🚨 New interview out now! 🚨
📉 Why has Britain never trusted business?
🏦 Did the bankers really get away with it?
🚀 Is entrepreneurship the only way out?
@1689Freeman speaks with Martin Vander Weyer about why we lost faith in capitalism. 👇
Christopher Snowdon of the Institute of Economic Affairs said:
"We must stop judging new legislation by the good intentions of its advocates rather than its likely consequences. We know from Australia that most teenagers will get around the ban and that those who are not able to do so will suffer from social isolation.
There are legitimate concerns about screen addiction among both children and adults, but parents are already able to restrict what their children see online and limit the number of hours they can use a smartphone. These guardrails are removed when kids log in via VPNs or sign up to platforms as adults.
What the government is trying to do is reminiscent of attempts to ban the printing press. It is similarly impractical, illiberal and ultimately undesirable."
The council house swapping Facebook groups and websites are very eye-opening. There are 6- and 7-bedroom properties on offer in Zone 2 at ~£750 a month. Private rents for similar properties would be £6,000+. Enormous subsidies are being distributed in the worst possible way.
Giving 16-17 year-olds the vote but banning them from watching YouTube after their state mandated bedtime is surely too absurd even for death throes era Starmerism
NEW: Starmer will announce an ‘Australia plus’ teen social media ban on breakfast TV tomorrow
- Expected to include the same 10 apps as Aus: TikTok, YouTube, X, Instagram among them
- ‘Romantic’ chatbots banned
- 16 + 17 yr olds will have a curfew
https://t.co/vh9nI26jtt
The stupidity of, and damage done by, stamp duty is being recognised by more and more people. I’ve said it before and l’ll say it again: any govt which cared about economic growth and people’s welfare would abolish it.
https://t.co/tXMXN99OPo
The most frustrating thing about the UK’s economic performance is just how straightforward the solutions are. You don’t need to completely restructure society, you just have to stop carelessly choking growth.
NEW: Burnham *rules out* awarding financial compensation to Waspi women demanding billions of pounds, following an angry backlash within Labour
Greater Manchester mayor has instead floated the idea of offering early access to cheaper travel schemes as recompense
https://t.co/J2IMe6jLW2
@maxwell_marlow Don’t worry they have a plan: everyone else in the world imposes 80% tariffs on the US and 180% tariffs on China until they agree to implement the wealth tax (no really)
Is our race to net zero boosting the economy?
Last week a new report claimed the “net zero economy” is worth £105bn.
But zoom out, and there is little evidence that the shift to renewables has boosted growth at all. In fact, the opposite may be true
This report proposes:
- Limiting developed world annual economic growth to 0–0.5%
- Capping GDP per capita at $69k in every country
- Requiring a three-day working week
- Reducing construction hours worked by 70%, manufacturing by 87%, and leisure by 58% (in absolute terms)
UK tax has gone up significantly over the last 25 years
But the tax paid by the average UK worker has not
This apparent miracle was achieved by taxing “other people”: higher earners, capital, property, banks, etc
The strategy has run out of road
A 🧵 on what happens next.
This plan is incompatible with freedom- a global class of planners telling us how long to work, how much we can grow, what we can eat. It is also completely wrong. All advances for climate (including the huge drop in battery and solar and wind costs) have come (and will come) from more innovation, more competition, firms that grow and invent and innovate and produce energy solutions that replace fossil fuels. If you enforce degrowth in the West you will kill for ever the climate agenda.
Hasan Piker and Cenk Uyger getting barred from the UK with no possibility of appeal likely because of their political commentary is straightforwardly bad.
https://t.co/AqTbiaVZ9a
@andrew_lilico Are annual property/land taxes also immoral? And say the Queen gave you a cottage as a thank you for your corgi saving, which you would never dream of selling, would it be wrong to charge council tax?
Some really weird attempts on here to deny that aircon is de facto banned. The London Plan literally has a ‘cooling hierarchy’ of all the things you need to try before you’re allowed to consider aircon, and even then you need to somehow make sure it’s the lowest-carbon option.
@ReemAmirIbrahim But that's not secure food... if we import everything, then if anything like a serious war breaks out, we're screwed.
Libertarianism doesn't work in a world of war.