[INVITATION] IEA Book Club with Sam Freedman
Failed State: The Sunday Times bestselling investigation of why Britain is struggling.
The IEA Book Club will be hosting an upcoming event with Sam Freedman on his latest book, “Failed State”. This event will take place on Monday 10th February from 18:00 – 20:30 at the IEA Westminster offices. Tom Clougherty (Executive Director and Ralph Harris Fellow) will chair this event.
In Failed State, Sam Freedman, one of Britain’s leading policy experts, offers a devastating analysis of where we’ve gone wrong. With historical depth and plenty of infuriating examples, he explains why British governance has fallen so far behind. Speaking to politicians of all stripes, civil servants and workers on the frontline, this book bursts with insight on the real problems that are so often hidden from the front pages. The result is a witty, landmark book that paves the way for a fairer and more prosperous Britain.
Sam Freedman is a senior fellow at the Institute for Government and a senior advisor to Ark Schools. He writes about policy and politics for numerous outlets including the Financial Times, Sunday Times, Guardian and New Statesman. With his father, he runs ‘Comment is Freed’, Britain’s most popular politics Substack. He has a following of over 140,000 on X/Twitter.
He has spent his career working in different policy-focused roles around Westminster, including as an adviser to the leader of the opposition and three years at the Department of Education as a senior policy advisor.
Sounds a good read! I’m not sure what is in it but I’d like to share a little observation that might help you!…. We do have a failed state, we’ve never had a successful state! And we never will, especially with a debt of 2.8 trillion pounds snd counting! In my opinion the monetary system we have is archaic. Good for yesteryear but not good now. The tax revenue to the exchequer will never be enough to pay our way either the needs of the nation. I know that because the government has had to borrow 2.8 trillion pounds. Hardly the gold medal of success! What they don’t get is that money was an exchange of work. Yet one persons work is totally skewed with others, but that’s capitalism I hear you cry! Yes I’m up for anyone who is clever or great ideas or good managers getting more but honestly it’s do skewed it’s obscene. Also out tax revenue system is not understood properly by the powers of our leaderships. I just ant to make people aware that government tax revenue is only triggered by money moving by SPENDING! When we employ we pay employs money and income tax and No is triggered. When we spend Vat is triggered. When we buy alcohol, tobacco and fuel we pay duty… and vat! When we buy houses it’s stamp duty snd when we die we or rather they have to pay death duties and inheritance tax as the money changes hands! We buy a car we pay vat and when we do we pay insurance tax and road tax. Wow! That’s a lot of tax!… even a drunk bigger comatose on the village bench having just paid a £20 gift an a bottle of scotch has just paid more vat and duty than a higher rate tax payer! 73%!…. The low earners and benefits recipients all spend all their money and all pay as much tax as they can. But now the middle working classes have to pay out all they earn now too so they pay as much tax as they can. But, the only group who don’t are the rich! They avoid income tax and don’t spend their money and do pay no tax!… none! Nada!! For days weeks and months on end and now some for decades and centuries! Paying NO tax contributions! Now holding that money is why we others have little or none! Even if they were taxed it would go to the government without it passing through the rest of the populations hands keeping the majority devoid of its use! Now what is happening again? The rich pay no tax and we wonder why the government are devoid of revenue?? Surely that can’t be allowed to go on? The minority hold the majority of money leaving the majority to raise all the tax revenue it can and then when we or they are short we have to borrow it from those who have to much of it and guess what? They want more back! So they get even more rich! Senseless or what!? But there we have it, in a nutshell!…. Our system is set to fail…. It will never work. But it can! If we use computers we can spend electronically and we can be made to spend in a time similar to that we are used to paying by…. Monthly! Let’s make ALL money move ALL of the time! Make the rich spend their money like us! Generating tax by the bucket load! We will all be wealthy, on the spending we do then! We will all be richer and the government will be overflowing in money and not as we have now…. Stagnation! We need a spending policy! … remember tax us only triggered by spending so why are we not increasing spending to raise the revenue we all need? Simples!