The "Nightmare Before Christmas" Budget is coming: Reflecting on Fighting for a Free Future's first event
With one month until the Budget, Fighting for a Free Future brought together some of Britain’s leading free market thinkers to diagnose why the UK is in such a bad state - and what we can do about it.
With the Chancellor’s “Nightmare Before Christmas” Budget now weeks away, last week, Fighting for a Free Future brought together some of Britain’s leading free market thinkers to diagnose why the UK is in such a bad state - and what we can do about it.
One thing that stood out at the event was the palpable sense of anger and frustration from Britain’s free market intelligentsia about fourteen years of wasted opportunity under the previous Conservative Government and about a country left in tatters with little progress made on major issues, despite the “right” being in charge for so long.
https://x.com/SteveBakerFRSA/status/1983569509257519178
For the event, looking at the Budget one month out, we brought together some of the UK’s most eminent thinkers. Lord Jon Moynihan delivered the keynote address on returning to growth. Robert Colvile from the Centre for Policy Studies opened the event on how there is simply no money left and the fundamental dishonesty about that fact in our political discourse. Maxwell Marlow of the Adam Smith Institute made the case for radical planning reform. FFF Chairman, Steve Baker, hosted a panel featuring Fred de Fossard from the Prosperity Institute, John O’Connell from the TaxPayers’ Alliance, and Harry Wilkinson from the Global Warming Policy Foundation. These thinkers represent the institutional backbone of free market thinking in the UK. If we are to fix the problems our country is facing, these are the people with the answers.
The anger from the think tank class
Reflecting on the event, what stood out wasn’t what these speakers said; anyone familiar with their work knows their diagnosis of Britain’s problems. What was surprising was the tone. There was a raw frustration, bordering on anger, about fourteen years of Conservative government that had the intellectual ammunition, the policy prescriptions, and the democratic mandate to implement a genuine free market agenda, yet failed to do so. These are people who had developed rigorous policy proposals, who had worked to shift public opinion, who had provided the intellectual architecture for what a genuinely reforming government could achieve. And they watched as government after government paid lip service to their ideas whilst actually expanding the state, raising taxes to their highest levels since the Second World War, and entrenching the very regulatory sclerosis they claimed to oppose.
The think tanks had done their job. The ideas were there, refined through decades of research and debate. The Institute of Economic Affairs had shown how free markets reduce poverty. The Adam Smith Institute had produced detailed plans for reforming our failing planning and housing policies. The Centre for Policy Studies, the organisation Margaret Thatcher co-founded, where “our conservative revolution began”, had provided comprehensive blueprints for reducing the size of the state. Yet successive Conservative governments found it easier to manage decline than to fight for genuine reform.
Now, under Labour, things are only getting worse. GDP growth has slowed; business investment has collapsed. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates the Chancellor needs to find £22 billion in tax rises or spending cuts. And the Government Actuary’s Department’s projections show the UK will default on our welfare state commitments, including pensions, in less than 20 years. The Conservatives had fourteen years to implement the ideas that these think tanks developed, and we squandered the opportunity. Now we’re paying the price.
There is no money left
Robert Colvile’s contribution crystallised the problem with characteristic clarity. “Politicians have not been honest with people; they have not been honest about what we can afford,” he said. “We have told people nothing needs to change. This simply isn’t the case.” This intellectual dishonesty, the pretence that we can maintain current spending commitments without radical reform, has defined British politics for a generation.
https://x.com/SteveBakerFRSA/status/1983570123177779410
This can be contrasted with certain politicians of the past. As he writes in his recent piece1 on the anniversary of Thatcher’s birth, looking back at Thatcher’s speeches and interviews, what strikes one most is “the willingness, sentence by sentence, to make arguments from principle – even if those principles might not be popular with her listeners”. She didn’t just believe in free markets and limited government; she proclaimed them. She made the moral case for economic freedom. By contrast, her successors “lost the habit of making arguments from principle”. The public stopped hearing such arguments, and politicians would complain that they wanted to do the right thing but there was no constituency for it.
As Colville notes, Thatcher was clear about what Thatcherism meant: “It stands for sound finance and government running the affairs of the nation in a sound financial way. It stands for honest money – not inflation. It stands for living within your means”2. The question is whether any contemporary politician has the courage to make that case today.
The planning reform imperative
Maxwell Marlow’s speech on planning reform was equally damning. “This (housing) is a crisis long in the making,” he said. “If we want to be radical, we must repeal the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and replace it with a zonal planning system…there is currently a system of regulations that strangles our livelihoods and the people of Britain.”
https://x.com/SteveBakerFRSA/status/1983570584609939788
Marlow’s work at the Adam Smith Institute has consistently highlighted how Britain’s planning system, embedded as land use planning by the state in the Town and County Planning Act 1947, has been catastrophic for the country. House prices have spiralled, whilst renters now work an average of 125 days a year just to pay their rent. 3
Despite the scale of the problem, neither major party has committed to extensive reform. Labour’s initial planning reforms were promising, but recent amendments strengthening environmental blockages and introducing new conditions for building show the government is already backing down on fixing our housing crisis.
The sense of anger was clear in his contributions throughout the event. The last Conservative Government did nothing to improve the situation. Neither political party is willing to seriously reform our system. At the same time, young people are finding the ideas of owning a home or even a reasonable renting situation to be a pipe dream.
Return to Growth
Lord Moynihan’s keynote address drew on the ideas presented in his two-volume work: Return to Growth. He makes both an economic and moral case for why Britain must return to sustained growth.
https://x.com/SteveBakerFRSA/status/1983571112811221033
Lord Moynihan identifies three “devils” that prevent growth: high government spending, excessive taxation and regulation, and too much bureaucratic interference and waste. Against these, he sets three “angels” that support growth: free markets, free trade, and sound money. His analysis is unflinching about Britain’s position. When Tony Blair’s government came to power in 1997, public expenditure was 35 per cent of GDP and falling, with taxes at 31 per cent. At the end of Rishi Sunak’s government, expenditure was at 45 per cent of GDP, with taxes at 36 per cent and rising – still nowhere near sufficient to cover public expenditure.
At the Fighting for a Free Future event, Lord Moynihan was characteristically blunt: “If you tax business, business won’t come to this country. If you tax the rich, they’ll leave the country. If you tax the slightly less rich, they’ll leave the country. You are just destroying the economy”. This isn’t mere rhetoric, it is a statement of economic reality that too many politicians refuse to acknowledge.
Return to Growth outlines a comprehensive programme for reform. Reduce corporation tax back to 19 per cent. Eliminate windfall taxes and stamp duty on shares. Cut national insurance for employees and employers, and VAT to 18 per cent. Lower business rates. These are realistic reforms that could be implemented immediately and that would actually shift Britain’s economic trajectory.
Lord Moynihan provides something fundamental to fixing the UK: a recognition that Britain cannot afford the promises made by politicians to successive generations, and that unless we dramatically change course, national bankruptcy awaits.
The panel: Our economic situation is dire, but the answers are there
The panel discussion featured Fred de Fossard from the Prosperity Institute, John O’Connell from the TaxPayers’ Alliance, Harry Wilkinson from the Global Warming Policy Foundation, and Maxwell Marlow from the Adam Smith Institute. The prevailing sentiment was one of frustration with a wasted 14 years and the current government's policy agenda, which is trending increasingly in the wrong direction. However, it was also one that offered hope, as it showed that the answers to the question of how we fix our country are within reach.
https://x.com/SteveBakerFRSA/status/1983571592132051220
There was a clear frustration with watching a government that claimed to share their values systematically fail to act on them. Every Budget brought promises of future reform. Every spending review pledged fiscal responsibility. Every election manifesto committed to reducing the tax burden. And every year, the state grew larger, the tax burden heavier, and the economy more sclerotic.
Yet for all the frustration and anger, the event also provided something increasingly rare in British political discourse: genuine hope. Not the empty optimism of politicians promising painless solutions, but the substantive hope that comes from knowing the answers exist, if only we have the courage to implement them.
https://x.com/SteveBakerFRSA/status/1983572122262729187
https://x.com/SteveBakerFRSA/status/1983573589086359787
Their message was clear: Britain’s economic situation may be dire, but we know what needs to be done. The intellectual ammunition is there. The Centre for Policy Studies has shown us how Thatcher restored Britain’s economic vitality through free market reforms. The Adam Smith Institute has demonstrated how planning liberalisation could solve our housing crisis. The Institute for Economic Affairs has made the case for reducing state intervention across the economy. The TaxPayers’ Alliance has identified billions in government waste that could be cut. Lord Moynihan has laid out a comprehensive programme for returning to growth. The Prosperity Institute has shown how regulatory reform and Brexit opportunities could revitalise British prosperity.
These aren’t theoretical exercises or academic curiosities. They are practical, implementable policies that could transform Britain’s economic trajectory and life for ordinary people. The solutions are there. The time for excuses has ended. What Britain needs now is a government willing to implement them.
Videos of the event and each speech will be released online in the run-up to the Budget. For those who would like to watch them, please subscribe to Voices for a Free Future and follow @SteveBakerFRSA and @harryricher96 on X to make sure you don’t miss them.
Harry Richer is the Director of Fighting for a Free Future, working for the Chairman, the Rt Hon Steve Baker. He has previously worked as the senior aide to Mr Baker and was intimately involved in all of Mr Baker’s national campaigns, including his work on the monetary system, Net Zero, and the Covid Recovery Group, acting as its Head of Research. He has also co-written multiple publications on Austrian School economics, including the 2024 Springer book, The Age of Debt Bubbles.