ASI Bulletin: Please Close the Door as You Leave This Country
Low Business Confidence, living off the state, and why won't politicians let us have fun anymore?
Complaints to me, praise to all your friends
IN THIS ASI E-BULLETIN:
Business confidence: Yes, it’s as bad as you think.
Living off the state: That’s apparently what most of us do these days.
Other stuff: Blogs, events, and other trouble-making.
But first…
What to make of this week’s Financial Statement? (Labour WhatsApp Group: "Nobody call it a Budget! Everyone knows a Budget is about raising taxes and cutting spending!”) To me, it seems this Budget (oops) looks like a polite suggestion to close the door when you leave the country — if you can find a functioning airport. You can read what we made of it here.
In other political stories, there is a proposal to choose the House of Lords by lottery. (This is how we should choose MPs too — a short-straw contest limited to everyone who doesn’t want the job.) And former SNP Leader Nicola Sturgeon has appeared on stage, fancying herself as a comedian.
You couldn’t make it up department: Westminster Council’s plan to revive nightlife in the capital has some odd suggestions. Like encouraging alcohol-free activities, and promoting ‘quiet nights’ with dimmed lighting. (After all that, you’d need a drink, but you probably couldn’t get one.) I hear someone has already come up with some better solutions for fixing London’s ailing nightlife.
But I digress…
NEW RESEARCH
ASI Business Confidence Survey:
Our business-leader survey (with a foreword from Andrew Griffith MP) finds shockingly low levels of confidence in the Government's economic policies. Some 77% of those surveyed had 'low' or 'very low' confidence in the UK's business landscape. Only 4% had ‘high' or 'very high' confidence.
State Reliance Index:
Our new analysis shows that 52% of British adults rely on the state for their livelihood. If anything, that's actually probably an underestimate, considering that there are so many jobs in the private sector, e.g 'green energy' that are either directly or indirectly subsidised by the state.
Stop nannying us, say public
For for Smokes and Mirrors report, we asked what voters thought about nanny state Britain. Well, they don't like it, and they think that the government 'loves to ban things people enjoy.’ No surprise, given the tax hikes on the hospitality industry and even more draconian assaults on smoking and vapes. Might explain why voters are turning to Reform, which might at least let them have a bit of fun.
After the Payment Systems Regulator was rolled into the FCA, ASI policy boffin Maxwell Marlow wrote to the PM with a list of suggestions of the other QUANGOs he should scrap. One hour after this letter was published, Starmer abolished NHS England. Coincidence? (Spooky—Ed.)
EVENTS
Our next TNG is coming up on Tuesday 1st April (No joke?—Ed.), with Lord Kamall, Shadow Minister for Health and Social Care (and also ex-MEP and a sound Austrian-style economist). If you’re a young activist, you need to be there to find how to get ourselves out of a very expensive heath and care pickle.
Global Enlightenment Forum
On the 12th April, we’ll be hosting the Global Enlightenment Forum, a whole-day academic conference centred around the origins, growth, proliferation and application of Enlightenment thought and philosophy to the Arab and non-Western world. We’ll be welcoming an exciting range of speakers including:
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (life peer in the House of Lords and Adviser to the Board of Trade),
Professor Nicholas Cronk (Professor of French Literature and European Enlightenment Studies at St Edmund's Hall and Wolfson College; Director of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford),
Dr. Dmitri Levitin (Fifty-Pound Fellow in History at All Soul's College, University of Oxford),
Professor Ali M. Ansari FRSE (Professor of Iranian History at the University of St. Andrews; President of the British Institute of Persian Studies),
Professor Nahyan Fancy (Al-Qasimi Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter),
Noreen, Rachel and Walid, winners of our Enlightenment Essay competition.
YOUTH
We’re looking forward to welcoming our summer interns in the next few months. We received over 700 applications, meaning that our acceptance rate will be around 1.6%. That’s lower than Harvard! They’ll get to work with our research team, pitch articles, lean how to fundraise, and meet a wide range of interesting and important people.
If you would like to support these bright young people as they begin their careers, just £250 would help us sponsor one intern for two weeks.
Applications for Freedom Week 2025 are now open.
This is an annual, one-week seminar in Cambridge which teaches students about classical liberal, free market, neoliberal and liberal perspectives on economics, politics, history and society. It is open to over-18s who are currently attending or about to start university. The week is entirely free to attend: there is no charge whatsoever for accommodation, food, tuition or materials.
Do share with any young people you know who might be interested!
ON THE BLOG
It’s just 249 years and a bit since Adam Smith published one of the world’s greatest books, The Wealth of Nations. A few years back, I was (and still am) keen to produce a Wealth of Nations in Cartoons — a sort of junior version of my Condensed Wealth of Nations. Unfortunately, my cartoonist, Steve Masty, left only a few rough sketches before his premature death. But here is Episode 1, and you can find the others on our super blog.
(Un) Employment Rights: Read Alex Bowen's takes a deep dive into the government's Employment Rights Bill, now making its way through Parliament. Quite how any business is going to find the time to read and understand all 300 pages of it is a mystery, but luckily for you, I have also made a summary. Here it is: ‘Don’t employ anyone, it’s just not worth the hassle any more.'
Rend controls are bad news, especially for tenants and would-be tenants, says Madsen Pirie. So why are we fixated on them?
Manifesto for Lord Mandelson: You can now read the whole of Miles Saltiel’s advice to the new UK Ambassador to the United States below.
Maxwell Marlow suggests a new idea for how to pay for passports and make sure those on lower incomes can afford them. (Yeah, I guess it’s not just rich folks who want to leave the country—Ed.)
MEDIA
It’s been a big month for ASI media coverage! The communications duo tell me that we’ve had over 80 major media hits- so here are some of the best ones:
Our Chief of Staff Carolina Lawson notched up her first CapX op-ed on how the government's daft procurement rules make it impossible for SMEs to get government contracts. Research Director Sam Bidwell wrote for CityAM about our Business Confidence Survey, and for the Mail Online about his State Reliance Index. And our Patron Nadhim Zahawi wrote about the exodus of millionaires and our upcoming report on the Finance Bill (stay tuned for that one..) for the Sunday Telegraph. It even got a mention on the front page!
The Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade wrote about our Business Confidence Survey in the Telegraph and Nigel Farage mentioned our nanny state polling in his piece in the Sun.
The State Reliance Index has been featured in City AM, the Daily Mail, ConservativeHome, the Daily Express, on TalkTV and in the cover article for this week's The Spectator magazine.
Our research on VAT on private schools and Millionaires Leaving was also mentioned in the House of Commons.
Maxwell was on GB News to talk about the state pension and BBC Radio 5 Live on universal school meals.
But most excitingly, our Millionaire Tracker and analysis on the tax implications of millionaires leaving the UK was featured on The Diary Of A CEO's latest episode. This ranks as the number one podcast on Spotify in the UK- and this episode already has almost 2.5 million views on Youtube alone.
NEW SENIOR FELLOW
We’re delighted to announce that Andrew Dawber has joined the Adam Smith Institute as a Senior Fellow. Andrew is a Founding Partner of Civitas Investment Management, and brings more than 30 years of exec experience.
OTHER BITS AND BOBS
Britain Re-Made is looking for a new policy researcher -- someone pro-growth and data-driven.
Our friends Callum Price and Eamonn Ives have started a new substack project, The Liberal Digest, which will compile some of the best pro-freedom thought and commentary every week (including from the ASI, natch)!
And I quote…
The news that thousands of international students are taking UK-government-backed student loans with no intention of ever repaying them — and that bogus college courses are being created to cash in on this — reminds me of an observation by the great Adam Smith himself:
“The bounty [i.e. subsidy] to the white-herring fishery is a tonnage bounty; and is proportioned to the burden of the ship, not to her diligence or success in the fishery; and it has, I am afraid, been too common for vessels to fit out for the sole purpose of catching, not the fish, but the bounty.”
Bye,
e
Eamonn Butler
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