Lord Frost has been appointed the Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs. He will join the free market think tank in January, and will give up the Conservative whip to accept the position. The IEA’s getting Frosty…
He said this afternoon:
“I am delighted to be able to make the case for freedom from this new vantage point, as Director General of the IEA, one of Britain’s oldest, greatest, and certainly most pro-freedom think tanks. The IEA helped create the conditions for Britain’s free market revolution in the 1980s by refusing to compromise on its principles and by advocating them so clearly that they entered into the political bloodstream. That now needs to happen again if we are to defeat the current bleak outlook of statism and collectivism.
“The IEA is an educational charity and does not engage in party politics. Accordingly I will no longer take the Conservative whip in the Lords. I will continue to contribute there as a non-affiliated peer. I will not be joining any other party.
“I look forward to having even greater freedom to say what I think and (to adopt the famous phrase of FA Hayek) to argue ever more strongly against the socialists of all parties.”
Another win for Guido’s runners and riders series…
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”