This Sunday the Observer ran a frontpage story headlined ‘rightwing thinktanks call time on austerity era’. I was quoted in the article, wearing my IEA hat, as were representatives of the Adam Smith Institute, Centre for Policy Studies and Policy Exchange. As it happens, I am happy with the specific comments attributed to me, which fairly reflected both my support for a temporary increase in government borrowing and my concerns about the duration of the lockdown. However, the inferences drawn, and indeed the whole narrative of the article, were badly misleading.
Let’s skip over the dubious assumption that a think-tank is ‘right-wing’ just because it favours free-market solutions to economic and social problems, or that any think-tank always speaks with a single voice. The bigger issue here is the claim that there had been a fundamental ‘shift in stance’ in favour of ‘sustained increases’ in public spending as a result…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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