Was Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ on right or left? | Letters

Your editorial (11 March) is correct in insisting that the economist and philosopher Adam Smith used “invisible hand” only once in The Wealth of Nations: to discuss investing at home or abroad, not as a general description of economic structure.If the capital is invested at home, the decision to do that being purely a selfish and personal one, then, as if led by an invisible hand, this benefits the domestic economy.Which is true, so we’d better be careful about deterring investment at home through the confiscatory taxation of either the wealth or the profits from having benefited the society by investing at home. Tim WorstallSenior fellow, Adam Smith Institute, London You address one popular legend with evidence from another; the idea that Marx was an advocate of the “iron law of wages”. In reality, Marx, like Smith, believed that growth could lift wages and living standards in a society defined by wage labour and capital; but he also believed that the transcendence of the wages system was desirable, or else workers would be temporarily “encrusting their chains with gold”

UK has flown 100,000 nationals out of Middle East since Iran conflict began

The number of UK nationals flown back from the Middle East since the start of the conflict with Iran reached 100,000 on Tuesday, Britain’s foreign secretary has said.Yvette Cooper told parliament this is a third of the 300,000 who were in the region at the outset of hostilities, many of whom were stuck when airspace was closed. The figure included tourists and Gulf residents who have temporarily left.Fellow MPs urged Cooper to help many British citizens who were still stuck in the region and those who were said to be struggling to get extensions for visas in the countries where they had gone on holiday before the US and Israeli strikes on Iran.Cooper also provided an update on Britain’s part in discussions that could see an international coalition involved in opening the strait of Hormuz, adding that this was “separate from the conflict”

Being in Sinn Féin not the same as being in the IRA, Gerry Adams tells high court

Gerry Adams has told the high court that opponents of Sinn Féin have repeatedly sought to conflate the political party he led with the IRA, as he denied ever being a member of the Irish Republican Army.Giving evidence in London watched by victims of IRA bombings, the 77-year-old, credited with helping to bring about the peace process that ended the Troubles, also rejected accusations that he had ever led the paramilitary organisation or sat on its army council.Adams is being sued for symbolic “vindicatory” damages of £1 each by John Clark, Jonathan Ganesh and Barry Laycock. They claim he was an IRA member, sat on its army council and was culpable for the 1973 Old Bailey bombing, and the London Docklands and Manchester bombings in 1996 in which they were respectively injured.Adams, who entered the witness box wearing a shamrock and a badge of the Palestinian flag, said in his witness statement: “To be clear, membership of the political party, Sinn Féin, does not equate to membership of the IRA

Iran war cannot be ’windfall’ for Putin, says Starmer, as Zelenskyy arrives in UK

Keir Starmer will host Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on Tuesday as the prime minister warns US-Israeli strikes on Iran cannot be allowed to become a “windfall for Putin”.Zelenskyy’s visit will come on the day of the government deadline for the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich to pay proceeds from his sale of Chelsea FC to victims of the Ukraine war.The former Chelsea owner is now expected to face legal action, having insisted that the £2.5bn raised by the sale is his to allocate, including to Russian victims of the war.The British government warned Abramovich last year he must release the cash, or he could be taken to court

One day Keir Starmer might say what he really thinks of Trump. But not today | John Crace

It was a message that could just as easily have been given via a ministerial statement in the Commons. But Keir Starmer needs every break he can get at the moment and he wasn’t going to pass up the chance to look like a world leader at a press conference in Downing Street. The advantages were obvious. No need to have to listen to Kemi Badenoch drone on for five minutes with her revisionist fantasies in reply. Avoid the danger of loads of backbench MPs observing that President Trump is a deranged halfwit who doesn’t know what he’s doing

Trump says he is ‘not happy’ with UK as he criticises Starmer for being overly reliant on advisers – as it happened

At his press conference Donald Trump also accused Keir Starmer of being overly-dependent on his advisers.Referring to a decision about Britain deploying a warship to the Gulf, Trump said:double quotation markThe prime minister of UK, United Kingdom, yesterday told me, I’m meeting with my team to make a determination.I said you don’t need to meet with your team, you’re the prime minister, you can make your own, why do you have to meet with your team to find out whether or not you’re going to send some minesweepers to help us or to send some boats.I said you don’t have to meet with your team, it’s the same thing here.This might be a rare example of Trump saying something that will meet with the approval of at least some Labour MPs

Would a new leader be the answer to Labour’s woes? | Letters

Zoe Williams’s conjecture that pragmatism might be the solution to Labour’s polling woes is surely a triumph of hope over experience. (There is no denying Labour is in crisis – but in a strange way, Keir Starmer is equipped to save it, 12 March). Disavowal of ideology in favour of pragmatism is the precise cause of the apparent aimlessness and inability to convey Labour’s mission that she describes, compounded by unforced policy errors, U-turns and poor judgment. Labour members may well be discussing whether Keir Starmer should be tacking more to the left, but the underlying question remains whether he is the right person to lead a party that needs, as she says, a complete step change in orientation in the new multiparty environment.Unlike Andy Burnham, for example, he has shown no interest in either proportional representation or cross-party collaboration to defeat the far right

Labour MPs have no reason to oppose new welfare reforms, says minister

Labour MPs have no reason to oppose a fresh government attempt to overhaul the welfare system, the work and pensions secretary has said, as he unveiled a £1bn youth employment scheme.The announcement by Pat McFadden, who said the public wanted the system to promote work and “value for money”, is regarded as a prelude to a renewed effort to change the welfare system after plans by his predecessor, Liz Kendall, were blocked by a Labour backbench rebellion last year.Companies will get a £3,000 grant for each hire of a person aged 18 to 24 who is on benefits and has been looking for a job for at least six months, under a new policy designed to tackle the rising rate of youth unemployment.The funding, which is aimed at creating 200,000 jobs, is part of what was described by McFadden as a “new deal for young people”.It was announced alongside a new apprenticeship incentive, under which small and medium-sized businesses will be paid £2,000 for every new employee aged between 16 and 24 they take on

UK not obliged to support every demand of ‘transactional’ US president, minister says

Donald Trump is a “very transactional” president, whose repeated demands on Iran must be seen in this context, one of Keir Starmer’s most senior ministers has said in an unusually blunt UK assessment of relations between the countries.Asked about the US president’s threats of some sort of retaliation against allies who do not supply ships to try to free up the strait of Hormuz, Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, said the UK was not obliged to agree to every US request.After Trump again criticised the UK for a perceived lack of enthusiasm in helping the US-Israeli war against Iran, McFadden said it was important to separate the US president’s “rhetoric” from the more important issues.In an overnight interview with the Financial Times, Trump reiterated his frustration at the UK for not sending ships to the strait of Hormuz, the vital sea freight passage that has been all but closed by Iranian retaliatory attacks.“It’s only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there,” Trump said