Section: CapX (The United Kingdom)
Russia wrote the book on fake news
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has just announced plans to launch a website dedicated to tackling fake news. It’s a noble objective but also a little ironic given Russia’s flagrant display this week of “hybrid warfare” – straightforward propaganda, that is, backed up with black ops and subterfuge. As an optimist on Russia, it...
The White House is at war with itself over foreign policy
We are one month in to Donald Trump’s presidency. From the extraordinary use of his Mar-a-Lago clubhouse as an open-air situation room, to National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s unprecedented sacking, to the President’s Lear-worthy performance at an impromptu press conference, this administration is demonstrating an...
Should Britain set sail for an EFTA trade deal?
As the United Kingdom moves to formally separate itself from the European Union, Brexit supporters and detractors alike have recognised the right to negotiate trade agreements with the rest of the world as one of the major dividends of the process. Britain now has a number of tracks it needs to progress on – what it can do unilaterally,...
Tony Blair’s denial won’t change the referendum result
It must have been a slow news day. Personally, though I’m not saying the stuff about woolly mammoths being resurrected within two years was the coolest thing ever, I do think it was in the top one. I’d have been happy with wall-to-wall news on that this morning. Instead, we had live coverage of a speech by some bloke called Blair,...
Has BT got too big for its boots?
This is a vitally important year for the UK’s mobile phone industry. Ofcom will be auctioning off a new allocation of spectrum that will be used by mobile phone companies to offer additional internet services to customers. The first auction will supplement the current ability of mobile providers to offer 4G internet services, while another...
Why ‘Trumpcare’ could define Trump’s presidency
It’s difficult to enter a room nowadays without being dragged into a discussion about the latest Trump controversy: the Muslim ban, the Wall, the links to Russia, yet another attack on the media. While these are, of course, matters of great concern, there is one issue on Trump’s agenda which towers above everything else in terms of...
Le Pen is stoking France’s passion for protectionism
Yes, we get it. Marine Le Pen is a divider, a xenophobe, a dangerous nativist who’s willing to disregard individual rights of every kind to achieve her goal of Making France Great Again. She’s racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic. And you’ll delete us off social media if we even think about voting for her. For many people, the...
Here’s why an ‘NHS tax’ is a horrible idea
The NHS widely perceived to be facing its gravest ever crisis. Whether not this is in fact the case is difficult to tell. True, some indicators look pretty awful – A&E waiting times, for instance. But the truth about the NHS is that there is never enough money. In the 2000s, the NHS budget doubled in real terms – but there were still hundreds...
It’s time to cut Greece loose
The Greek debt crisis is back in the news. According to the Greek authorities, the country’s economy shrank by 0.4 per cent in the final quarter of 2016. “Experts” had expected it to grow by 0.4 per cent. Despite a number of bailouts amounting to some 240 billion euros, and a host of supposed reforms (which I will address below), the Greek...
The future of the sharing economy is in the hands of the courts
It’s been 10 years since the iPhone was launched. At that time, the digital revolution was in its infancy and the iPad, Kindle, 4G, Airbnb, Twitter, Android, Oculus, Spotify, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp & Uber were the unknown future. These are now the dominant technologies of our time. They are disrupting every industry and changing...
