The Capitalist

CapX Editor Oliver Wiseman is joined by three eagle-eyed Westminster watches for a discussion of this week's budget. Is austerity over? Is that good news? Why are Britain's growth figures so underwhelming? Will Universal Credit work with more money? Just how much do we spend on the NHS? And will Philip Hammond survive long enough to deliver another budget? Stay informed with CapX's unmissable dail...

When we think about the economy, we tend to think about stuff. Physical goods are manufactured and sold, factories are built and upgraded, innovation gives us shiny new gadgets we can hold in our hands. But this is becoming a less and less accurate way of thinking about things. Increasingly, intangible assets are what matter. According to Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake, the authors of the bril...

Free Exchange, the CapX podcast, is back with an exciting new series of interviews and conversations. In the coming months, we'll be welcoming a fascinating line up of politicians, policymakers, authors, economists and journalists on to the show to talk about some of the biggest questions we face today. We’re kicking things off with a live recording of a CapX event at Conservative Party Conference...

Brexit is at an impasse. The row between Theresa May and David Davis over the wording of a customs backstop ended with a fudge of a fudge of a fudge.  This has only underlined just how difficult this government has found it to pin its Brexit colours to the mast. That is partly because of a disagreement within Cabinet. But it's also the product of a hung Parliament that means whatever the governmen...

This May marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx. For many, this was an occasion for celebration, not sombre reflection on a set of ideas that, when put into action, have claimed the lives of millions. John McDonnell gave a speech on the enduring relevance of Marx. Jean Claude Juncker played his part in the fortification of the German thinker’s reputation by unveiling a Chinese fund...

Conservatives can't agree on much at the moment. But one view that the vast majority of them would struggle to disagree with is that there are fundamental problems with the party's pitch to the electorate. The fault lines have been there for some time, but the issue became impossible to ignore after last year's general election. That is why there has been a flurry of activity on the centre-right o...

We recently welcomed Jamie Bartlett to the CapX offices to talk about what happens where politics and technology intersect. Jamie is the author of  The People Vs Tech: How the Internet is Killing Democracy , a book that touches on a number of the most pressing concerns surrounding the rapid pace of technological change and, as the title suggests, what that means for democracy. He spoke to CapX's E...

In this week’s Spring Statement, Philip Hammond described himself as positively tiggerish about the economic news he was bringing to the House of Commons. His upbeat mood was, in large part, thanks to a minuscule uptick in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s growth forecasts for the next five years. It’s a reminder of just how central GDP is to the decisions politicians and policymakers make, a...

From an intricate knowledge of regulatory alignment versus regulatory equivalence to the difference between the customs union and a customs union, everyone interested in British politics suddenly has very strong views on the technical details of trade policy.  But while most of us have been hurriedly scrubbing up on all things trade, for others this is their bread and butter. Allie Renison is head...

Is education a waste of time? Surely no one, let alone a professor of economics, would defend such an outlandish claim. Well that is the exact argument made by Professor Bryan Caplan in his new book, The Case Against Education: Why the Education System is a Waste of Time and Money . On this week's episode of Free Exchange, CapX Editor Oliver Wiseman spoke to Bryan about how he reached his provocat...

Universal Basic Income may just be the trendiest idea in politics. It's also one of the most radical. Its advocates include Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson and John McDonnell. From the joblessness that could arise from automation and machine learning to growing concern over income inequality, UBI's cheerleaders claim the policy could solve some of the biggest political challenges we face. Put sim...

This week’s guest on Free Exchange is Sir Christopher Mallaby, a retired British diplomat whose career was defined by the Cold War. Sir Christopher recently published his memoirs, Living the Cold War . As well as an account of some of the most important events in the 20th Century, the book is collection of fascinating details of everyday life for someone involved in that all-consuming clash betwee...

This year may not have been a year of political earthquakes on the scale of 2016, but the last 12 months have contained more than their fair share of tumult. In Westminster, the idea of Prime Minister Corbyn started the year as a joke and ended as a very real possibility. In the United States, Donald Trump - the most volatile President in living memory - barely escaped the headlines, generating pl...

Oliver Letwin has been at the heart of Conservative politics for most of his adult life. From working in Margaret Thatcher’s downing street policy unit to serving as one of David Cameron’s most trusted ministers, he has played an important part in shaping the modern Conservative party. Sir Oliver has just published Hearts and Minds , a memoir in which he does more than just rattle off a series of...

This government has two big interconnected challenges. The first is, to quote the Prime Minister, to make a success of Brexit. The second is to see off the threat posed by Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and a Labour Party now dominated by the far-left. In both cases the government is in a bind. On the one hand, Corbyn and Brexit bring with them significant amounts of political and economic uncertai...

John Kay was born a year before Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. In the latest episode of Free Exchange, the CapX podcast, he tells Robert Colvile that "sometimes I look at Corbyn and I think, he thinks what I thought when I was 17. It's just that I've learnt a bit since then and he hasn't." Whereas the Labour leader has spent his life ploughing the furrow of far-left activism, John Kay has had a dive...

Michael Heseltine finds himself in an unusual position. He is one of the most distinguished Conservatives in the country, but is completely at odds with the party’s stance on the biggest issue of the day. While most Remain-supporting Tories – not least the Prime Minister – have taken the referendum result and run with it, Lord Heseltine has remained steadfast to his view that Brexit is an unmitiga...

Daniel Hannan MEP is known to most people as a leading Eurosceptic, or, in the Guardian 's words, "the man who brought you Brexit". With Britain on its way out of the EU, Hannan has established the Institute for Free Trade, which makes the intellectual and moral case for free trade, and sees Brexit unique opportunity to revitalise global trade.  A few weeks ago, at the Conservative Party Conferenc...

Jeremy Corbyn has built a potent political movement on the back of his explicit anti-capitalism. But it is not just the crowds of Corbynistas who don’t think much of the market. New research by Matthew Elliott of the Legatum Institute and James Kanagasooriam of Populus finds that on the economy the attitudes of the public as a whole are much closer to the Labour leader than the Conservative Party’...

Deepak Lal is one of the world's foremost development economists, who helped billions of people to prosper by arguing that prosperity is better delivered by markets rather than central planners. He talks to Robert Colvile about why the enemies of progress once again have the upper hand. Stay informed with CapX's unmissable daily briefings from the heart of Westminster. Go to capx.co to subscribe....

At the Margaret Thatcher Conference on Security, Robert Colvile talks to the Pulitzer Prize winner about Russia, Trump and the state of the West. Stay informed with CapX's unmissable daily briefings from the heart of Westminster. Go to capx.co to subscribe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Get full access to The CapX Briefing at briefing.capx.co/subscribe

In a special edition of the CapX podcast, recorded live in Parliament, Nicky Morgan, Sunder Katwala, Garvan Walshe and Eric Kaufmann debate whether immigration is a good or bad thing - with Robert Colvile in the chair. Stay informed with CapX's unmissable daily briefings from the heart of Westminster. Go to capx.co to subscribe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Get full...

Robert Colvile talks to Baroness Stroud, the new head of the Legatum Institute about fighting poverty on an individual, national and international level. From working with drug addicts in Hong Kong to working with IDS on welfare reform, Philippa Stroud has spent her life trying to help others. She talks us through her extraordinary personal story. Stay informed with CapX's unmissable daily briefin...

Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi, talks to Robert Colvile at the Margaret Thatcher Conference on Security about whether the West has lost its moral compass. Stay informed with CapX's unmissable daily briefings from the heart of Westminster. Go to capx.co to subscribe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Get full access to The CapX Briefing at briefing.capx.co/subscri...

Now executive chairman of the Resolution Foundation, Lord Willetts has long been one of the Tory party's intellectual heavyweights - the man so smart they nicknamed him "Two Brains". He talks to Robert Colvile - in a conversation recorded before the election - about what Britain's getting right. Stay informed with CapX's unmissable daily briefings from the heart of Westminster. Go to capx.co to su...