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The FA should show government the red card
Philip Booth
26 September 2009
4 comments

The UK government has told the Football Association that it does not like its performance. Apparently it is not doing enough to advance the women’s game and for youth development, amongst...
Price-level targeting – the next big idea?
Philip Booth
25 September 2009
10 comments

If the next government, of whatever colour, insists on not taking the bold step of getting the government out of the production and management of the money supply – and political realism...
£50 billion of spending cuts: a good start
Philip Booth
14 September 2009
18 comments

The Institute of Directors and the Taxpayers’ Alliance have just produced a report on cutting public spending by £50billion. The report makes excellent reading and is possibly the first...
Complexity and central planning
Philip Booth
27 August 2009
8 comments

This little gem recently came to my attention:    The Pythagorean Theorem has 24 words. The ten commandments (English version) contain 138 words. US regulations about cabbages...
The NHS is safe in their hands – unfortunately
Philip Booth
14 August 2009
20 comments

In the row over Daniel Hannan’s comments on the NHS, David Cameron said: “Millions of people are grateful for the care they have received from the NHS – including my own family.” I suppose...
If the state expands, the private sector must shrink
Philip Booth
24 July 2009
4 comments

It was recently reported that over 50 pubs a week were closing as a result of an increase in beer tax. There seems to be some surprise that private sector economic activity is reducing (ignoring the...
Stating the obvious to two decimal places
Philip Booth
23 July 2009
2 comments

If you want to get on the front page of the BBC website and all over the news one morning then run an economic forecasting model with all the spurious accuracy and doubtful assumptions about...
The missed-conceptions of the welfare state
Philip Booth
29 June 2009
6 comments

Following on from Richard Wellings’ post on the welfare state and saving, perhaps I can comment on the welfare state and babies. Pay-as-you-go pensions systems rely on children to make...
Will Brown implement Peacock?
Philip Booth
17 June 2009
2 comments

No doubt IEA blog readers will have different views on the news that the BBC is likely to have to share its licence fee with ITV news and children’s programme producers (with expressions of...
Blame our inadequate politicians for the slump
Philip Booth
1 June 2009
2 comments

In every walk of life there are people who are greedy, selfish and sometimes those who downright cheat. Some MPs stretched their expenses to the limit, some people have cheated on social security...
Mixed signals from inflation data
Philip Booth
21 May 2009
2 comments

A couple of days ago the bogus Consumer Price Index registered a dip to an annual rise of 2.3%. The RPI fell further into negative territory. Perhaps the best measure of inflation, RPIX (the...
Mandelson has head in the sand
Philip Booth
30 April 2009
2 comments

In the Financial Times earlier this week, Peter Mandelson wrote:   Sir, I was surprised by the unreconstructed tone of your editorial (”The umpire should not choose sides“, April 21...
Regressive Conservatism
Philip Booth
23 April 2009
10 comments

Phillip Blond is director of the Progressive Conservatism project at Demos and it is suggested that his ideas are getting a lot of exposure within the Conservative Party. His thoughts are certainly...
Guido Fawkes, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman
Philip Booth
1 April 2009
12 comments

There is a strange post on Guido’s blog suggesting that even the IEA is advocating quantitative easing (QE). He says that he reached this conclusion after ringing round the “centre-...
The case for privatising the Bank of England
Philip Booth
26 March 2009
4 comments

Earlier in the week, David Cameron signalled that he believed that banking regulation should be returned to the Bank of England. However, there is a danger in thinking piecemeal about this problem....
Sharing the proceeds of shrinkage
Philip Booth
24 March 2009
10 comments

I am not altogether clear at the moment what the Conservatives’ policy is at the broader fiscal level. In current circumstances they probably need a few months to sort things out but...
Quantitative easing: we need another Lawson
Philip Booth
10 March 2009
4 comments

Quantitative easing has become such a buzzword that it has now become known by its initials – QE. On a number of occasions, I have discussed its merits in the current circumstances and then...
Gordon’s speech to Congress
Philip Booth
6 March 2009
4 comments

Surely Gordon Brown needs a new speech writer. Apparently the US Congress voted with their feet, with the empty seats being filled up with staffers but, had they stayed, what would they have...
Make your own mind up about Fairtrade
Philip Booth
2 March 2009
6 comments

It is a curious aspect of the Catholic Church in England and Wales that those who wish there to be the maximum room for personal judgement and discretion on matters of faith and morals are also the...
Time to suspend the minimum wage
Philip Booth
20 February 2009
12 comments

This is not the first time this subject has been covered on the IEA blog – but the point needs repeating. We should remove all impediments to employment in a recession and this should include...

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