IEA Podcast

In this Institute of Economic Affairs podcast, Lord Hannan is joined by Dr Christopher Snowdon, Head of Lifestyle Economics, and Dr Kristian Niemietz, Editorial Director at the IEA.
This week, the discussion opens with whether Britain should have built a sovereign wealth fund from North Sea oil revenue, as Chancellor John Healey has suggested, pointing to Norway as the model we failed to follow. Is that comparison fair, or was Britain’s falling debt-to-GDP ratio in the 1980s itself a form of saving, just one that never got dressed up as a national fund? With the national debt now around £3 trillion, the fourth-largest in the world in absolute terms, how far could the IEA’s own Alternative Budget, built on a welfare freeze and a shift from income and savings taxes to consumption taxes, actually take us back toward surplus? And with the Budget approaching, will the Chancellor deliver meaningful reform, or a string of small, politically-driven announcements that change little?
The discussion then turns to France, where the panel debates whether the riots reflect a genuine fiscal crisis, a deficit above 5% of GDP and rising borrowing costs, built on decades of unaffordable pension and welfare spending, and whether Britain’s own creeping youth unemployment and social tensions put it on a similar trajectory. They also examine how far radicalisation and alienation in Britain stem from schools and the wider culture rather than immigration itself.
The discussion closes with Dr Snowdon’s regular nanny state story: a Manchester rent tribunal that didn’t just block a landlord’s modest, inflation-linked rent increase but ordered the rent reduced below its original level, an early example, the panel argues, of the unintended consequences of the Renters’ Rights Act. They end by invoking Bastiat’s distinction between the seen and unseen consequences of policy.
The Institute of Economic Affairs is a registered educational charity. It does not endorse or give support for any political party in the UK or elsewhere. Our mission is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems.
The views represented here are those of the speakers alone, not those of the Institute, its Managing Trustees, Academic Advisory Council members or senior staff.
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In this Institute of Economic Affairs podcast, Maeve Halligan is joined by Dr Valentin Boboc, Chief Economist, and Dr Christopher Snowdon, Head of Lifestyle Economics at the IEA.This week, the International Monetary Fund’s upgraded growth forecast for Britain is up for discussion, from its warning of a slowdown in 2027 to its advice that the Chancellor resist big giveaways just two weeks before the Budget.How much weight should we give to economic forecasts that are often wrong by more than the upgrade itself? With energy bills set to rise again, what can actually be done about the cost of living, and why has Britain chosen not to make more of its own North Sea oil and gas? Can the Government stick to its fiscal rules without borrowing more, and would giving local leaders more power over income tax lead to genuine tax competition?The discussion then turns to Manchester City, found guilty by an independent commission of disguising more than £830 million in owner funding as sponsorship, asking whether football’s spending rules are fit for purpose, why heavy investment from wealthy owners has been good for fans, and what the new independent football regulator could mean for the Premier League. The discussion closes with the mandatory addition of folic acid to flour from December, from why supplements alone cannot prevent neural tube defects such as spina bifida to why a lifestyle economist who opposes most nanny state measures is backing this one.The Institute of Economic Affairs is a registered educational charity. It does not endorse or give support for any political party in the UK or elsewhere. Our mission is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems.The views represented here are those of the speakers alone, not those of the Institute, its Managing Trustees, Academic Advisory Council members or senior staff.
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In this IEA interview, Daniel Freeman, Managing Editor and Deputy Editorial Director at the IEA, speaks to historian, veteran foreign correspondent and author Adam LeBor about the second edition of his book Tower of Basel: The Shadowy History of the Secret Bank that Runs the World. The conversation explores the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), perhaps the most important bank most people have never heard of. LeBor explains how the BIS was founded in 1930 by Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank and Montagu Norman of the Bank of England to handle German reparations after the First World War, and how its protection under an international treaty means Swiss law does not apply within its Basel headquarters.LeBor describes how, during the Second World War, the supposedly neutral BIS was run by an American banker, Thomas McKittrick, while it accepted looted Nazi gold and provided foreign exchange that allowed Germany to buy vital war materials such as Portuguese tungsten. He sets out how the bank served as a secret channel between the Allies and the Nazis, with McKittrick passing information to the American spymaster Allen Dulles, and why it survived calls from the US Treasury for its closure. The interview also covers the transfer of Czechoslovak gold to the Reichsbank, the presence of IG Farben chief Hermann Schmitz on the BIS board, the bank’s decades of groundwork for the euro and the European Central Bank, and why its warnings about unsustainable debt before the 2008 financial crisis went unheeded. The discussion closes with the BIS today, as a bank for central banks, a leading research institution and a meeting place for central bankers, and with the central bank digital currencies its research has made possible. LeBor sets out the risks he sees in CBDCs, from faster bank runs and the threat to civil liberties to the possibility that wholesale systems could let sanctioned states sidestep SWIFT, and argues that while the BIS has become far more open since the first edition, it should still reveal more about who attends its meetings and what they discuss.The Institute of Economic Affairs is a registered educational charity. It does not endorse or give support for any political party in the UK or elsewhere. Our mission is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems. The views represented here are those of the speakers alone, not those of the Institute, its Managing Trustees, Academic Advisory Council members or senior staff.
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In this Institute of Economic Affairs podcast, Dr Christopher Snowdon, Head of Lifestyle Economics, is joined by Kristian Niemietz, Editorial Director and Head of Political Economy, and Daniel Freeman, Managing Editor and Deputy Editorial Director at the IEA.This week, Kemi Badenoch’s speech to Conservative Party conference is up for discussion, from her pledge to exempt the family home from inheritance tax and raise the tax-free allowance on other assets to £1 million, to her plan to scrap the £100,000 cap on free childcare.Would a total exemption on the family home encourage wealthy people to pour their savings into ever bigger houses, and what can Spain’s wealth tax tell us about how people respond? With the country borrowing around £150 billion a year, is this really the most growth-friendly tax cut on offer, and why not relax childcare ratios instead? The discussion then turns to the latest riots in France, asking why calls for more public spending persist in a country where the state accounts for over half of GDP, and whether some riots are less about politics than spectacle. The discussion closes with Wales’s Well-being of Future Generations Act, from the former Future Generations Commissioner’s role in cancelling road projects to why vague but legally binding goals make it so hard to build anything in Britain.The Institute of Economic Affairs is a registered educational charity. It does not endorse or give support for any political party in the UK or elsewhere. Our mission is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems.The views represented here are those of the speakers alone, not those of the Institute, its Managing Trustees, Academic Advisory Council members or senior staff.
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In this Institute of Economic Affairs interview, IEA Director General Lord Hannan of Kingsclere speaks to David Nott, President and CEO of Reason Foundation, about the philosophy behind Reason magazine and the case for individual liberty today. They discuss what distinguishes Reason's motto of "free minds and free markets", and why the magazine takes on difficult issues such as drug policy that other classical liberals often avoid.David explains his "pendulum" view of history, in which authoritarian periods give way to liberalising waves, and how Reason now reaches around 15 million views a month through short-form video. The conversation also covers the rule of law, the relationship between democracy and freedom, lessons from the pandemic, and how Covid sparked a wave of school choice reform in the United States, before closing with Lord Hannan's customary question: what would a libertarian do as emperor for a day?The Institute of Economic Affairs is a registered educational charity. It does not endorse or give support for any political party in the UK or elsewhere. Our mission is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems.The views represented here are those of the speakers alone, not those of the Institute, its Managing Trustees, Academic Advisory Council members or senior staff.
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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit economicaffairs.co.uk/subscribe