The Centre for Policy Studies is celebrating its 50th anniversary today with a fresh bout of policy projects to see free marketeers into the new year. Lord Frost is joining the ranks to lead a “major policy project” styled after “Stepping Stones”, the Thatcherite 10-commandment report that shaped free market policies in the 80s. Guido seems to remember Frost doing the exact same thing for Policy Exchange last year…
Meanwhile former No. 10 housing guru Alex Morton is rejoining the CPS as a research fellow after a brief stint at the IEA. The centre-right think tanks are gearing up for the coming Tory wars…
Contrary to the Twitterati narrative that a conspiracy of think tanks clustered in Tufton Street wields the most influence in wonk world, it’s actually the centre-left think tanks that have the most money and manpower. Guido’s crunched the numbers.
The Tony Blair Institute, Resolution Foundation, New Economics Foundation, Institute for Government and the Institute for Public Policy Research have a combined headcount of 497. This compares to Tufton Street’s more modest headcount of 116.
The top 5 centre-left think tanks had a combined turnover of £79,814,431 last year. In comparison, their top 5 right-of-centre rivals – the Centre for Policy Studies, Institute of Economic Affairs, Centre for Social Justice, Onward and Policy Exchange – had a combined turnover of a mere £9,032,646. The high media profile of the right-of-centre wonks is to their credit given by how much they are outnumbered and out-gunned in everything except the persuasiveness of their arguments. Nevertheless, the myth of the insidious influence of “Tufton Street” lives rent-free in the minds of conspiracy theorists.
It should be noted that the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) alone has a whopping 337 staff, with an eye-watering turnover of £65,247,459. Arguably the TBI is a do-tank, and consulting for foreign governments is a big source of revenue which allows it to nurture the next generation of Labour SpAds and future Labour Party MPs. One senior New Labour source reckons that the TBI is about selling Larry Ellison’s Oracle databases to African developing countries – Ellison has given Blair’s institute over $80 million in recent years. Blair has known Ellison since his time in Downing Street, when Oracle became a significant supplier of software to the government.
No sooner does one right-wing conference end than another one begin. Next up it’s the “Margaret Thatcher Conference on Opportunity” organised by the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS). Entering its seventh year, the bash is set for June 12 at the Guildhall, with headline appearances from Education Secretary Gillian Keegan and the chief sword-bearer herself Penny Mordaunt.
Keegan will be the opening act at 12:45, with Mordaunt hitting the stage later in the afternoon for a conversation with US polling guru Frank Luntz and CPS Director Rob Colvile. Guido also spots the Resolution Foundation’s Torsten Bell will be appearing on a panel as the token left-winger, preparing to beat the drum for higher welfare payments in front of a sea of Thatcherites. The Speccie’s Kate Andrews will be chairing the panel to stop him boring the audience to death. No sign of the country’s most well-known Maggie tribute act yet – did Liz’s invite get lost in the post?
Research from the Centre for Policy Studies makes grim reading for those who want to see Britain as a leading hub of investment. The UK’s tax competitiveness was put at 26th of 38 OECD countries, with corporation tax at a more respectable 10th. However, any silver linings were crashed by the government’s U-turn on corporation tax. The UK has now fallen to a wretched 33rd position, both overall and on corporation tax. The number of OECD countries more welcoming to business than Britain has now trebled…
The figures mean that Britain is ahead of only France and Italy amongst the G7. They’re hardly the enterprising nations Liz “no new taxes” Truss would aspire to. The figures bring home the lunacy of Tory wets’ attack lines. Robert Halfon had called the mini-budget “libertarian jihad”. What would that make the lower-tax US, Canada, Japan and Germany?
Boris didn’t make just one speech featuring Peppa Pig yesterday. After making a pig’s ear of it on his first attempt, he gave it another go later in the day – this time without losing his place, or upending the news flow for about 12 hours. Speaking at the big Centre for Policy Studies’ Margaret Thatcher Conference dinner last night, Boris said:
“I don’t know if you’ve heard the news my friends but yesterday I went to Peppa Pig World […] Hands up who has been to Peppa Pig World? […] I was initially quite hesitant but I found it was very much my kind of place, Peppa Pig World. It had good schools, excellent health care – there’s a bear called […] Dr Brown Bear who turns up no trouble too great, always turns up for in-person consultations. Superb infrastructure – novel transport, mass transit systems systems in Peppa Pig World. And safe streets, virtually no crime that I can see.
[…]
Peppa’s influence, – she’s got a younger brother called George by the way – Peppa’s cultural influence, is so pervasive that kids in America now say ‘to-mah-to’ instead of ‘tom-ate-o’ and ‘mummy’ rather than ‘mom’ … Anyway, and there you go – that is believed to be a direct result of Peppa Pig and that is the effect of the free trade in which Margaret Thatcher believed.”
If at first you don’t succeed…
Sunak’s corporation tax hike would see the UK’s international tax competitiveness slip from 11th to 30th out of 37 OECD nations, a report from the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) warns. The report argues that the UK’s outdated business rates system, its planned corporation tax hike from 19% to 25% and the recent national insurance rise would derail Britain’s economic growth. Once all the planned tax rises come in, the UK will fall to thirtieth place on the International Tax Competitiveness Index, well behind competitors such as the United States, Germany, Canada, and Japan…
Tom Clougherty, head of tax at the CPS, explained:
“There is nothing wrong with getting the budget balanced, but are we going to do more harm than good with more tax increases?
Right on the money…
A spokesman for the Treasury said:
“This Government has consistently backed business. The UK has a highly competitive business tax regime and remains one of the best places in the world to do business – we have a lower headline rate of corporation tax than any other major comparable economy and generous reliefs for both research and development.”
Is that really true Rishi? Hiking taxes is clearly harming UK competitiveness…
