Complacent monetary policy has driven an inflation crisis, not businesses’ price hikes Chris Snowdon Inflation hit 5.4 per cent in December, its highest level since 1992. It is widely expected to reach seven per cent in the next few months – it has already reached that level in the US. There are several reasons why inflation has raised its ugly head again. Demand for gas and oil has outstripped [...]
Behind the slippery slope mystery: intervention will always justify more Chris Snowdon I don’t think this is a big step or a slippery slope, Dominic Raab said on Tuesday when asked about the introduction of Covid-19 passes. This will come as news to the people of Italy, New Zealand and several other countries where normal life is now impossible without proof of two jabs. In Austria, the [...]
Sin taxes on smoking and sugar harm the people they’re supposed to help Tax or fine? According to an economic study published last month, 90 per cent of all “sin taxes” on tobacco, alcohol and soft drinks in the US are paid by just 20 per cent of households. Eighty per cent of the taxes are paid by just ten per cent of households. This tax burden tends to fall disproportionately [...]
To see the vaccine in action, we need to stop counting Covid deaths October 15, 2021 In the late 1940s, Austin Bradford Hill and Richard Doll began interviewing hundreds of hospital patients, half of whom had lung cancer while the other half had various other diseases. Their research, published in 1950, showed that 99.7 per cent of the male lung cancer patients had a history of smoking. Out of 649 patients, [...]
From Scotland, with love: indulgent drink driving laws get us nowhere September 16, 2021 In December 2014, Scotland introduced a new policy modifying its drink-drive limit, to reduce the number of alcohol-fuelled traffic accidents. The legal limit was slashed from 80 to 50mg per 100ml of blood. Now, seven years later, a study published in the Journal of Health Economics has looked at the impact of the policy. The [...]
The World Health Organisation’s war on vaping is a lesson in terrible risk management August 19, 2021 Pfizer has been having problems with its stop-smoking drug varenicline, known as Chantix in the USA and as Champix in the UK. It has had to recall batches of the drug because it contains quantities of a carcinogen that exceed the Food and Drink Administration’s safe level. The FDA isn’t enforcing the recall, however. Instead, [...]
Status quo anxiety: from Covid to foreign aid, we’re trapped by our desire to keep things the same July 23, 2021 Covid restrictions were relaxed this week, but it was far from universally supported. A group of academics wrote to the Lancet to condemn the move as a “dangerous and unethical experiment”. Some scientists warned that letting the virus run amok would create a fertile breeding ground for new variants and urged the government to once [...]
DEBATE: Should NHS staff be given a pay rise? November 11, 2020 Anthony Johnson, a nurse and an organiser with Nurses United, says YES. The Covid crisis has shown like never before just how central the NHS is to everyone’s wellbeing and safety. From our cleaners to our GPs, the entire team is essential. And if we don’t pay people fairly, they will be forced to find [...]
Public Health England dropped the ball on the pandemic — but the new restructuring offers hope September 7, 2020 Mike Tyson’s infamous line about everyone having a plan until they get punched in the mouth could be the epitaph for Public Health England. The quango made many mistakes in its response to Covid-19, but planning for an influenza epidemic was perhaps the most fatal. PHE had swine flu, rather than the SARS coronavirus, in [...]
Boris Johnson’s calorie labelling plan is well-intentioned but economically inept July 27, 2020 Let me start with a concession to the Prime Minister: not all the policies in his anti-obesity drive are outright objectionable. Banning food advertising and telling shopkeepers where they can and can’t stock their products are obvious and unacceptable intrusions, whatever their intended goal. But as a liberal economist, I am prepared to consider some [...]