IEA Podcast

Nick Timothy CBE, one of Britain's leading conservative thinkers and commentators, explores the powerful forces driving great changes in our economy, society and democracy. Drawing on his experience at the top of government, Timothy traces the crisis of Western democracy back to both the mistaken assumptions of philosophical liberalism and the rise of ideological ultra-liberalism on left, right and centre. Sparing no sacred cows, he proposes a new kind of conservatism that respects personal freedom but also demands solidarity.

This podcast was originally recorded as a video for the IEA Book Club. 

Watch the video here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aapyfqKzR4g

Find out more about the IEA Book Club here - https://iea.org.uk/iea-book-club-membership-subscription/

What is the current state of free speech in the UK?

What does free speech actually mean?

And what does Toby Young's recently launched Free Speech Union aim to achieve?

Originally published as a video on the IEA Youtube channel (available here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C9AQ3ae5N4), the IEA's Director General Mark Littlewood interviews Toby Young, Director of the Free Speech Union, to discuss and understand why the union was started, what free speech crisis do we face across the western world, and how the union aims to support and defend its members – and the right of free speech as a whole.

Toby Young is Director of the Free Speech Union, an Associate Editor at The Spectator and the Associate Editor at Quillette.

To find out more about the FSU visit https://freespeechunion.org/

With Britain in lockdown, the government has been racing to find ways to ease restrictions without putting public safety at risk. One solution is a contact-tracing app that can enable digital contact-tracing on a large scale using bluetooth. One such app is under development by NHSX with researchers from Oxford University. Though tech giants Apple and Google announced they would tweak their smartphone operating systems to help digital contact-tracing, the UK is an outlier in rejecting this approach.

Is Britain sleepwalking into another coronavirus blunder by failing to listen to global consensus and expert analysis with the release of this app? Does NHSX, as IEA Head of Lifestyle Economics Christopher Snowdon has suggested, have all the hallmarks of another government IT fiasco? 

Emma Revell, IEA Head of Communications, is joined by Victoria Hewson, Head of Regulatory Affairs at the Institute of Economic Affairs, and Jim Killock, Executive Director of Open Rights Group.

In the episode, Victoria refers to her blog post for the IEA website which you can read here https://iea.org.uk/the-nhsx-contact-tracing-app-unresolved-civil-liberties-and-privacy-issues/

The rise of Hong Kong is a dramatic tale, transforming after the Second World War and becoming one of the wealthiest and most economically free cities in the world.

What policies made the island rich?

Are there are any lessons that we can learn from the way that Hong Kong has been able to rebound and flourish after times of crisis?

And what role did Sir John Cowperthwaite – so-called ‘Architect of Prosperity’ - play in Hong Kong’s success?

Mark Littlewood, IEA Director General, is joined by Neil Monnery – businessman and author of several books including  ‘Architect of Prosperity: Sir John Cowperthwaite and the Making of Hong Kong’, and ‘A Tale of Two Economies: Hong Kong, Cuba and the Two Men who Shaped Them.’ to discuss the rise of Hong Kong and what lessons we can learn.

Neil was educated and both the University of Oxford and Harvard Business School. He worked for twenty years at the Boston Consulting Group as a Director and Senior Vice President. Before that he spent ten years at WH Smith as Group Strategy Director and Chairman of Smiths News.

'School of Thought’ is the IEA discussion series based on ‘101 Great Liberal Thinkers’ by Dr Eamonn Butler.

Each week, Syed Kamall, IEA Research Director, will discuss classical liberalism’s role in bringing the modern world into existence, profiling the lives and ideas of some of the leading thinkers on individual liberty and examining their relevance today.

In this week’s episode, Syed sits down with Benedikt Koehler, an economist and historian of economic thought in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, to discuss Ibn Khaldun.

Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) understood how exploitation, by governments or others, was a huge disincentive against work, saving and progress. He wrote “[a]ttacks on people’s property remove the incentive to acquire and gain property. People then conclude that the only result of acquiring property is for it to be taken away again. When the incentive to acquire property is gone, people no longer make efforts to acquire it. The extent and degree to which property rights are infringed upon determines the extent and degree to which the efforts of the subjects to acquire property slacken.”

Will the pandemic mean a retreat into economic nationalisation? Have countries managed to balance efficiency with resilience in global health systems? And why did Sweden take such a different approach to other nations, and is it paying off?

Joining Mark Littlewood, IEA Director General, to discuss these issues and more are Dr Steve Davies, IEA Head of Education, and Johan Norberg, Swedish classical liberal author, lecturer and documentary maker.

This episode was originally recorded as a video for the IEA Youtube channel. Watch the original here.

Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn have both stepped back from frontline politics while making comments that suggest their brands of socialism will win in the long term. Corbyn claimed, even in the aftermath of an enormous general election defeat, that the Left had “won the argument”.

This discussion was originally recorded as a video for the IEA's 'Cast of Thousands' series and you can watch the video on our Youtube channel.

The World Health Organization (WHO) – the United Nations’ public health agency- has a mandate to establish global health policy, coordinate global responses to health emergencies, and combat disease.

These and other questions were considered by Patrick Basham, Founding Director of the Democracy Institute, in a webinar which has been repurposed for this podcast. Prefer visuals? Watch the original video here.

During the coronavirus crisis, the public has been encouraged to pay tribute not only to the doctors, nurses and social care workers working on the frontline, but also to the idea and the institution of the National Health Service itself. 

The status of the NHS in politics is not a unique side-effect of the current pandemic but a regular feature in politics. The NHS has become a resilient populist cause – for those on the left and the right, with allegations about funding, historical decisions and conspiracy.

This makes having a grown-up conversation about the case for reform near impossible.  

But is NHS populism good for those working in the NHS, let alone the patients? And is it sustainable for the government to demand uncritical adulation towards NHS staff, when countless others in the private sector face a very uncertain future? 

Media Manager Emily Carver is joined by Andy Mayer, the IEA's Chief Operating Officer to discuss.

Welcome to Episode One of the IEA's new 'In Conversation' series.

Originally recorded as a video (which is available on Youtube) Syed Kamall, IEA Academic & Research Director, is joined by Paul Ormerod, economist, author, and entrepeneur. His new paper on 'Epidemiology & Behaviour' will soon be published by the IEA.

The UK Government's actions to fight COVID-19 was first headed by the behavioural insight team, where it was believed that desirable behaviours could be achieved, without significantly impacting on day to day activity. Since then, over 16,000 people have lost their lives to the virus. The British public have spent more than 4 weeks in lock-down, and the Chancellor has announced £350 billion package to keep the UK economy afloat. But throughout the continent, governments are starting to lax the quarantine restrictions. Behaviour will play a key role in this process, and economics has a valuable contribution to make.