CapX

The best writing on politics, economics, ideas and technology. Sign up for our daily briefing. From @CPSThinkTank

[CapX @CapX]

Why don't you do a deal with Reform?

On this week's special edition of The Capitalist Podcast, Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride gives a speech on the economy – and answers questions on topics from doing a deal with Reform UK to the case for abolishing the triple lock

Watch the full episode on YouTube, or listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts 🎧

[CapX @CapX]

Should universities have a say before speakers are excluded from the UK?

The Government has cancelled the Electronic Travel Authorisation of a controversial left-wing US political commentator, in a move that prevents him from appearing at one of the UK’s oldest debating societies and raises renewed questions about broad and discretionary powers used to exclude foreign speakers whose anticipated speech is lawful.

Cenk Uygur, the co-founder of The Young Turks political talk show, which has more than 6 million subscribers on YouTube, was due to appear at SXSW London, a tech-focused festival, and had also been scheduled to speak at an Oxford Union event organised by University of Oxford students.

Another controversial figure from the US, outspoken anti-Israel commentator Hasan Piker, was also prevented from attending SXSW.

✍️Freddie Attenborough

https://t.co/TfptdFfQf6

[CapX @CapX]

@AndyBurnhamGM has one prescription, and he means to fill it, whatever the patient walks in with. The man with the broken arm, the woman with chest pains, the child with a fever: each leaves the surgery with the same pad of repeat scripts, which call for higher taxes on the rich, more generous benefits and the nationalisation of something.

Andy Burnham told the Observer last week that the populist surge across the West is being driven by inequality, and that Tony Blair fails to grasp it.

But if populism really were a revolt against inequality, Jean-Luc Mélenchon would be in the Élysée and Jeremy Corbyn would have led Labour to a thumping majority.

The parties actually growing prescribe something different. They speak to the cost of housing, energy and food. They speak to immigration they feel the political class chose to make irreversible without consulting anyone. And they speak to a felt sense among voters that their attachments to nation, family and place are treated by their rulers as either embarrassing or sinister.

✍️@rjcpartridge

Read more: https://t.co/eGD5iHiCeI

[CapX @CapX]

Brace yourself, but I don’t mind Michelle Obama.

She warned young people this week that their expectation of immediate career satisfaction – the ‘dream job’ – was not only unrealistic, but ill-advised.

Enduring workplace unfairness, megalomaniacal managers and mundane tasks builds resilience, she argued, and I’m inclined to agree.

Aged 17, I loathed having to work in a butcher’s shop that summer, but I have no doubt that I was hardened to the world of work in a way my more cosseted peers weren’t after weathering the owner’s atrocious jokes, the low pay and the stench of meat clinging to my clothes and hair.

It’s one thing for my fellow young people to shout and stomp about what they believe an employer should provide for them, but it’s quite another when the state starts to listen.

This Government has done just that, and it’s costing Britain’s youth dearly.

✍️@jcdinnage

https://t.co/zKcXEh9X0y

[Committee for Academic Freedom @ComAcFreedom]

The Government has cancelled the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) of Cenk Uygur, a controversial left-wing US political commentator, preventing him from speaking at an Oxford Union event.

This appears to be the first high-profile instance in which the UK’s immigration rules — which confer broad and discretionary powers on the Home Secretary to exclude individuals whose presence is deemed “not conducive to the public good” — have been used to prevent a speaker from appearing before a university debating society.

The issue for the Government seems to be not that the speech in question would have been unlawful, but that the speaker’s participation could exacerbate antisemitic tensions. In that respect, the rationale is similar to the type of risk assessment familiar from Prevent, which focuses on reducing the influence of “radicalisers” on “susceptible audiences”. Yet even in the context of Prevent, the Government’s own guidance does not assume that such risks should ordinarily lead to exclusion.

In circumstances such as these, should universities and debating institutions therefore have an opportunity to explain how the event would be conducted, and how controversial claims would be challenged and scrutinised, before the Government makes any final ETA decision?

CAF Research Manager Freddie Attenborough for @CapX:

https://t.co/UR99udYNiJ

[CapX @CapX]

There seems to be no indication that Cenk Uygur planned on engaging in unlawful speech

✍️Freddie Attenborough

https://t.co/PoaZrwAm3j

[CapX @CapX]

https://t.co/VKDRHHKYx4

[CapX @CapX]

Tariffs are like a party drug – incredible highs, then the comedown hits hard.

In this week's episode of The Capitalist, @SoumayaKeynes and @ChadBown on how to win a trade war.

[CapX @CapX]

Michelle Obama is right to tell young people that workplace hardship builds character

✍️@jcdinnage

https://t.co/JZ7QSrusaT

[CapX @CapX]

Andy Burnham says the populist revolt is driven by inequality. He’s wrong

✍️@rjcpartridge

Read more: https://t.co/E91zbUKmrB

[Matthew Bowles @Matthew__Bowles]

Housing shouldn't require a modern PFI. Britain has the developers and demand to build.

The problem is a planning system weighed down by delays, obligations and regulation. Rather than tackle those barriers, Labour seems set to take the path of least resistance.

Me in @CapX👇

[CapX @CapX]

Rachel Reeves's centralised plan for funding new towns is an admission of defeat

✍️@Matthew__Bowles

https://t.co/Ge1NnXmIek

[CapX @CapX]

The future of space exploration requires private enterprise, not state-led diktats

✍️@zitelmann_en

https://t.co/hcXrSmjU0b

[CapX @CapX]

Brexit identities continue to act as a lens through which we see reality

✍️James Tilley

https://t.co/dwdYRUfU9H

[CapX @CapX]

The British are coming!

As the United States celebrates 250 years of independence from the British, millions of Californians wish to put themselves under British rule.

The primary is taking place tomorrow, and Steve Hilton, a British-born former adviser to David Cameron, is not only expected to make it through to the final in November, but has a good shot of winning in the ultimate competition.

A curiosity for some British observers is that Hilton offers such robust tub-thumping messages, when in a previous incarnation he was at the heart of the Cameroonian modernising ‘project’ that sought to ‘detoxify’ the Conservative Party to woo moderate voters.

Yet Hilton is not without traditionalist impulses.

✍️@harryph

https://t.co/BU8sJms8YT

[CapX @CapX]

What have Rachel Reeeves, Yvette Cooper and Ed Miliband got in common?

These three all successfully completed the MSc Economics programme at the London School of Economics, but are prepared to sign up to policies which seem to fly in the face of economic reasoning.

Many bright people pass successfully through programmes like the LSE masters.

Yet they often seem to lack what you might call economic common sense.

✍️Len Shackleton of @iealondon

https://t.co/8UQo6tPY4w

[CapX @CapX]

Modern monetary theory (MMT) is an economic theory that has become popular in the blogosphere and heterodox academic circles.

It’s also caught the eye of some politicians. Notably, Zack Polanski has been learning about MMT and using it to answer questions about government debt.

According to MMT, the Treasury should use higher deficits – funded by money creation – to help run the economy at full capacity and increase prosperity. But wait a minute.

Doesn’t this sound like quantitative easing (QE), a tool already used by central banks to stimulate the economy through money creation?

✍️@EMaggiori_

https://t.co/O6WJqt7N30

[CapX @CapX]

@SteveHiltonx, a former adviser to David Cameron, is making headway in the race to become California's governor

✍️@harryph

https://t.co/Lz6ZxHmTmg

[CapX @CapX]

From Net Zero to nationalisation, elite academic institutions have tutored our leaders in terrible ideas

✍️Len Shackleton of @iealondon

https://t.co/idyWNkjuiK

[CapX @CapX]

Modern monetary theory underestimates the threat of inflation – just look at Latin America

✍️@EMaggiori_

https://t.co/VUJe0HplAQ