Bright Blue, Fabian Society and CentreForum September 2015 Commissioned by Independent Age and RNIB ahead of the 2015 spending review, this series of essays by Bright Blue, the Fabians and CentreForum aims to stimulate a debate about spending priorities for an ageing population.

This paper updates CentreForum”s July 2014 interim report, and our further work found greater evidence of the importance of effective and transparent competition in defence procurement.  Our case study is the Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) capability deleted in the 2010 Defence Review, as MPA is likely to be reinstated under the current government.  As it […]

This report argues that the Council Tax band system in Britain should be abolished and replaced with a flat rate levy set by individual local authorities. Revenue from homes valued at £2 million or below would be retained by councils to pay for local services, while revenue from properties worth more than £2 million would […]

“A myth seems to have arisen that we in the UK – and in the West more generally – live in a neo-liberal age. That there is, indeed, a neo-liberal hegemony. Were this to be true, it might be fair to associate systemic policy failures with this neo-liberal hegemony and look for a very different […]

Equity investments are taxed four times – through Stamp Duty, Corporation Tax, Income Tax and Capital Gains Tax – while interest payments on debt are treated as a business expense and are thus tax deductible. This ”debt bias” stifles innovative SMEs in the early stages of their development, preventing them creating jobs and growth. Early […]

Commissioned by comparethemarket.com, this report finds that confusing tariffs and badly presented billing information are stopping people from getting the best deal on their energy. It warns that rates of switching have been in decline since 2012, despite efforts by the coalition government and watchdog Ofgem to make it easier for customers to change energy […]

On the 24 April 1999, Tony Blair gave a speech to the Economic Club of Chicago in which he outlined what he described as the ”Doctrine for the International Community”, but quickly became known as the ”Blair Doctrine”. This paper argues that the former PM”s rules of engagement remain a solid starting point for devising […]

If the Labour party enters government in May 2015 it plans to reduce the undergraduate tuition fees cap in England from £9,000 to £6,000 a year. It also wants to increase maintenance grant support for students from lower income backgrounds. This analysis finds that the negatives of the proposal – judged by what Labour says […]

This paper considers questions of UK airport expansion from within a liberal tradition. Airports have both benefits and disbenefits, and balancing these so as to maximise individual freedom and social progress is the challenge faced by liberals of all parties. On the positive side, airports facilitate travel and improve our connectivity with the rest of […]

‘Open public services – better public services?” contains a series of case studies to show where privatised and public owned services have succeeded and failed. The report finds that competition only works when there is a realistic prospect of providers losing their contract, and that the most successful outsourcing deals are small in scope and […]