Matt Carter

So in hindsight, yesterday wasn't the best day to launch a big new essay collection on Britain's greatest political/economic/demographic challenge. But this issue is more important than any reshuffle. In fact, it may be more important than anything. (1/?) cps.org.uk/research/justi…

This is a direct result of picking winners through bans, targets, and subsidies, rather than setting a uniform carbon price and letting markets do their thing. So many businesses and so much activity is now dependent on government commitments. And even if they are bad…

The state pension is going to cost a lot more over the next 40 years. The triple lock doubles that cost, ratcheting pensions up as a share of GDP over time. It's not particularly fair, and it's certainly not sustainable: spectator.co.uk/article/the-pe…

We often think of the housing crisis as something that's bad for tenants, but good for homeowners. That's not quite true: Homeowners indirectly pay for it too. Britain has to spend more on housing benefits than other countries, to compensate for its extremely high housing costs.

Davis getting a lot of abuse for this but social insurance systems in Europe get better outcomes than the NHS, don't have to ration nearly as much, and are free at the point of use. The NHS and the US system aren't the only options.

Prioritising growth means prioritising growth. Not "deciding all the spending you want and then raising taxes to it" but setting tax rates in line with better growth incentives and then adjusting spending to reflect the government's revenue.

This week on More or Less, we’ve been digging into the numbers behind rising energy bills. What’s driving the increase in the price cap? Let’s start with the profits made by the people who sell us our energy - the energy suppliers. 1/13

For anyone desperately trying to hunt down Taylor Hawkins tribute tickets like I have been, Ticketmaster have just released a load of resale seated tickets. Click on the stadium map for the cheap tickets, as they’re not showing in the results bar. @RadioX @FooFightersUK

From the perspective of practical politics, George is obviously right. It is also obviously the road to ruin, but without any grown ups in the room, that will be left for another day.

Win a STANDING TICKET for the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert next week at Wembley Stadium! We have 1 spare ticket and will be giving it away this Sunday evening. To enter, just FOLLOW us and RETWEET this tweet, and we’ll randomly pick a winner!

Corporations were extremely greedy in the early 80s. Fortunately, they then forgot about their greed. In the early 90s, there was another brief outbreak of corporate greed, followed by nearly two decades of greed-amnesia. Unfortunately, they've now remembered to be greedy again.

Some facts about the green belt. Yes, it has been shrinking. In 2021, it was a whole 194 sq km smaller than in 2014. At current rates (based on my analysis of CPRE figures) we risk concreting the whole thing over in just 5,000 years.

I’ve got 1 x spare ticket to this Interpol show tonight if anyone after one. Just £25 (face value is £40). Drop me a DM if interested.

On current growth rates, Poland is set to be richer than Britain in 12 years time. Between Westminster and Whitehall, Britain's failure to grow can be explained in four words: it’s not allowed to. spectator.co.uk/article/britai…