ASI Bulletin: Festive Sentiments
A Christmas round-up from the ASI
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IN THIS ASI E-BULLETIN: What we’ve been up to this year, mostly
But first…
What a year, what an annus politico-horribilis. Weak and vacillating government, general election, more of same. And that’s just France.
Then the usual pledges not to raise tax, and usual denials having done so. Nobody quite knowing how to define a woman. Tory ships leaving the sinking rats before the election iceberg. Police investigating politicians for saying nasty things about their opponents (That sounds like a job for life—Ed.). Legislation to make saying nasty things punishable by some dreadful penalty, like transportation for life or dinner with Keir Starmer. Then outlawing vaping, smoking (except for pensioners), unregulated football, Tory Peers, the Chagos Islands, and anything else some teenage milksop might find offensive.
Next we had the spectacle of Foreign Secretary David Lammy sending ‘so sorry’ cards to various world leaders that in opposition he’d insulted, no doubt with notes inside saying our once-proud nation would still welcome their cash. Still, it could be worse, we always have Boris to boost the gaiety of the nation.
But I digress…
THINK-TANKING IN ‘24
My personal highlight this year was perhaps my colleague Dr Madsen Pirie getting an OBE for his contributions to public policy. “Has the Adam Smith Institute been going a long time?” the Princess Royal asked. Madsen got a laugh with his response, “Well, we like people to think it was founded by Adam Smith 250 years ago, but in fact we’re just Johnny-Come-Latelys.” (Not all that lately, I’d say — over 45 years!—Ed.)
And let me add my personal thanks to all those patrons, donors, supporters and just generally good eggs who have enabled the Adam Smith Institute to continue its important work of shaping ideas, policies and minds. How about giving us a Christmas bonus to help us keep up the good work next year - and do even more?
RESEARCH
Over the year, our Policy chief Maxwell has overseen the production of 32 policy reports and 3 consultation responses on a wide variety of topics - including tax, nightlife, housing and lawfare. Some highlights:
Our new Cost of Rent Day initiative from James Lawson. This calculates the day on which the average English renter stops paying rent and starts earning for themselves. This year it was on 5th May. Ouch!
Our Non-Doms research finding that the abolition of the regime could cost £6.5 billion by 2035 - and that’s a conservative estimate. We called for an Italian-style flat fee system.
Learning Lessons — our comprehensive history of bad planning laws in the UK, starting with - you guessed it - the 1947 Town & Country Planning Act.
Up in Flames — which found that State Pension could be financially unsustainable by as early as 2035.
Free Wills — Maxwell updated our 1995 paper making the case for abolishing inheritance tax.
We calculated that this year’s Tax Freedom Day fell on the 10th June - that’s 4 days later than last year. Ouch!
MEDIA
Our media superstar Emily has been:
Getting more than 100 op-eds in important papers.
Courting around 500 media hits.
Spearheading campaigns such as the one against levying VAT on private schools (which has had more than 60 major national and international media hits, and is now a key plank of the opposition to the policy), Millionaire Tracker (which was featured on 2 front pages, BBC News, in pretty much every national newspaper and on a host of other TV or radio outlets) and London's Declining Nightlife — our On The Rocks report is now the research paper on the topic, continually cited by commentators.
Our blog has been getting lots of pick-up too. Highlights include Richard Teather’s blog which explains many farmers will be affected by inheritance tax (spoiler - probably a lot more than the Government says will be!) which was later made into an op-ed for the Spectator, Madsen’s Pirie’s lament on tax rises in the Budget forcing his local gym to close down - which was picked up by Guido, and Sam Bidwell’s long-form piece on why Industrial Strategy is to blame for Britain’s industrial decline.
EVENTS
Over the year, we’ve hosted 31 events, from our programme of the ‘The Next Generation’ drinks for under 35s with speakers from different political parties and backgrounds, a new series of Enlightenment Evenings, to panels at Labour, Conservative and Reform Conferences.
Highlights included Madsen’s party to launch his new book The Philosophy of Conservatism, our launch of On the Rocks at Mr Fogg’s with Robert Jenrick as the keynote speaker, our annual Ayn Rand Lecture with Charles White-Thomson and Adam Smith Lecture with Rory Sutherland.
NEXT GENERATION CENTRE
Young people today are increasingly turning away from free markets and liberal democracy, feeling that they no longer work for them.
This year we launched our Next Generation Centre, which will be challenging those assumptions, and demonstrating that only free markets and a free society can deliver the solutions to the challenges that young people face. We were delighted that Sam Bidwell came on board as the NGC’s Director.
Every year, we will give six emerging under-35 thought leaders the opportunity to write a research paper under our guidance. They will be specifically writing about issues that most affect this age group. Look out for their reports next year!
SOCIAL MEDIA
Our man in the ether, Sebastian Charleton reports:
thousands more followers on our social media platform. We got over 1000 new followers on YouTube just this month!
a thriving presence on TikTok - with content from Rory Sutherland’s recent Adam Smith Lecture reaching 75,000 views.
Sam Bidwell has become a bit of an online celeb- his detailed tweet thread explanations are attracting millions of views on X. Here he is on why low budget airlines are so economically successful, and here on which countries have overtaken the UK in terms of wealth since 2007. Make sure you give him a follow if you haven’t already!
Our video explainers - from why the Government killed Birmingham, to why we can’t build any houses in England - are proving particularly popular.
And to get you into the Festive spirit, we’ve got a new one on the 12 days of Taxmas!
EDUCATION
Our team were out and about spreading the good message to today’s youth. We gave 17 school and university talks, hosted 32 summer interns, welcomed Cameron da Silva Clamp as our gap year intern, and were delighted that Lord Lilley joined us as a Senior Fellow and our Speakers’ panel.
Plus, we hosted 23 students for our annual Freedom Week boot camp. Keep an eye out for next year’s date and application deadline here.
OTHER FANTASTIC STUFF
We were finalists for the Atlas Network Europe Liberty Award, Madsen (as I said) got an OBE, and I received awards from the Mont Pelerin Society and the Hayek Institute in Vienna.
And we were delighted to announce Lord Mendelsohn, a Labour life peer, as our new Patron. Here he is giving a very-well received speech about Labour’s free market traditions to our TNG crowd.
DAVID BOAZ, FRED LEE SMITH AND TIM AMBLER
I can’t close without mentioning the passing, in 2024, of two stalwarts of the classical liberal movement, David Boaz of the Cato Institute and Fred Lee Smith of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. They were both good friends and engaging, informed and powerfully intelligent figures who built their respective organisations into major power-houses of thought on the principles of the free economy and the free society. Their work continues.
We were saddened too by the death of our Senior Fellow Tim Ambler. He was a leading figure in UK marketing and management, and wrote a number of reports on regulation and a book on Shrinking Whitehall for us.
And I quote…
A final observation for the times, I feel:
Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want, and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want, and their kids pay for it.
— Former Governor of Colorado, Richard Lamb.
Bye. and happy… er, holidays.
e
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