Conservative Party under Kemi Badenoch has rightly admitted that mistakes were made and lessons are being learnt.
The Labour government is hellbent on digging an even deeper hole through further increasing taxes, regulation, and driving up energy prices. In doing so, it merely brings forward the day of reckoning. Meanwhile, under new management, the Conservative Party is breaking out with a positive and refreshing vision for our country.
Be it Kemi Badenoch’s pledge to abolish Stamp Duty, Claire Coutinho’s Cheap Power Plan, or Andrew Griffith’s commitment to abolish the majority of Labour’s damaging Employment Rights Act 2025 and axe swathes of ESG and DEI diktats, the direction is clear.
Our time in opposition is time for listening, learning and being bold with ideas. Which is why in recent days I led a delegation of senior policy experts from the Centre for Policy Studies, Adam Smith Institute, Onward, Works in Progress, and Britain Remade, to Madrid to meet and learn from my friend Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the brilliant and talented President of the Community of Madrid.
President Ayuso is from the People’s Party, the Conservative Party’s sister party in Spain.
Perhaps no coincidence, they too have a right-wing populist party – Vox – trying to eclipse them electorally. But in the Community of Madrid, through her boldness and fighting for her citizens’ freedoms, she has successfully squeezed Vox’s vote share.
As I have advocated in CapX and CityAM, the UK needs to learn and adapt proven policy solutions that have already been discovered by others. Only then will the UK be able to lead from the front once more. The Region of Madrid is one such place with lessons abound.
Ayuso has championed Madrid-style liberalism of low taxes, limited regulation, and “freedom” messaging driving prosperity. She has twice cut regional income tax rates, brought in a 20 per cent point deduction for investors/relocators, and expanded their near-zero % inheritance tax for transfers to close family members to also include family business transfers.
Low tax policies have attracted businesses and affluent residents to the Region of Madrid from high tax regions such as Catalonia, and further afield from other countries, too. The very kind of immigration we were told our points-based system would attract to the UK.
Walking the bustling streets of a low-tax, high-growth Madrid – its economy grew at 3.4 per cent in 2024, employment numbers are at record highs – one can feel the buzz in the air. Despite, or because of Ayuso’s 32 tax cuts since 2019, tax revenues have grown, leading her and her team to argue that the Laffer Curve is alive and well based in the Community of Madrid.
A stark contrast to the UK’s ever rising income tax take, the family farm tax, the family business tax, and now including pension pots in the inheritance tax net. Is it any wonder that our economy barely grows and our wealthy residents are fleeing to lower tax jurisdictions overseas?
But it is not just on tax cuts that Ayuso is charting a path we should learn from. Her leadership of the Community of Madrid has delivered countless other deregulation and pro-business policies.
Ayuso’s pro-development stance is a stark contrast to the UK’s NIMBYism. She has banged heads together to break ground on the Madrid Nuevo Norte housing and office regeneration project. Think Canary Wharf or New York’s Hudson Yards. While we have forgotten how to build, they have shovels in the ground to deliver new homes and offices for their citizens.
Madrid has past form, too. According to my colleague Ben Hopkinson, Head of Housing and Infrastructure at the CPS, Madrid tripled the length of their metro system in just 12 years — faster and cheaper than almost any other city in the world. He noted “According to project folklore, these engineers would meet up after their shifts in Madrid’s tapas bars and discuss their challenges or successes, engaging in informal competitions to tunnel faster, encouraging speed and reducing costs.”
When compared to major American and western European cities, Madrid has the largest area reachable within 30-45 minutes by public transport. The effect is to significantly expand the labour market, as more people can easily reach central jobs and amenities. Not to mention the increased quality of life from shorter commuting times.
From Ayuso boldly cutting income tax and all but eliminating inheritance tax, her tough stance on law and order, through to her positive dynamism and aspiration to make Madrid the Miami of Europe, we can learn a lot from her leadership.
A decisive and bold, Ayuso style low-tax and championing aspiration agenda by the next Conservative government in the UK could reignite pent-up demand and deliver growth and prosperity that our younger generations never even knew could exist.
With renewed national pride, optimism and creative energy, they too could experience a 21st century version of Cool Britannia.
Tim Dier is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies. He spent 15 years in senior roles at Morgan Stanley, and believes proven policy solutions from around the world can boost British prosperity.
Countless column inches are written about the downright mess that we find our country in. Successive Tory governments lost their way, and the Conservative Party under Kemi Badenoch has rightly admitted that mistakes were made and lessons are being learnt.
The Labour government is hellbent on digging an even deeper hole through further increasing taxes, regulation, and driving up energy prices. In doing so, it merely brings forward the day of reckoning. Meanwhile, under new management, the Conservative Party is breaking out with a positive and refreshing vision for our country.
Be it Kemi Badenoch’s pledge to abolish Stamp Duty, Claire Coutinho’s Cheap Power Plan, or Andrew Griffith’s commitment to abolish the majority of Labour’s damaging Employment Rights Act 2025 and axe swathes of ESG and DEI diktats, the direction is clear.
Our time in opposition is time for listening, learning and being bold with ideas. Which is why in recent days I led a delegation of senior policy experts from the Centre for Policy Studies, Adam Smith Institute, Onward, Works in Progress, and Britain Remade, to Madrid to meet and learn from my friend Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the brilliant and talented President of the Community of Madrid.
President Ayuso is from the People’s Party, the Conservative Party’s sister party in Spain.
Perhaps no coincidence, they too have a right-wing populist party – Vox – trying to eclipse them electorally. But in the Community of Madrid, through her boldness and fighting for her citizens’ freedoms, she has successfully squeezed Vox’s vote share.
As I have advocated in CapX and CityAM, the UK needs to learn and adapt proven policy solutions that have already been discovered by others. Only then will the UK be able to lead from the front once more. The Region of Madrid is one such place with lessons abound.
Ayuso has championed Madrid-style liberalism of low taxes, limited regulation, and “freedom” messaging driving prosperity. She has twice cut regional income tax rates, brought in a 20 per cent point deduction for investors/relocators, and expanded their near-zero % inheritance tax for transfers to close family members to also include family business transfers.
Low tax policies have attracted businesses and affluent residents to the Region of Madrid from high tax regions such as Catalonia, and further afield from other countries, too. The very kind of immigration we were told our points-based system would attract to the UK.
Walking the bustling streets of a low-tax, high-growth Madrid – its economy grew at 3.4 per cent in 2024, employment numbers are at record highs – one can feel the buzz in the air. Despite, or because of Ayuso’s 32 tax cuts since 2019, tax revenues have grown, leading her and her team to argue that the Laffer Curve is alive and well based in the Community of Madrid.
A stark contrast to the UK’s ever rising income tax take, the family farm tax, the family business tax, and now including pension pots in the inheritance tax net. Is it any wonder that our economy barely grows and our wealthy residents are fleeing to lower tax jurisdictions overseas?
But it is not just on tax cuts that Ayuso is charting a path we should learn from. Her leadership of the Community of Madrid has delivered countless other deregulation and pro-business policies.
Ayuso’s pro-development stance is a stark contrast to the UK’s NIMBYism. She has banged heads together to break ground on the Madrid Nuevo Norte housing and office regeneration project. Think Canary Wharf or New York’s Hudson Yards. While we have forgotten how to build, they have shovels in the ground to deliver new homes and offices for their citizens.
Madrid has past form, too. According to my colleague Ben Hopkinson, Head of Housing and Infrastructure at the CPS, Madrid tripled the length of their metro system in just 12 years — faster and cheaper than almost any other city in the world. He noted “According to project folklore, these engineers would meet up after their shifts in Madrid’s tapas bars and discuss their challenges or successes, engaging in informal competitions to tunnel faster, encouraging speed and reducing costs.”
When compared to major American and western European cities, Madrid has the largest area reachable within 30-45 minutes by public transport. The effect is to significantly expand the labour market, as more people can easily reach central jobs and amenities. Not to mention the increased quality of life from shorter commuting times.
From Ayuso boldly cutting income tax and all but eliminating inheritance tax, her tough stance on law and order, through to her positive dynamism and aspiration to make Madrid the Miami of Europe, we can learn a lot from her leadership.
A decisive and bold, Ayuso style low-tax and championing aspiration agenda by the next Conservative government in the UK could reignite pent-up demand and deliver growth and prosperity that our younger generations never even knew could exist.
With renewed national pride, optimism and creative energy, they too could experience a 21st century version of Cool Britannia.