ASI Bulletin: (Last) Freedom Week (From Politicians)
Dr. Eamonn Butler, our Director and Co-Founder, takes you through the last few (always hectic) weeks at the Adam Smith Institute.
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Ayn Rand Lecture- The Importance of National Honesty
Essay Competitions- With Cash Prizes!
Freedom Week- Educating the Youth
But first...
Back in July I resolved to watch the exit polls and then see/hear/read no further news for a year. (I’ve seen elections before and I know how things turn out.) But our Comms Supremo Emily wants another Bulletin, so I return to the dispiriting chronicle of a once-proud nation.
PM Sir Keir Starmer, I see, is saying that things can only get worse. Well, we all knew that. And it won’t win him the Blair-Mandelson Award for Spin. But things are not looking worse for one of Starmer’s top donors, who’s being given the run of Downing Street for schmooze-booze do's.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, famously second in a fight with a bacon sandwich, blames the Tories for the energy price rise. I am opening a book on how long ministers can use that excuse before it starts to wear thin. (Put my £1 on Budget Day—Ed.)
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is a master of the excuse, saying that the last government left her with no money (and not even a note in the drawer). But then all incoming Chancellors say that. So she’s slashing budgets all over (don’t mention the ’Tory Cuts’!)—except for trade union pay, natch. She says that 'the unions will get no blank cheques’ (no, they will have eye-watering amounts already written in).
But enough about the Senate of Lilliput...
Though I digress...
A TRIBUTE TO TIM AMBLER
We are sad to report the death of our friend and author Tim Ambler. He became Senior Fellow of the Adam Smith Institute and was the author of our major study on reducing the bureaucracy, Shrinking Whitehall (2022). For us he also wrote Deregulation: Road Map to Reform (2005), Deregulation or Déjà vu? (2007), Reforming the Regulators (2008), The Financial Crisis: Is Regulation Cure or Cause (2008), Financial Regulation (2009) and Regulatory Myopia (2009). A renowned management expert, his wit and larger than life character will be very much missed.
EVENTS
Ayn Rand Lecture 2024
This year’s annual Ayn Rand lecture will be given by Charles White-Thomson. A legend in the City—where he is known for his frank views on UK monetary and economic policy—he was until recently CEO of Saxo UK, a multi-asset online trading company. His previous experience includes four years in Moscow (which included the Global Financial Crisis), where he was responsible for Credit Suisse’s equity in Russia. He’s talking about The Importance of National Honesty. The event is on Thursday 10 October at 6pm in Drapers Hall. You should be there.
The Next Generation
The Next Generation Group, our under-35s movers and shakers, will be learning from economic policy expert Ben Southwood (formerly of this parish). That’s on Monday 2nd September at 6pm.
Enlightenment Evening
Enlightenment Evening: The next Enlightenment Evening is with Professor David Collins, author of one of our important ASI paper on sanctions policy. Westminster, Tuesday 10th September, at 6pm. As ever, the event will be live-streamed on X, and recorded for our YouTube channel for those of you who cannot join us in person.
Conference Season
Next month, the ASI team are off to Labour and Conservative Party Conferences. Catch them at one of our panel events:
Labour Party Conference
Markets not Marx: Why Labour Should Embrace the Market as a Tool for Social Justice: 10:30-11:30, 24th September in the ACC, Arena Room 11.
Speakers so far Dan Norris MP & UK Day One’s Julia Willemyns.
Conservative Party Conference
What does the City of London look like in 2030?: 15:00-16:00, 1st October in Executive Room 1
With our very own fellow Charles-White Thomson, Ed McGuinness and Andrew Griffith MP.
Extinction-Level Event: Why the Conservatives Will Only Survive If They Win Back Young People: 10:30-12:00, 2nd October, Executive Room 2
Hear from Director of the Next Generation Centre Sam Bidwell, NGC fellow Noa Cohen, CityAM journalist Alys Denby and Lord Kempsell.
Freedom Week
Our annual boot camp for student enthusiasts of the free society, took place as usual in Cambridge last week. 30 students from across the world joined us at Selwyn College and attended talks from leading thinkers like Professor Victoria Bateman, Dr Rebecca Lowe and Dr Steve Davies, covering a wide range of liberal philosophy and economics.
REPORTS
You wait for a report on sanctions policy, then two come at once!
Market-Based Reforms to the UK Economic Sanctions Regime (how do you guys come up with such consistently catchy titles?—Ed.)
The UK sanctions regime is not working well, as evidenced by the fact the Russian economy is growing at a faster rate than hours. (Groan.) Under this proposal, individuals and businesses caught breaking sanctions and trading with sanctioned states will be made to reinvest in the British economy, benefitting us at the expense of bad guys.
Degrade and Deny: Economic Sanctions 2.0
It turns out economic sanctions can be effective- but only if they concentrate on eroding hostile state’s economic and military capacity to carry out their malign activities, rather than act as mere symbolic gestures to denote our disapproval. Expert James Gillespie shows us how we can update the UK’s sanctions strategy in a way that incentivises transferral of capital away from sanctioned states and that properly penalises sanctions evasion.
ROUND AND ABOUT
Our Patron Nadhim Zahawi has releases his autobiography, The Boy from Baghdad, on Thursday 29th. There’s quite a gripping extract in the Times of him talking about how his family narrowly escaped the Iranian dictatorship.
Our good friends at Institute for Free Trade have launched their second annual essay competition. The questions are designed to be approachable by essayists with a range of qualification levels- from GCSE and A-level through to undergraduate level. And the winner gets a cash prize! The deadline is Friday 18th October.
Our other friends (yes, we have more than one set) at the TaxPayers’ Alliance has given a nice review to my colleague Madsen Pirie's excellent Philosophy of Conservatism.
Before the Chancellor ups the most damaging taxes (the ones on enterprise, capital and saving) she might like to read my new Introduction to Taxation published by the Institute of Economic Affairs. Or if she hasn’t got time for that, then maybe watch as I talk about it here:
Schools talks: Maxwell Marlow will be off on his educational travels again in September, visiting St Joan of Arc School in Rickmansworth and then Eton College in September. Get in touch with us if you’d like us to give a talk at your school!
ENLIGHTENMENT ESSAY COMPETITION
Don’t forget to enter our Enlightenment Essay Competition, with prizes of £8,000 (first place), £4,000 (second) and £2,000 (third).
We’ll be looking further afield in our search for excellent essays. We are asking students, from undergraduate to post-doctoral, to answer the question: “How can the ideas of the Enlightenment become embedded in the Arab World?”
The deadline is 27th September. To apply, you have to be an undergraduate, postgraduate or doctoral and post-doctoral student. We are asking for up to 5,000 words including any footnotes, Chicago citation, British English. Submissions to maxwell@adamsmith.org.
Good luck!
MEDIA
Director of Research, Maxwell Marlow, has been as busy as ever. He was in the Telegraph on whether free prescriptions in Scotland are affordable, in the Sunday Express on why the Government shouldn’t raise Inheritance Tax or Capital Gains Tax, on Times Radio on our sanctions papers, in CapX on the same, and on TalkTV on the boost for train drivers’ pay.
We’ve had more hits on our paper on levying VAT on independent school fees in the I and the Telegraph.
James Price wrote for CityAM about our ideas for sanctions reform.
Our brilliant fellow Preston Byrne, author of Sense and Sensitivity, which made the case for a First Amendment-style free speech protections in the UK, was on GB News with Jacob Rees-Mogg to discuss whether the UK has free speech. Spoiler alert- the answer was no.
Patron Sir Brandon Lewis wrote about his take on Labour’s housing announcements for GB News.
And Noa Cohen, one of our Next Generation fellows, has written about the perils of even more devolution for ConservativeHome.
And I quote…
OK, I’m off to ignore the news again. As Thomas Jefferson, once said:
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but the newspapers.
Bye,
e
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