Business is the wealth generator of the UK, and small and family businesses are the often neglected heart of the UK economy, with family businesses alone employing nearly four in ten of the UK’s workforce. We propose ways to make the UK an economy all businesses can thrive in.
Monetarism Lost
etween mod-1996 and mid 1988 the British economy experienced a full scale boom. Over the two years national output rose almost 10 per cent, much faster than could be sustained in the long term.
Joining the EMS for and Against
Discussions of possible British membership of the EMS have unfortunately become highly politicised. Both supporters and opponents frequently claim that such a move is far more than it appears to be on the surface – that it is a stepping stone on what may be either a more glittering, or more sinister, path.
Exertion & Example
Everyone seeks in history a justification for the present and even, sometimes, a guide to the future.
The Power of Ideas
In his speech in January to an audience especially invited by the Centre for Policy Studies, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was eloquent on the necessity, and the force, of new ideas to sustain and carry forward a government.
The Local Right
For the last 150 years local authorities of various persuasions have represented and served their various communities. By Nicholas Ridley MP.
Opting Out
The education Bill before Parliament honours the promise made by the government before the general election to give state schools the chance to opt out of local authority control and run themselves.
Natural Partners
It is an irony that many critics of Thatcherism who allege that it has lost its connection with its ancient conservative roots, are precisely those who were complacent at Britain’s steady movement into corporatism.
In Sickness and in Health
It seems longer than three months ago that Oliver Letwin and I first wrote about health.
Clear the Decks
Britain’s industrial superiority during the nineteenth century depended upon our control of vital sea routes.
Britain’s Biggest Enterprise
The National Health Service is the biggest enterprise in Britain. It absorbs some £21 billion a year – almost £500 from every adult in the country. It treats almost one hundred thousand patients a day. And it is the largest employer in Western Europe, with just under one million employee – almost twice as many as in our entire civil service.
Victorian Values
Manners and Morals – the expression is peculiarly unmistakable Victorian. Not manners alone: Lord Chesterfield in the eighteenth century was fond of discoursing to his son on the supreme importance of manners, manners as distinct from morals.
The Local Left
There are three main intellectual traditions in the British Labour Party – the Fabens, the Guild socialists and the Marxist.
The Cold War
The Cold War! Many, probably most, of the typical political expressions – the cant phrases, as we would say – of our epoch come from France, and especially from the French revolution.
Science and Politics
In 1872 Walter Bagehot’s physics and politics was published. In it he pointed out that new inventions, particularly the railway and the telegraph, together with the rapid acquisition of physical knowledge were leading to a new world of ideas.
