Stamp Duty Land Tax is a 300-year-old tax. It was meant to fund war against France in 1694. Today it just prevents people from moving to a new house when they otherwise would. Here’s why it's time to scrap it. 👇

The Adam Smith Institute's @Marchong_Joanna responds to Nigel Farage's Speech on the Economy.

https://t.co/SN9U07U7Kq In @CityAM, I complain that far from being ideologically empty, this Labour government is led by nothing but blind ideology. It's EVIDENCE that they are pathologically incapable of wielding. Smoking, taxes, labour laws, schools. All completely ruinous.

Thrilled to have been published in @CapX, writing on why even the fiercest critics of the Government’s digital ID plans shouldn’t oppose the idea in principle. Instead, Britain should follow Sweden’s example — adopting a voluntary, decentralised digital ID run by the banks,

Kemi Badenoch claims that Javier Milei's revolution is the 'template for what she'd want to do in government The policy is getting there, but the comms aren't What Milei, Zarah Sultana and Zack Polanski all appreciate is what the kids call 'vibes' My latest in @CapX👇

Merlin modelling the ASI ties! 🐶 👔 Click the link below to get yours.👇

Sir Stephen Timms confirms no changes to PIP eligibility. So, people with writers cramp and Munchausen syndrome will continue to receive benefits. Amazing!

Hello and welcome to the most finished country on earth! Very bad here!

Without reform, the state pension will eat the public finances alive. Linking increases to inflation, not earnings, would protect real incomes without bankrupting future taxpayers. We can either fix it now, or watch it break later.

Every year, the triple lock ratchets costs higher, regardless of productivity, growth, or demographics. The political logic is irresistible. The fiscal logic is nonexistent.

We are now raising taxes just to stand still. Higher Employers’ National Insurance Contributions have already slowed wage growth and reduced employment, buying the pension system a single extra year of solvency. That is not sustainable policy

By 2036, the Treasury will be spending more on welfare, mostly pensions, than it collects in National Insurance. It will have to start raiding the National Insurance Investment Account Fund to plug the gap. By 2040, that fund begins to deplete.

The @ASI's dynamic model, shows the state pension could become financially unsustainable by 2036. Even after recent tax rises. Even as inevitably taxes go up again come the budget, not much will change. The realitY that it can no longer continue was remain.

Adding to this pressure, Britain already has over 22 million people claiming benefits including the state pension, and only just 34 million workers to fund them. It will only get worse as time goes on. Fewer taxpayers. More claimants. Sounds like a recipe for success!

That gap is being filled by younger workers, through higher taxes, slower wage growth, and squeezed take-home pay. It’s an intergenerational transfer on a historic scale, and it’s getting larger every April due to our aging population

Meanwhile, the 4.8% rise pushes many pensioners over the frozen £12,570 personal allowance. So they’ll get a tax bill for the privilege of their inflation-beating increase. We’ve managed to design a policy that’s both expensive and self-defeating.

The problem: the state pension isn’t funded like a savings pot. It’s paid from current tax revenues, money collected from taxpayers today. The average person born in 1956 will receive £291,000 more than they paid in National Insurance.

Each April, Treasury officials add another few billion to the state pension bill, permanently. That bill is already north of £110 billion a year. That’s more than the entire education budget. And yet we’re told there’s “no money left.”

In 2018, the welfare system, of which the state pension is the largest part, had a lifetime liability of £8.9 trillion. That’s three times the UK’s GDP. And it’s set to balloon even further thanks to the ratchet effect of the triple lock.

The state pension is going up 4.8% next April. That takes the full new rate to £12,548 a year. A record high. And also one more step towards the system quietly collapsing under its own weight. 🧵