Getting the principle right If government has a duty to protect the lives, property and civil liberties of its subjects, ours is currently guilty of failing to display any meaningful police presence on our streets – beyond speeding yellow cars and vans blaring ear-splitting sirens that are actually more of a menace than a […]

SIR – Allister Heath makes a powerful case for not taxing property (Comment, February 13). However he concedes that “long-standing homeowners have made vast, untaxed capital gains as prices have shot up.” He explains that the answer is to build more houses, not to tax unrealised gains via a mansion tax. He makes no mention […]

ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES – 72 Those still shedding tears over our departure from the EU invariably refer to the success of the EU in healing post-WW2 wounds and keeping peace in Europe for 75 years. By the same token they imply that, by leaving, we are creating a dangerous rift that threatens to spark a resurgence […]

ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES – 71 Testing the Socialist hypothesis GOING POSTAL – EMILE WOOLF – JANUARY 2020 Kristian Niemitz, Head of Political Economy at the IEA, wrote a book last year in which he explores the reasons why the idea of socialism persists as a viable economic system. In “Socialism: the Failed Idea that Never Dies” […]

Dear Ronald Please feel free to submit this. You can give my name as author if you wish. Site value taxation This is a tax on land values, based on the value of the land alone – not on buildings or other improvements. Under this system development is encouraged because it has absolutely no effect […]

WHERE WE ARE NOW – A FESTIVE SUMMARY Emile Woolf – December 2019 There were dire warnings….. Over and over, we heard it. We heard it from the great and good, all authoritative sources with impeccable credentials. Carney at the Bank of England, Chancellors of the Exchequer (present and past), IMF, London School of Economics, […]

  TODAY’S ELECTION – WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT Emile Woolf The looming election appears patently divisive. But it isn’t the election itself that’s doing it. The division arises from the starkness of choice confronting the nation. The very word “di-vision” almost evokes a condition of “split vision”. It could, for example, mean that the political […]

CAMPAIGN PROMISES, and a dose of reality As my regular readers know, most of my essays are forays into challenging economic issues. They reflect my own attempts to gain an understanding of their underlying principles. But there’s a lot riding on the coming election, perhaps more than most of us realise, so here are some […]