Oscar Gill-Lewis

Deputy Editor @CapX | Edington Fellow @Prosperity_Inst | Hazlitt fellow @feeonline
Views my own
Words in @ConHome @CentralComment @Daily_Express @dcexaminer

[Centre for Policy Studies @CPSThinkTank]

Andy Burnham is days from entering No.10 and those close to him are pushing a range of economically damaging tax hikes.

One idea that keeps coming up is to increase Capital Gains Tax, or even equalise it with income tax.

But the Government's own figures show that change would lose money, not raise it 🧵

[Josh Cheshire @JJPACheshire]

I can guarantee they’ll exclude coffee from this

1) its literally not the proper role of the government to legislate on this
2) its about optics and making interest groups happy, not actually making a difference

[Marc Sidwell @marcsidwell]

Today on the CapX briefing: Andy Burnham, meet Adam Smith
Plus Ofcom is coming for your YouTube feed, and equal pay gets madder

Featuring:
@jamespriceglos
@jackmrankin
@mattwridley
@cjsnowdon
@Mr_John_Oxley

[Fred de Fossard @defossardf]

Now the Government is opening the door to mass equal pay claims based on race, I have written for @Telegraph on how this will turn Britain's labour market into a litigious nightmare, add more costs to businesses, and will crush job creation.
https://t.co/TgDZA3hjWz

[Andrew Montford @aDissentient]

If Burnham were to kick Miliband out of government entirely, the resulting drop in the cost of borrowing would probably give the new government much more room for political manoeuvre.

[Ian Golan @iangolan]

Adulthood is the ever-shrinking period between childhood and old age. It is the apparent aim of modern industrial societies to reduce this period to a minimum.

[Oscar Gill-Lewis @Gill_Lewis65]

Congratulations to new @CPSThinkTank Director @LiamHalligan

Exciting times ahead for @CPSThinkTank & @CapX

[Centre for Policy Studies @CPSThinkTank]

The Centre for Policy Studies is delighted to announce the appointment of Liam Halligan as its next Director.

A leading economist, columnist and broadcaster, Liam takes up the role on 14 September, staying on as a Sunday Telegraph columnist and Planet Normal co-host along the way, and we couldn't be more thrilled to have him join us.

[Guy Dampier @dampierguy]

Framemogged by free marketeers.

[Joe Hill @jo3hill]

The mess of regulators with overlapping jurisdictions, and the challenges of getting them to coordinate, were key findings from the Fingleton Review on nuclear. Today, we’re digging into the ways this happens, and how to disentangle them.

Great paper by @CoryBerman

[Daniel Priestley @DanielPriestley]

Well this is awkward … @garyseconomics central claim is that billionaires hoard wealth and plunge people into poverty.

The data does not support this claim.

Between 2010 and 2025 the number of US billionaires rose from 400 to 900. At the same time the rate of people living in poverty declined from 15% to 11%.

In the UK the number of billionaires rose from 74 to a peak of 177 and is now in decline. During that time the percentage of people living in poverty was stable at 21-22%.

It’s as if, a growing economy lifts people out of poverty and a stagnant one doesn’t.

Billionaires clearly do not create poverty. They do however pay a lot in taxes. Driving them out is stupid and based on envy not data.

BONUS FUN FACT: The number of people who describe themselves as “socialists” in the UK is 1 in 5 and in the USA it’s 1 in 12… almost perfectly aligned to the poverty rate in each country.

[Institute of Economic Affairs @iealondon]

📈 "You can get away with nationalisations, price controls, excessive money-printing and Mazzucatoism, but only if you have a reservoir of pent-up innovations ready to be unleashed."

@K_Niemietz for Economic Affairs. 👇

[Oscar Gill-Lewis @Gill_Lewis65]

@DanielRaisbeck My pleasure Daniel, likewise. I couldn’t have done it without your help

[Oscar Gill-Lewis @Gill_Lewis65]

@DanielRaisbeck is excellent on dollarisation

It’s a wonder some haven’t done it yet 🇦🇷

[Institute of Economic Affairs @iealondon]

🇨🇴 "Dollarisation is the one structural measure that future left-wing governments will not be able to undo."

@DanielRaisbeck, independent Latin America analyst, on Colombia's election and the region's shifting political map. 👇

[Anna Ridgway @annaroseridgway]

How YIMBY is your Greater Manchester mayoral candidate? I ranked all 7.

🔴 Bev Craig (Lab) - 5/10. Only candidate who's actually built homes at scale. Backed Places for Everyone, which released green belt. Pledging 50,000 affordable homes. But layers affordability mandates on everything and would never say "just let people build."

➡️ Sian Astley (Reform) - 4/10. Landlord, developer, Airbnb Superhost. Knows the industry from the inside. Committed to brownfield. But no housing manifesto, nothing on green belt, and running against the development establishment she belongs to.

🔵 Phil Eckersley (Con) - 3/10. Brownfield only, repurpose offices. Fine as far as it goes. Doesn't go far.

🟠 Richard Kilpatrick (Lib Dem) - 3/10. Expanding Mayoral Development Corporations is a good idea. Shame his party's Stockport council pulled out of the spatial framework to "protect green belt," got battered by speculative applications on appeal, and now calls housing targets a "Developers' Charter."

🟢 Geraldine Coggins (Green) - 2/10. Most detailed platform, worst direction. 20,000 publicly owned homes, rent controls, no green belt, attacks Renaker for building 6,110 homes because they weren't affordable. Those 6,110 homes exist. People live in them. That's how supply works.

⚪ Marlon West (Restore) - 1/10. Headline policy is to "protect greenfield land from developers."

Britain's biggest by-election, housing the top issue, and not one candidate willing to say: build more of everything, everywhere, including on the green belt.
0/7 YIMBYs.

[Joseph Dinnage @jcdinnage]

Tonight’s match is about more than just football.

Over 250 British troops died in the Falklands War, and Argentina remains open about its designs.

Win or lose, the indifference of our elites to this rivalry reminds us why we must hold on to our history.

My latest in @CityAM👇

[Oscar Gill-Lewis @Gill_Lewis65]

@annaroseridgway @RobertJenrick Especially since they’ve spent the last few days trying to be earnest and not act like this

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨 NEW: Yvette Cooper is the new frontrunner to become Andy Burnham’s Chancellor

[@theipaper]

[CapX @CapX]

JD Vance argues in his new book that a $6 punnet of Japanese strawberries counts the same in GDP as an ‘inferior’ American one, before concluding that ‘maybe economics is just fake’

There is a sleight of hand in all of this.

People who criticise GDP struggle to give concrete examples to demonstrate the perils of focusing on it.

The cases usually offered involve resource booms or falsified statistics, which are failures of governance rather than failures of GDP as a measurement.

✍️@doktor_val

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

[Kristian Niemietz @K_Niemietz]

"Listen, I was betting on pint prices going up - and they did! I was the best pint price trader in the world, you know? That's what I do, I bet on my predictions, and I'm always right."