#081 - Tom Clougherty - How the Government Broke the Economy

Mr Obnoxious

Peter McCormack

Technology, News, Politics, Money, Investing, Finance, Bitcoin

4.8 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2025

⏱️ 138 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tom Clougherty is the Executive Director and Ralph Harris Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs, and one of Britain’s leading advocates for free markets, limited government, and economic reform. With years of policy experience and a deep understanding of Britain’s institutional dysfunction, Tom offers a no-nonsense diagnosis of the UK’s economic decline.

In this interview, we explore why Britain feels broken - from punitive taxes and housing failures to bureaucratic overreach, political cowardice, and collapsing public services. Tom explains how the UK lost its economic edge, why the middle class is being hollowed out, and what must change to unleash growth and restore national confidence.

Transcript

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0:00.0	We're at a really interesting moment in public debate in the UK at the moment because I think people are
0:04.4	are realizing that what we have is broken in some fundamental way and they're yearning for change.
0:11.9	But they don't know what that kind of change looks like yet. They might have some good ideas
0:16.0	about what the change should look like. They might have some terrible ideas about what the change
0:20.0	should look like. What I see is my ideas about what the change should look like.
0:26.6	What I see is my job is to try and persuade people that the change they need is one that is rooted in kind of free markets and individualism, that it's not about on the left kind of government
0:32.2	taking over the economy and sort of mission directing the private sector.
0:37.3	Equally, though, it's not about kind of the strong man who, you know, forget about the rule of law,
0:42.9	forget about democracy, I know what to do and let's just get on and do it.
0:46.5	There is a tendency when people think things are broken to go in those directions.
0:51.9	Because actually, if you're saying things are broken, what we need to do
0:55.3	is get out of the way and let people flourish, people say, well, that's a lot to take on a leap of
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	...

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