Dr Eamonn Butler is director of the Adam Smith Institute. The briefing paper BankReform: Getting the Policy Right and the full report Bank Reform: Can we Trust theVickers Commission are available here. A short while ago, George Osborne set up the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB), telling it to look for ways to improve the strength of the […]
Dr Eamonn Butler is director of the Adam Smith Institute. Much of today’s parliamentary debate on the EU referendum proposal will focus on the constitutional argument that Maastricht, Lisbon and other major changes to the way the UK is governed were enacted without anyone asking electors what they thought; and that before the election, the politicians agreed […]
Dr Eamonn Butler is director of the Adam Smith Institute. Relax. The Free Schools idea is so right, so in tune with human nature and so powerful, that Britain’s new Free Schools will succeed. Despite Nick Clegg’s insistence that they can’t be profit-making, despite demands that they should face a quota system so they can’t select and […]
Dr Eamonn Butler is director of the Adam Smith Institute and author of the new book Austrian Economics – A Primer, which is available for purchase from today via the ASI Online Shop. Modern economists had consigned them to history, but with the recent crisis of capitalism, they’re suddenly back. No, not the Marxists, but […]
Dr Eamonn Butler is director of the Adam Smith Institute and author of The Rotten State of Britain. I can’t decide whether David Cameron’s new Big Society idea could become a Big Disappointment or a Big Bully. Right now, nobody quite knows if the idea is anything more than a damp Steve Hilton marketing squib. […]
Dr Eamonn Butler is director of the Adam Smith Institute, which has just published his paper Re-Booting Government, and he is author of The Alternative Manifesto (Gibson Square 2010). (1) I was delighted to see David Cameron telling us the budget cuts would be extensive and painful – not because I’m a spending sadist, but […]
We are a couple of weeks late with this but congratulations to Eamonn Butler and Madsen Pirie of the Adam Smith Institute for winning the Institute of Economic Affairs' 2010 National Free Enterprise Award. The IEA declared: "Few have done more to develop and promote free-market ideas." Previous winners, reports Simon Clark, include Lord Lawson, […]
Dr Eamonn Butler is director of the Adam Smith Institute and author of The Alternative Manifesto: A 12-Step Programme to Remake Britain, which was published last week. A strike by two million people against the Greek Government’s ‘austerity’ package – weak as it is – must make David Cameron doubt the wisdom of mentioning any […]
Dr Eamonn Butler is director of the Adam Smith Institute and author of The Rotten State of Britain, which is published on Tuesday by Gibson Square Books. The book offers a damning account of what the successive Labour Governments have done to Britain over the last twelve years and here he looks in particular at […]
Sir Alan Walters, economic adviser to Margaret Thatcher and leading monetarist, has died at the age of 82. Eamonn Butler, Director of the Adam Smith Institute – a pro-freedom policy think-tank based in London, pays tribute to him below. Walters was a testament to Thatcherite self-help. His education was disrupted by army service, but he […]
Dr Eamonn Butler, Director of the Adam Smith Institute, offers a synopsis of his forthcoming book The Best Book in the Market. ‘Market’ was the sixth word I ever learnt – after ‘This little piggy goes to…’ But I learnt first hand about the market as I watched my father serving customers at his car […]
Our politicians are looking for the wrong kind of answer. The answer wanted is, at best, a popular soundbite that elicits a quick sugar-fix. At worst the policy preferred is the one of least resistance – no matter its efficacy.
Johnson to let benefit claimants buy homes… “Lower-paid workers will be able to use their housing benefits to buy homes under plans to be announced by Boris Johnson today. In a speech the prime minister is expected to say that he wants to change the rules so people can use welfare payments to get mortgages […]
ConservativeHome’s round-up of ten of our best articles from the preceding week.
Dr Eamonn Butler is Director of the Adam Smith Institute. His new book Public Choice – A Primer is published by the Institute of Economic Affairs and can be downloaded for free here. For most people, politics is an utter turn-off. We are all exhorted to take more interest in our community and how our […]