As Elon Musk edges toward an eye-watering new milestone, the idea of a trillionaire sparks more fear than fascination on the left. But what if extreme wealth could accelerate progress rather than hoard it? In this essay, James Price, Senior Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute, argues that visionaries like Musk and other billionaire entrepreneurs reinvest their fortunes in projects that governments could never deliver—from AI-driven education to medical breakthroughs and space exploration. The result, he suggests, is a private sector more capable of solving humanity’s biggest problems than any public institution.

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How does Britain’s most famous broadcaster recover from a crisis that’s reached the very top? In the space of a week, the BBC has lost two of its most senior executives and now faces an extraordinary legal threat from the President of the United States. What began as an editing error in a Panorama documentary has spiralled into a full-blown test of the corporation’s credibility — and its future.

In this episode of The Capitalist, Marc Sidwell is joined by veteran journalist Robin Lustig, former BBC World Service and Radio 4 presenter, to explore what this storm reveals about the state of public service broadcasting, political polarisation, and the shifting media landscape. Together, they ask whether the BBC can still command trust in a divided Britain — and what must change to restore its authority.

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Is Britain heading for another 1976 moment? With a £30 billion fiscal hole and few promises left unbroken, Rachel Reeves looks set to raise income tax — a move that could mark a grim turning point for Britain’s economy. In this essay, Reem Ibrahim, Head of Media at the Institute of Economic Affairs, warns that higher taxes on work will punish aspiration, stifle growth, and echo the policy mistakes that once sent Britain to the IMF, cap in hand. Her message is clear: without spending restraint, Reeves risks repeating history’s harshest lesson.

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Rachel Reeves' speech on Tuesday gave every indication that tax rises are on the way — though she was careful not to name names.

The challenge is clear: raising serious revenue usually means turning to the big three — income tax, National Insurance, or VAT. But Labour’s manifesto ruled those out, leaving the Chancellor with a fiscal puzzle and limited room to manoeuvre.

Joining CapX deputy editor Joseph Dinnage to make sense of it all are Reem Ibrahim from the Institute of Economic Affairs and Henry Hill from Conservative Home.

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Should the Right back Britain’s most ambitious science corridor? The Oxford–Cambridge Arc has long been dismissed as another government slogan in search of substance. Yet beneath the jargon lies a bold vision: a world-class corridor linking Britain’s greatest minds, laboratories, and industries—from quantum computing to Formula One. In this essay, James Price, Senior Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute, argues that the Arc could be the key to Britain’s renewal—if only conservatives have the courage to back it. With smarter planning, faster connections, and freer markets, he says, the region could transform from a bureaucratic idea into a global powerhouse.

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Labour’s New Towns Taskforce promised a bold vision for housing. But with only three modest sites selected, is this really the step-change the country needs — or just more planning fatigue?

Plus: with welfare spending rising and tax burdens at record highs, is it time for serious reform? As the Treasury looks for ways to plug a £22 billion shortfall, we ask whether the current system still delivers value for money.

And can London win back its missing millionaires? After years of sluggish growth and rising levies, business leaders are calling for a rethink of the capital’s tax regime. Benjamin Wilson is joined by City AM’s Alys Denby and Lawrence Newport from Looking for Growth to explore what’s needed to put London back on the global map.

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Welcome to the new Despatch — your Monday briefing for a sharper, more optimistic week. London’s super-prime property market has long been the world’s barometer of confidence. When Britain welcomes success, investment flows freely; when it punishes ambition, the money quietly leaves. Now, even before the Chancellor unveils his Budget, the warning lights are flashing. Economist Damian Pudner explains why London’s property slowdown is a symptom of fading confidence — and sets out practical steps to bring capital, and optimism, back.

Despatch comes from the team behind The Capitalist. Don’t miss our full podcast every Wednesday.

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As Labour prepares its first Budget, can the party really blame Brexit for Britain’s sluggish productivity – and will voters be convinced? We also ask why Britain still isn’t building enough homes, and whether a new environmental levy risks making the crisis worse.

Plus: in an age of short-form video and fractured attention, where have all the great communicators gone? With Thatcher’s centenary in mind, the panel explores what it takes to cut through in modern politics – and who, if anyone, is getting it right.

Marc Sidwell is joined by writer and strategist John Oxley and former Downing Street communications adviser Robert Midgley for a sharp look at the week’s big political questions.

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Fifty years since Margaret Thatcher became leader of the Conservative Party, her face, and even some of her iconic outfits, were all over this year’s party conference. Not everyone was happy about that. Hot takes and tweets grumbled about it being time to move on, to pack away the old clothes and put out something a bit more 2025.

At CapX, however, we’re proud to still fly the Thatcherite flag. Not just because, as part of the Centre for Policy Studies, the think tank she co-founded, Thatcher’s ideas are in our DNA. But, as Marc Sidwell argues, because Mrs Thatcher remains the woman for this moment, with the ideas that Britain still needs to get back on the right track.

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Can a British regulator really fine an overseas website under the banner of the Online Safety Act? In today’s edition of The Capitalist, host Marc Sidwell is joined by free speech lawyer Preston Byrne and journalist Harry Phibbs to discuss Ofcom’s £20,000 penalty against 4chan — and what it means for free expression in the digital age.

The conversation then turns to calls for a one-off wealth raid to patch Britain’s public finances, and to Marc’s own argument that Margaret Thatcher’s unfinished revolution still offers Britain a blueprint for national renewal.

From digital censorship to tax grabs and the battle for Britain’s economic soul, this is a sharp, timely look at what freedom really means in 2025.

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Javier Milei’s Argentina has drawn the admiration of many British conservatives. But what would a “British Milei” really look like — and would the civil service, Parliament, or the public ever let one govern? That question animated a lively CapX panel at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester, chaired by Joseph Dinnage, with Jack Rankin MP, Annunziata Rees-Mogg of Popular Conservatives, Tom Clougherty of the Institute of Economic Affairs, and Tom Harwood of GB News. The discussion drew heavily on Argentina’s libertarian experiment under President Javier Milei — his slash-and-burn of ministries, his rapid deficit elimination, and his flair for political theatre. Could such radicalism take root in Westminster’s rule-bound soil?

The panel’s admiration was tempered by realism. Clougherty praised Milei’s fiscal discipline — cutting Argentina’s deficit from 5% of GDP to zero in a month — but warned that “chainsaws don’t travel well.” Rees-Mogg highlighted Milei’s “depth of conviction,” arguing Britain’s leaders have lost the courage to act decisively. Rankin cautioned that “the Overton window hasn’t yet moved on the economy,” though he expects a coming fiscal reckoning to force honesty about debt, welfare, and spending. Harwood, meanwhile, drew parallels with Liz Truss’s ill-fated mini-budget: “Markets thought we’d gone loopy,” he said, underscoring that radicalism without credibility is ruinous.

Where Argentina acted from crisis, Britain’s crisis is one of confidence. The conversation returned again and again to communication — how to marry tough economics with moral clarity. “We need to explain the why,” Rees-Mogg insisted. The lesson from Buenos Aires, it seems, isn’t to imitate Milei’s chainsaw, but his conviction: to tell the truth early, show belief in reform, and build consent before crisis forces the issue.

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“The Tory Party isn’t dead... yet.”

Live from the Conservative Party Conference 2025 in Manchester, The Capitalist tests that claim with a frank post-mortem and a blueprint for revival. Host Marc Sidwell grills Tom Harwood (Deputy Political Editor, GB News) and Lord Graham Brady (former MP and long-time chair of the 1922 Committee) on whether this bruised party can regain credibility — and how fast. From the mood on the conference floor to the hard maths of the public finances, they weigh the big gambles: leaving the ECHR to make border policy bite, putting spending cuts ahead of tax hikes, and shifting the national conversation back to growth, competitiveness and a simpler, flatter tax system.

Expect sharp takes on the Reform Party squeeze, why messaging matters as much as manifestos, and what Thatcher-era discipline can still teach a fractious Right. With the autumn Budget looming and trust at a premium, our guests debate whether a “strong borders, strong economy” pivot can move votes — or if this is just the first step in a long road back.

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Is Ed Miliband the greatest threat to climate action in Britain today? In this edition of Despatch, Sam Hall — Director of the Conservative Environment Network — delivers a clear critique of Labour’s energy agenda. While the left rails against climate sceptics like Nigel Farage, Hall argues it’s actually Ed Miliband’s heavy-handed, ideologically driven policies that risk turning the public against the green transition.

From sky-high subsidies and rushed decarbonisation targets to politicised rhetoric tying climate change to broader progressive causes, Labour is making clean energy more expensive, less competitive, and dangerously partisan. The result? Higher bills, slower adoption of electric vehicles and heating, and growing resistance from voters who should be onside.

With the Conservative Party Conference approaching, Hall makes the case for a pragmatic, pro-market approach to climate policy — and calls on the right to reclaim its environmental legacy from both denialists and dogmatists.

Despatch is the sharp weekly briefing from the team behind The Capitalist, unpacking the political ideas shaping Britain's future.

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Labour is playing a dangerous game on immigration – edging closer to Reform’s hardline rhetoric but risking alienation from their own base, while never going far enough to satisfy Reform’s supporters. Against this backdrop, Rachel Reeves prepares the ground for potential tax rises. Can Labour raise revenue without choking off long-term growth? Marc Sidwell is joined by City AM’s Alys Denby and Dr Lawrence Newport of the Looking for Growth campaign. Also on the agenda: what the government’s new residency rules mean for Britain’s workforce, and whether cutting obscure planning red tape will really deliver the economic momentum Labour has promised.

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With party conference season underway and Andy Burnham circling with a bolder agenda, former special adviser Callum Price asks the hard questions: Why is Labour so wary of defining its purpose? Why does Starmer still seem like a fox pretending to be a hedgehog — chasing contradictory goals without a guiding principle? And what happens when a party with power has no story to tell?

Drawing on lessons from Isaiah Berlin and even Margaret Thatcher’s ideological clarity, this edition explores what happens when governments try to govern without vision — and why the vacuum is already being filled.

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Nigel Farage and Sir Ed Davey may sit on opposite ends of the political spectrum, yet both share a flair for spectacle — deft at seizing headlines, even when the substance is thinner than the show.

Reform UK’s proposal to scrap the route to permanent residency for migrants marks a striking departure from the policies of Britain’s main parties. But beyond all the talk, what would such a move really mean for the economy? CapX’s Marc Sidwell speaks with Daniel Freeman of the Institute of Economic Affairs and Maxwell Marlow of the Adam Smith Institute to separate fact from fiction.

Elsewhere, the Liberal Democrats are often cast as too staid to capture attention – yet their strong election performance suggests that there may, in fact, be an appetite for more measured politics. And across the Atlantic, freedom of speech is often celebrated as a cornerstone of American life. The recent controversy surrounding Jimmy Kimmel, however, underlines how contested the principle has become – in the US as much as in Europe. As the digital age reshapes debate, are our assumptions about liberty shifting too?

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What if the real revolution isn’t coming from the Left — but from the forgotten champions of free markets and personal freedom?

In this special edition of Despatch, former Conservative MP Steve Baker lays out a bold and urgent case for a political reawakening. With the UK economy stumbling under the weight of high taxes, ballooning debt, and bureaucratic drift, Steve argues that the real danger isn’t populism — it’s the slow death of freedom under a stifling managerial consensus.

Launching his new movement Fighting for a Free Future, Steve says we're facing a huge crisis and we need a paradigm shift: a return to the principles that once lifted billions out of poverty and could do so again — if only we had the courage to unleash them.

Drawing inspiration from Leonard Read’s classic essay "I, Pencil" and Argentina’s dramatic turnaround under President Javier Milei, this episode is a passionate reminder that voluntary cooperation, not state coercion, lies at the heart of human progress.

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Is the centre-right cracking? From Westminster defections to French fiscal chaos, this week has delivered a sharp shock to Europe’s conservative mainstream. In London, Tory MP Danny Kruger crossed the floor to join Reform UK, denouncing his former party as “over.” In Paris, a fresh downgrade to France’s credit rating has cast a long shadow over President Macron’s government as strikes loom and talk of wealth taxes rattles business leaders.

In this timely edition of The Capitalist, host Marc Sidwell is joined by policy analyst François Valentin and Conservative Home deputy editor Henry Hill to explore what these moments reveal about the state of centre-right politics across the continent. Are voters turning away from moderation? Can mainstream parties adapt — or are they being outflanked on both sides?

Sharp analysis, calm insight — and the questions every serious observer of European politics should be asking.

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Is Britain sleepwalking into a very French crisis? In this Despatch, Joseph Dinnage argues that Westminster is starting to look uncomfortably like Paris: a revolving door at the top, a debt “swamp” that spooks markets, and electorates hooked on ever-costlier entitlements. After François Bayrou’s fall and Sébastien Lecornu’s rise, France’s soaring debt and pension politics serve as a cautionary tale—one Britain may be replaying with the triple lock, winter fuel U-turns and a ballooning interest bill. As Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage reshape the conversation, Dinnage makes a brisk, unsentimental case for fiscal grit from Labour and a credible growth plan from the Tories—before voters decide the duopoly has had its day.

Despatch features the best writing from CapX's daily newsletter, brought to you by the team behind The Capitalist. Don't miss our full show every Wednesday.

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Argentina's Javier Milei has defied critics by bringing sweeping economic reform to an economy many had written off. Former MP Steve Baker — the “hard man of Brexit” — says a similarly radical free-market reform can save Britain, too. In this special edition of The Capitalist, Steve joins Marc Sidwell to launch his new project, Fighting for a Free Future.

From soaring house prices to the looming pensions crisis, Steve pulls no punches: the managerial state is broken, the emperor has no clothes, and unless Britain slashes spending, abandons failed orthodoxies, and embraces liberty, we face managed decline — or worse.

Britain is running out of time. Debt is spiralling, taxes are at breaking point, and politicians refuse to face the truth. This is a conversation about courage, crisis, and the bold choices we must make before it’s too late.

Discover more about Steve's new project: https://www.fightingforafreefuture.com/

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