Taxes on goods and services, including labour, make them more expensive. Other things being equal, on the margins people will tend to consume less of them.

Apparently the National Health Service - that Wonder of the World - is not, in fact, very good. In fact, it could be significantly better if it were simply managed better:

When I first began to fly across the Atlantic, flights used to cost the same because the International Air Transport Association (IATA) was a price cartel.

Putting Tony Juniper - who ran Friends of the Earth for many years - in charge of what may be built, where, at Natural England might not have been a good idea.

It is, of course, imperative that society is driven forward by mission oriented, cross cutting, technological solution providing plans of only the sort that government can provide. Otherwise, how can anything happen? Obviously!

As we’re all aware the excuse for socialism and a planned economy has changed. A century back scientific socialism was said to be more efficient than that chaos of markets and capitalism. So, a planned future would be a richer future. We also, with the benefit of hindsight, know how that worked out. It didn’t, etc.

President Trump has made a fighting start to his second term. Executive orders have flown thick and fast from the Oval Office. Meanwhile Elon Musk’s new Department, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has shown equal speed in tackling what it sees as wasteful or unnecessary federal activity.

The very dilemma that confounds so much of British policy, are we more American or European? makes the country irresistible to the prosperous world’s footloose youngsters.

Aditya Chakrabortty has just had one of those shocking little experiences: Among the first acts of Starmer’s government was to slash the discount available to council tenants wanting to buy their homes.

The OBR has informed the Chancellor that she has run out of the £9bn headroom granted through tax-rises in the Autumn Budget. So, what are her options?

There really are people who believe this is true: Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, signalled on Sunday that “reciprocal” tariffs will mean emulating VAT policy.