Centre For Policy Studies - Recent History

Recent History

In 2009, the CPS celebrated its 35th anniversary for which the Leader of the Opposition, David Cameron MP, gave a speech highlighting the role the CPS played in the Conservative Party’s victory in the 1979 election crediting them with ‘a great rebirth of intellectual ideas, of intellectual vigour, and of intellectual leadership’

In September 2011 the CPS published "Guilty Men" by Peter Oborne and Frances Weaver. The report sought to identify the politicians, institutions and commentators who the authors felt had tried to take Britain into the European single currency and claims to expose the "often unscrupulous and vicious personal attacks" carried out by the Euro supporters. Oborne particularly identifies William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Lord Owen as three voices of opposition to early Euro entry that suffered personal attacks from these sources.

In October 2011, Andrew Tyrie MP's 'After the Age of Abundance' influenced the Chancellor's conference speech and subsequent Treasury policy.

Dominic Raab MP's November 2011 paper 'Escaping the Strait Jacket' called for the number one economic and social priority for the Coalition beyond deficit reduction to be to encourage job creation. He called for 10 employment regulation reforms, including excluding small businesses from a range of regulations and creating a new 'no fault dismissal', recommendations that have found much support in the Conservative Party.

'How to Cut Corporation Tax' by David Martin and 'Taxing Mansions: the taxation of high value property' by Lucian Cook were published prior to the Budget 2012 and were successful in their respective arguments for a lower rate of corporation tax and arguing against the proposed 'mansion tax'.

George Trefgarne's 'Metroboom: lessons from Britain’s recovery in the 1930s' sought to revise the perception of the decade as universally destitute, a view often espoused by Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls. Trefgarne presented a BBC Daily Politics Soapbox piece on the recovery experienced under the National Government of the time.

In May 2012, Ryan Bourne and Thomas Oechsle published 'Small is a Best', a statistical report that outlined the case that economies with small governments tend to grow faster than those with big governments. A short animated summary of this paper was a YouTube success for the think tank, receiving over 5,800 views.

In June 2012, the CPS published Tim Morgan's 'The Quest for Change and Renewal', a paper in which the author sets out how to 'rescue capitalism and re-empower the individual to a build a winning centre-right ideology'.