As government plays down its threat to abolish the House of Lords over Article 50, is it time for it to go anyway? February 10, 2017 Chris Snowdon, director of lifestyle economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs, says Yes. There was a time when the House of Lords defended our ancient liberties against mendacious governments. The whole idea of unelected politicians is problematic. In a perfect world, we would have democracy and liberty but, if I may speak candidly, so [...]
Why sugar taxes don’t work: They are effective revenue raisers, precisely because they are so ineffective at changing behaviour January 13, 2016 You get the impression from sugar tax campaigners that nobody has ever tried taxing food and soft drinks before. There is heavy reliance on computer models and predictions rather than real-world evidence. There is a reason for that. There have been dozens of taxes on sugary drinks around the world and none of them have [...]
The UK’s calorie consumption keeps falling – but we’re getting fatter: Obesity crusaders are only focusing on calories-in rather than calories-out September 11, 2015 Last month, Royal Holloway University released a new study which received zero media attention. Looking at trends in Britain in the last 30 years, it found ‘a sharp reduction in the strenuousness of daily life’ while noting that ‘calorie intake has fallen by around 20 per cent.’ This occurred at a time when obesity rates [...]