The EU was born to ‘screw’ the US. That’s what Donald Trump told reporters in 2025: ‘That’s the purpose of it, and they’ve done a good job of it. But now I’m president.’ But that wasn’t always the United States’s view of the EU. As historian Andrew Roberts wrote, the American State Department ‘enthusiastically signed […]
Britain’s prisons are at breaking point. This month, 85,840 people are currently detained across prisons in England and Wales, with the estate operating at over 96% capacity. In 2023, 66% of prisons were operating above their original design capacity. The situation is desperate. In 2024, with fewer than 100 spare beds across the entire male […]
There are certain things I expect very few people to care about. For example, if someone found a counterexample to an obscure mathematical conjecture from 1939, I would expect approximately three people in my group of friends (all three maths academics) to even pretend to care. And that is a very niche and self-selected group […]
Outgoing governments often try to craft a legacy for themselves by introducing policy traps that incoming governments find hard to undo, such as Rishi Sunak’s National Insurance cuts in 2024 or Gordon Brown’s introduction of the 50p top rate of income tax in 2010. Keir Starmer just did something similar by initiating a huge expansion […]
This week, Nimby Watch is in Hendon, a settlement since Roman times and which has had its name – Anglo-Saxon for ‘high hill’ – since at least 1005. Alright. Hendon. Why? Let’s show a bit of enthusiasm for Hendon, shall we? You’re clearly not an aviation history buff – Hendon was the first home of […]
Let me give Andy Burnham his due. For the best part of a decade he was the most persuasive voice in the country for letting go – for the plain truth that a decision taken in Whitehall about a town no official has ever visited tends to be worse than the one the people who […]
Trains run on rails. And access to these rails determines what services can be offered. Back in the 19th and early 20th centuries the railways were privately owned. Most companies, however small, initially owned their own permanent way. It soon became apparent that, rather than forcing passengers on long journeys to disembark and join another […]
The Roman historian Livy can claim to have invented an entire genre. Midway through his vast History of Rome, he breaks off from the narrative to ask a question nobody had thought to put in print before: what would have happened had Alexander the Great turned his armies west and marched on Italy? It is […]
Andy Burnham is, apparently, going to solve the old age care problem. I tend to think he won’t but there we are, me and my cynicism. For he’s talking of organising something like the NHS, a National Care Service, which – as with the NHS – is the wrong way to do things. In order […]
On June 23 Britain’s grid came close to collapse. Despite energy minister Michael Shanks calling claims ‘scaremongering’, new whistleblower information shows the grid had indeed been pushed past safe operating limits. A leaked National Energy System Operator (NESO) document said that ‘system constraints were breached and system security was compromised’ – a damning indictment of […]
In his first days as Prime Minister, Andy Burnham announced a series of populist pledges that purport to address the cost of living, but fail to address the deep structural issues afflicting the British economy. Burnham will soon discover – like the four short-lived predecessors who held office before him – that the voters of […]
In June, SpaceX went public in the largest IPO in history. Three days earlier, a German historian published a book explaining why that moment had been 60 years in the making. CapX editor Marc Sidwell sits down with Rainer Zitelmann to discuss ‘New Space Capitalism’, Zitelmann’s account of how private enterprise took over the final […]
Britain has a new prime minister. But can a new chancellor and a new economic direction reverse years of stagnation? CapX editor Marc Sidwell sits down with Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith to ask whether Andy Burnham’s government is about to double down on a bigger state or finally embrace growth. They discuss expected changes […]
Andy Burnham is days away from becoming prime minister. According to economist Andrew Lilico, he’s inheriting an economy with almost no room left to manoeuvre – and a sense of personal virtue is no substitute for a plan, as the fate of his predecessor shows. In this week’s episode of The Capitalist, Lilico joins Marc […]
Nigel Farage has just resigned his seat to force a by-election in Clacton. The establishment, his allies say, is trying to destroy him. Perhaps – but have they misjudged their target? Gawain Towler, Reform UK’s director of communications from 2019 to 2024 and now a member of the party’s governing board, joined CapX editor Marc […]
Britain is in trouble. Its economy is stagnant, and its politics are in turmoil, with Andy Burnham set to be our seventh prime minister in a decade. Yet former chancellor Jeremy Hunt has a surprisingly upbeat take on Britain’s potential – if its politicians can be bold enough. In this episode of The Capitalist, he […]
Aspiration was once the beating heart of British conservatism – so how did the party lose it, and can it win it back? Mario Creatura, a former special adviser to Theresa May in Downing Street, joins CapX editor Marc Sidwell to trace how the Brexit years and the paternalism of Covid pushed ambition and opportunity […]
Watch or listen to CapX’s weekly podcast ‘The Capitalist’ wherever you get your podcasts.
Britain’s prisons are at breaking point. This month, 85,840 people are currently detained across prisons in England and Wales, with the estate operating at over 96% capacity. In 2023, 66% of prisons were operating above their original design capacity. The situation is desperate. In 2024, with fewer than 100 spare beds across the entire male […]
The EU was born to ‘screw’ the US. That’s what Donald Trump told reporters in 2025: ‘That’s the purpose of it, and they’ve done a good job of it. But now I’m president.’ But that wasn’t always the United States’s view of the EU. As historian Andrew Roberts wrote, the American State Department ‘enthusiastically signed […]
There are certain things I expect very few people to care about. For example, if someone found a counterexample to an obscure mathematical conjecture from 1939, I would expect approximately three people in my group of friends (all three maths academics) to even pretend to care. And that is a very niche and self-selected group […]
Outgoing governments often try to craft a legacy for themselves by introducing policy traps that incoming governments find hard to undo, such as Rishi Sunak’s National Insurance cuts in 2024 or Gordon Brown’s introduction of the 50p top rate of income tax in 2010. Keir Starmer just did something similar by initiating a huge expansion […]
Trains run on rails. And access to these rails determines what services can be offered. Back in the 19th and early 20th centuries the railways were privately owned. Most companies, however small, initially owned their own permanent way. It soon became apparent that, rather than forcing passengers on long journeys to disembark and join another […]
The Roman historian Livy can claim to have invented an entire genre. Midway through his vast History of Rome, he breaks off from the narrative to ask a question nobody had thought to put in print before: what would have happened had Alexander the Great turned his armies west and marched on Italy? It is […]
I’m 23. Like many of my friends, I endured the British education system all the way to university: GCSEs, A levels and then an undergraduate degree. Now, with little opportunity to progress in the small town we grew up in, those same friends are now looking to move to a city for work. For some, […]
This week, Nimby Watch is in central London… Okay then, where are we this time? We’re in Belgravia, one of London’s swankiest neighbourhoods. Don’t say I never take you anywhere nice. Okay, fine. But neither one of us can afford anything here, as well you know, and I’m including coffee when I say that. Well… […]
It’s been a wild summer already. Britain’s onto its seventh prime minister in a decade, with Andy Burnham wasting no time rearranging the furniture – and, for part of the week, the postcode – of No 10. Outside Westminster, England gave us their best World Cup run in 60 years, though the trophy itself will […]
The media headlines all tell a consistent story about AI and employment: We’re doomed! ‘Robots may shatter the global economic order within a decade,’ says The Telegraph. ‘A World Without Work’ is coming, The Atlantic predicts. ‘The brave new world of robots and lost jobs’ is upon us, The Washington Post says. Most gloomily, Forbes […]
Nigel Farage, the Member of Parliament for Clacton and leader of Reform UK, has resigned, triggering a by-election in the constituency. This follows weeks of speculation regarding an undeclared £5 million gift Farage received before he became an MP, as well as other gifts he allegedly should have declared. Farage intends to stand in the […]
Andy Burnham is not a forward-looking man. His musical interests stop at around 1998, his approach to industry is straight out of the 1970s and his favourite football team hasn’t won a trophy for over thirty years. It’s little surprise then that he takes a dim view of the ongoing tech revolution. It was reported […]
In the year we celebrate the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith, we must also celebrate the idea that the wealth of nations and the free, fair exchange of goods and services are intricately connected. This idea is what made Britain one of the wealthiest countries in the world and – with one in three pounds […]
It’s only on the basis of truth that power should be won – or indeed can be worth winning. Margaret Thatcher, 1996 It is a hundred years since Margaret Thatcher was born in Grantham. Fifty years since she took over the Conservative Party. Almost 35 years since she was forced from office. Today’s voters are […]
If you’re under the age of 53, no human being has ever left low Earth orbit in your lifetime. Just nine spaceflights, all under the Apollo Program, took human beings beyond Earth orbit at all. And they all took place in a four-year burst between December 1968 and December 1972. Tonight, NASA attempts to change […]
There is much discussion right now about the dysfunctionality of UK politics. This goes beyond complaints about the policy incoherence or ineffectuality of any particular government, whether that be the current one or its Tory and Coalition predecessors. Rather, there is a growing feeling that the political system itself, the whole process of politics, no […]
Ten years ago, the EU referendum created two new political tribes: Leavers and Remainers. As Sara Hobolt and I show in our new book ‘Tribal Politics: How Brexit divided Britain’, both tribes are very much still with us. Even today, about 60% of people in Britain identify as a Remainer or a Leaver, and people’s […]
‘Isn’t it time we stopped talking about her?’ Fifty years since Margaret Thatcher became leader of the Conservative Party, her face, and even some of her iconic outfits, were all over this year’s party conference. Not everyone was happy about that. Hot takes and tweets grumbled about it being time to move on, to pack […]
