The CapX Podcast

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The world has just witnessed the worst attack on Jewish people since the Holocaust. Yet amid the international condemnation of Hamas terrorists, there has also been equivocation – and even celebration in some quarters. No other conflict stirs emotions like that between Israel and Palestine - so why is it that the world’s only Jewish state appears to be held to completely different standards to other countries?

Jake Wallis Simons, Editor of the Jewish Chronicle, has a word for it:: Israelophobia. His new book explains how the world's oldest hatred has evolved, co-opting identity politics and anti-colonialism to to turn British values against themselves. He joined me at our offices for a conversation that couldn’t have been more timely.

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It’s Party Conference season, and while the Lib Dems were kayaking and playing crazy golf in Bournemouth last week, this weekend it’s the Tories’ turn to troop up to Manchester. Attendees are anticipating drama, gossip and exciting policy announcements – the Prime Minister is promising 'long-term decisions for a brighter future'.

But while Rishi Sunak will be rolling the pitch for an election manifesto, on the fringes other grandees will be fighting for the soul of the Conservative Party.

CapX welcomed our Editor-in-Chief and Director of our parent organisation the Centre for Policy Studies to give is a run-down of what to expect. 

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CapX talks about housing a lot – most often to scream 'build more houses!' into a void – yet politicians appear stuck in a doom loop when it comes to this urgent topic.

Conservative MPs talk a good game about the need for housing, as long as it's anywhere but in their constituency, while Labour talk up discredited socialist ideas like rent controls.

But last week, drama returned to the housing discourse, as Secretary of State Michael Gove announced plans for dramatic expansion in Cambridge, Leeds and London. So is the housing shortage, which is the source of so many of this country’s problems, from low productivity to population decline, about to be solved? And how credible is the idea of a brand new neighbourhood on the outskirts of a centuries-old university town, albeit one that's at the cutting edge of the UK's tech sector?

Few people are better placed to answer these questions than Samuel Hughes, Head of Housing at the Centre for Policy Studies, who the CapX Podcast was delighted to welcome this week.

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In a world saturated with information, we have more choices than ever – but how freely do we make them?

In their new book Free Your Mind – The new World of Manipulation and how to Avoid it, journalist Laura Dodsworth and behavioural scientist Patrick Fagan argue that there is a war on our minds as the media, advertisers, politicians and big tech vie to influence our decisions.

They investigate the psychological techniques – from fear to flattery - that are used every day to manipulate us, and offer advice on how to recognise and resist them.

We sat down for a fascinating conversation that ranged from the excesses of Covid lockdowns to the joy of rediscovering your masculinity by getting naked in a forest. Listeners are encouraged to enjoy this episode in the spirit of the book – sceptically…

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The NHS recently marked its 75th birthday with the kind of love-in most countries reserve for a passing monarch or truly iconic celebrity. So what is about our health service that has created such a fervent attachment amongst so many Brits, even when it underperforms compared to some of our continental peers? 

To find out, we invited the journalist, author and broadcaster Isabel Hardman on to this week's episode of the CapX Podcast to discuss her brilliant new history of the NHS, Fighting for Life.

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Trash, garbage, litter or rubbish – whatever you call it the world is producing ever more of the stuff. But where does it all go once it's left our colour-coded bins? And what about all those clothes you leave at the charity shop thining you've done a good turn?

The fascinating tapestry of grime that is the modern waste industry is documented in painstaking, illuminating detail in the new book Wasteland, written by our guest this week, Oliver Franklin-Wallis.

He takes us on a journey from hulking mountains of waste on the outskirts of New Delhi to abandoned mining towns in Oklahoma and back-street repair shops in Ghana, where engineers give new life to millions of the West's discarded gadgets.

A truly enlightening, somewhat shocking episode this week – and I'd heartily recommend Oli's book to all our listeners.

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He’s best known for coming up with the terms death tax and climate change, so it’s fair to say Frank Luntz knows a thing or two about political communication – making him an ideal guest for the CapX Podcast. 

We sat down to discuss his latest project for the Centre for Policy Studies delving into how the British public really feel about that most American of values: Freedom.

Few will be surprised to learn that it’s not an idea that animates our democracy in the same way it does for our gun-toting cousin across the Atlantic – but for those of us who care about choice and liberty, the detail of his findings are deeply worrying.

Perhaps most concerning, from a CapX perspective, is that almost half of British either can’t tell or see no difference between capitalism and socialism.

So as well getting his characteristically lively takes on all the latest political gossip on both sides of the pond, I asked Frank how those of us who value freedom make the case to a populus who seem to care more about fairness than prosperity?

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