Tim Montgomerie For all those interested in boosting Britain's long-term economic competitiveness I recommend a series of blogs from the IEA that Sir Humphry Appleby would no doubt tell ministers were "courageous"… Philip Booth looked at the way Britain's planning system was hampering business: "[Britain has] some of the highest property prices in the world […]
Kristian Niemietz is Poverty Research Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs, whose latest proposals are outlined in more detail in a major new report released today, A New Understanding of Poverty, which is available at the IEA website. Imagine our government managed to enact policies that brought down the cost of essential goods and […]
Ruth Porter is Communications Manager at the Institute of Economic Affairs. The latest edition of the Index of Economic Freedom has just been published, and for the second year in a row the UK has slipped down the rankings. Now with a score of only 74.5, two points less than last year, we sit five places […]
Tim Montgomerie Four of London's leading think tanks have all attacked today's increase in VAT to 20%; an increase that George Osborne intends to be a permanent rather than emergency fixture. Leading the charge has been Matthew Sinclair of the TaxPapers' Alliance. Speaking to the BBC earlier he pointed out that David Cameron had broken […]
Professor Philip Booth is Editorial and Programme Director at the Institute of Economic Affairs. The Government is pressing ahead with another reorganisation of the National Health Service. It is unlikely this reordering of our essentially bureaucrat-driven model will set the world alight. Certainly there is not much chance of the NHS becoming the envy of […]
Professor Philip Booth is Editorial and Programme Director at the Institute of Economic Affairs, which recently published Fair Trade Without the Froth by Sushil Mohan. A few weeks ago, the IEA published an in-depth study of Fair Trade, Fair Trade Without the Froth. The Hilton/Cameron-rebranded Conservative Party likes Fair Trade and there are good reasons […]
Following on from the pieces about the government policies inspired by the Centre for Policy Studies, Policy Exchange, the TaxPayers' Alliance and Direct Democracy, here is the response from the Institute of Economic Affairs as to how it has influenced Coalition policy. The main objective of the IEA is to change the climate of opinion […]
Terry Arthur is a Fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs and co-author, with Philip Booth, of Does Britain need a Financial Regulator? which is published today by the IEA. In 1997 Gordon Brown removed the so-called “self-regulatory” system for financial services under the Securities and Investment Board and created the Financial Services Authority (FSA). […]
Martin Cassini is founder of the traffic think tank FiT Roads. He has published an article in the current edition of the Institute of Economic Affairs journal Economic Affairs – Traffic Lights: Weapons of Mass Distraction, Danger & Delay, in this article he argues that traffic system reform offers unparalleled scope for beneficial spending cuts. […]
Nick Silver has produced a report for the Institute of Economic Affairs entitled A Bankruptcy Foretold 2010: Post-Financial-Crisis Update. Silver argues that policymakers should include pension liabilities and "and a reasonable estimate of the likely liabilities to be incurred by the government in respect of the banking sector" within their calculations of the national debt. […]
On the IEA blog, Professor Tim Congdon has listed five reasons why the future trend rate of growth might be closer to 1.5%pa than the 2.5%pa that has been typical of the post-war period: Slower labour force growth and the steady retirement of the baby boom generation. The bigger role played by the public sector […]
The Institute for Fiscal Studies notes that today's cuts are "less than a tenth of the fiscal repair job" that Alistair Darling said was going to be necessary. Andrew Lilico, Chief Economist of Policy Exchange identifies the Departments which have suffered the largest cuts: [Today's cuts as a percentage of today's budgets | The extent […]
Philip Booth, Editorial and Programme Director of the Institute of Economic Affairs warns against Coalition policy on CGT. Organising a coalition agreement is never easy. There has to be give and take on both sides. However, the Conservatives have made a big mistake in accepting some aspects of Lib Dem tax policy – especially in […]
Last week David Cameron announced plans to recruit and train 5,000 community workers as part of his 'Bigger Society, Smaller Government' agenda. The idea has been condemned by Mark Littlewood of the Institute of Economic Affairs… "It’s all very well for the Conservatives to wax lyrical about the merits of a post-bureaucratic age, but their […]
Ahead of today's Budget the centre right and reformist think tanks have been lining up to offer Alistair Darling advice. Here's a summary of what they're saying. There is an air of unreality about the tough decisions that are going to be necessary, according to Mark Littlewood of the IEA: “Politicians are not talking seriously […]