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Britain faces worst ever peacetime fiscal crisis
David B. Smith
10 June 2009
2 comments

Britain now faces one of the most serious fiscal crises in its peacetime history. One reason is that the UK is now caught up in a sudden and severe international recession. However, the government...
Why PPPs may offer poor value for money
Richard Wellings
8 June 2009
8 comments

For several decades the British economy has been hampered by the poor quality of its infrastructure. Whether in transport, education or health, investment has typically been low by international...
The myth of “systemic failure” in banking
James Alexander
5 June 2009
12 comments

The threat of “systemic failure” has been used to justify recent government interventions in the financial sector. Essentially it is a “market-failure” type of argument...
MPs who fiddle their expenses are despicable but not corrupt
Ian Senior
4 June 2009
1 comment

The public has a right to be angry – very angry – about the various ways that many MPs have fiddled expenses. And we are all heartily sick of the standard excuse: “I have done...
Progressive conservatism – or how to combine the worst bits of two worldviews
Kristian Niemietz
15 May 2009
10 comments

Understatement is perhaps not Phillip Blond’s forte. The director of the “progressive conservatism” project aims at nothing less than ushering in a new era in British post-war...
Political football?
J. R. Shackleton
11 May 2009
2 comments

The government can’t keep out of anything. Last week we had the spectacle of Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, walking out of a meeting with football’s Premier League seriously...
What should Cameron cut?
Richard Wellings
8 May 2009
22 comments

The projections in last month’s Budget were terrifying. They suggest that net government borrowing is likely to reach unprecedented levels over the next three years:   ● 2009-10:...
Austrian economics vs Keynesianism and Kaletsky
Anthony J. Evans
6 May 2009
10 comments

Recently in The Times Anatole Kaletsky attacked the “many financiers [that] have been calling… for a ‘market solution’ based on the so-called Austrian school of economic...
Reforming central government
D. R. Myddelton
5 May 2009
12 comments

If there is too much central government, maybe we shouldn’t regard being a member of parliament as a full-time job. Especially since most of our laws these days seem to come from Brussels; and...
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...
IEA Bloggers’ Budget
IEA bloggers
21 April 2009
16 comments

As the sterile thinking of incumbent politicians will not be sufficiently radical to reverse the growth in the size of government over the coming years, we asked IEA bloggers how they thought the...
Inflation: can we trust the politicians?
D. R. Myddelton
20 April 2009
2 comments

The British government, in common with many other governments, has embarked on a policy of “quantitative easing” [QE], also known as “printing money”. Can we trust them to...
Cameron’s “post-bureaucratic age”
Terry Arthur
17 April 2009
16 comments

In his recent article in The Spectator, David Cameron tells us that “the public must be given a core reason to vote not just against Labour but for the Conservative Party.” He goes on to...
Après nous le déluge
D. R. Myddelton
7 April 2009
10 comments

Anatole Kaletsky [The Times, April 6] says the G20 countries are right to borrow and spend even more than they have done already. But he seems to be living in a dream world. First he says this...
G20: cutting public spending should be the main priority
Richard Wellings
2 April 2009
4 comments

Gordon Brown may be advocating a further fiscal stimulus as a means to promote economic recovery at today’s G20 meeting, but, certainly in Britain’s case, implementing such a policy...
Crisis? What crisis of capitalism?
David Moller
31 March 2009
6 comments

There is a strange thing about this particular financial crisis. Though some have murmured about “a crisis of capitalism”, few have yet suggested a return to full-blooded, full-frontal...
Tax havens under attack: Germany vs Switzerland
Kristian Niemietz
27 March 2009
6 comments

Switzerland and other so-called “tax havens” have finally succumbed to international pressure and threats to be “blacklisted” by the OECD. Banking secrecy laws will now be...
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...
Mises’ “Critique of Interventionism” restaged in Venezuela
Kristian Niemietz
19 March 2009
8 comments

Eighty years ago the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises showed how a supposedly “targeted” state intervention in a free economy can produce a whole spiral of follow-up interventions....
Tax havens: the search for scapegoats
Kristian Niemietz
9 March 2009
6 comments

At a time when both public deficits and government spending are increasing (bank bailouts and stimulus packages), there is immense political pressure to address the issue of tax havens....

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