The Capitalist

Is Britain’s own debt now as dangerous as any foreign rival? This week on The Capitalist, Marc Sidwell speaks to Daniel Hannan, the writer and former MEP who has just taken over as Director-General of the Institute of Economic Affairs – Britain’s original free-market think tank – at a moment when state spending sits at 46% of GDP.
He makes the case that in an increasingly dangerous world, Britain’s economic weakness is a vulnerability we can no longer afford. With debt at £3 trillion and history suggesting our power abroad has always rested as much on deeper, cheaper capital markets as fighting spirit, he argues our stretched public finances risk emboldening our geopolitical foes.
They also discuss how lockdown broke the public’s understanding of what ‘the economy’ even means, how Hannan plans to bring the free-market case to a new generation and why the electorate’s demand for spending deserves as much blame as any politician.


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‘The nations whose standards the world adopts win far more than the nations that merely rent their software by the month.’
The UK used to allow proprietary technology to compete alongside its open alternatives. Damian Green argues that as we enter the age of AI, our Government seems unsure how to deal with open-source models. But investing in open-source projects with the Americans is essential if we want to stay ahead of China. Openness helped put the internet in every pocket. We need to set AI free in the same way.
Each week we bring you an example of the best writing from CapX, read aloud. For hosted conversations, listen to The Capitalist, every Wednesday.
Get full access to the CapX Briefing at briefing.capx.co


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Will the man who paints himself as the antidote to Thatcherism lead us back to the worst of the 1970s? This week on The Capitalist, as Britain’s borrowing costs spiked and Andy Burnham faced MPs as Prime Minister, Marc Sidwell spoke to the economist Julian Jessop about Burnham’s plans – and whether they can really get Britain back to growth.
We discussed whether nationalisation is a recipe for reducing the cost of living, and Burnham’s curious belief that Britain’s current condition – with taxes at record levels and the state bigger than ever – can be labelled a failed experiment in neoliberalism.


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‘In Britain, we can force £100 million to be spent on a bat tunnel; imagine what our planning system will do with a gigawatt campus.’
Britain is the home of the first data centre, which helped us win the Second World War. James Price says that nowadays we can barely build them, thanks to Nimby complaints gumming up the planning system. The UAE is building data centres in the desert. Singapore is building them – despite real land and water constraints. We need to catch up.
Each week we bring you an example of the best writing from CapX, read aloud. For hosted conversations, listen to The Capitalist, every Wednesday.
Get full access to the CapX Briefing at briefing.capx.co


Get full access to The CapX Briefing at briefing.capx.co/subscribe

This week on The Capitalist, Marc Sidwell speaks to the writer and CapX columnist Jonn Elledge. His new book ‘31 Inventions That Built Our World’, surveys the technologies – from sewers to lifts – that make urban life possible. They discuss what it takes to keep a modern city running, and whether we are losing our nerve when it comes to building twenty-first century infrastructure.
They also talk about the PT Barnum stunt that convinced the public it was safe to ride in a lift, why nowhere on Earth held more than about a million people until the 1800s, the speed limit that stood in the way of commuting and why market pricing – not more regulation – is the answer to the mess we’ve made of urban space.


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