Today marks 50 years since Thatcher became the Conservative Party Leader
Today it is 50 years since Margaret Thatcher became leader of the Conservative Party — and took it, and the UK, in a completely new direction.
The importance of market testing
If anyone had tested the market for plastic bottles with non-detachable tops, as now required by EU countries and the UK, they would rapidly have discovered that it was not going to work.
Piffle about the costs of HMRC
This is wildly wrong: Britain’s “increasingly complex” tax system is costing businesses £15.4bn a year just to comply with, the public spending watchdog has warned.
Against Exploitation (of Theory and people)
Recently, Tim Worstall wrote for the Adam Smith Institute a short article titled ‘Privatise the NHS!’ He writes: ‘Our suggestion here would be that The Guardian undertake that difficult task of trying to employ that mythical beast - the journalist with a grasp of numbers.’
Nuclear it is
The Prime Minister has announced support for the building of several small modular reactors (SMRs) to boost the UK’s supply of nuclear energy.
Repugnant transactions and, well, whose repugnance?
What was striking was that it also split along another fissure: Collins’s possible motives. It was OK, some felt, to use a surrogate if you have infertility problems. But not in order to keep your figure, help your career, or because pregnancy is taxing and you are rich enough to outsource it.
The planning system is really very bad, isn’t it?
Apparently people are building houses where houses are not sensible to build: More than 100,000 new homes will be built on the highest-risk flood zones in England in the next five years as part of the government’s push for 1.5m extra properties by the end of this parliament, Guardian analysis suggests.
A 3-3-3 Strategy for the UK
Last week, the US Senate confirmed Scott Bessent as Donald Trump’s new Treasury Secretary. Trump — never one to resist a good tag line — was reportedly sold on Bessent after hearing about his economic strategy, dubbed “3-3-3”.
Britain never could have had a wealth fund from North Sea oil
Here’s Polly Toynbee bemoaning Margaret Thatcher: The one that most upends her claims to a grocer’s daughter’s thrift is her squandering of North Sea oil proceeds that came onstream just as she arrived in No 10.
Happy morning
A study has found that most people are happier in the morning.
Using survey data from 49,218 adults between March 2020 and March 2022, the researchers found people generally woke up "feeling best" but were "feeling worst" by midnight.
A Manifesto for Lord Mandelson- Part 4
Lord Mandelson has his agrément. Once he presents his credentials, his central objective will be to avoid new US tariffs. He will rely on US figures which show a surplus in their trade with us of $15bn, aiming off ours which show the reverse, a surplus in our favour of £67bn.