So here is a report that you tell us is welcomed by people in the industry, and that (quite accurately) points out that we're not in a position to play subsidy races - and yet The Register devotes the first third of the article to political conspiracy theories about the people who produced it?

If there are factual inaccuracies, or ideas that people who actually work in the industry suggest are bad, perhaps The Register could report on those rather than objecting to the fact that a political think tank was founded by someone who died ten years ago?

and yet The Register devotes the first third of the article to political conspiracy theories about the people who produced it?

No conspiracy theories.

CPS are based at 57 Tufton Street, and are closely aligned with the Koch-Brother backed shills in [1]55 Tufton Street . They were [2]extremely keen for us to know how very clever the Truss/Kwarteng budget was. [3]Right up until it wasn't.

Frankly, the only reason to give these people a platform is so that you can treat them with the contempt they deserve. Their "papers" and "reports" aren't worth reporting on in any sort of serious platform. Unfortunately, the current Tory government are somewhat in bed with them - hence our current economic malais , and hence why it is important to properly scrutinise the people who are "advising" our dear "leaders".

Look at these fawning sycophants: [4]IEA: Who is Liz Truss

It is entirely reasonable to take their proposals with more than a pinch of salt. It was former IEA spokes-cretin Richard Wellings who made the - apparently serious proposal last year that:

One solution to the energy crisis is to suspend smoke control zones and other red tape - so that freezing pensioners could burn wood, old books etc. to stay warm this winter. But in reality they don't want people to have alternative, low-cost options.

Evidently Wellings has never tried to actually burn a book (they don't burn so much as smoulder). But we should all be very concerned about Austrians* proposing book-burning.

*Austrian Economists that is.

So here is a report that you tell us is welcomed by people in the industry

Well, it was vaguely welcomed by one person in the industry. And then another person pointed out that the proposals were actually just table stakes, and that whilst the government wasn't even doing that right now, the whole thing was lacking in ambition and could we please for the love of god have a fucking industrial strategy in this country. Hardly a ringing endorsement.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/55_Tufton_Street

[2] https://uk.news.yahoo.com/liz-truss-friend-budget-poor-163448701.html

[3] https://leftfootforward.org/2022/10/institute-of-economic-affairs-left-distraught-after-liz-truss-abandoned-mini-budget/

[4] https://iea.org.uk/films/who-is-liz-truss/

Oh bless.

If we're going to ad. hom. away anything that doesn't fit our political leanings, I guess we should stop pretending this is a technology site.

On the report - are you going to claim that subsidies are a strategy the UK should be pursuing, or should we go over the disastrous history of the Siemens plant in Tyneside? Or perhaps discuss how the Germans, having offered subsidies to attract chip manufacturers, are now seeing demands for ever expanding support before a single brick is laid?

Meanwhile the AstraZeneca move to Ireland has been specifically attributed to high taxation in the UK.

It is completely irrelevant whether these people like Liz Truss, were founded by Thatcher or are personal friends with Putin - are the suggested policies (ones the UK is singluarly failing to pursue) worth campaigning for? I'd suggest that they are, and that the alternative (throw money at a selected set of 'winners') has demonstrably and consistently failed to improve technological leadership in the UK in the past. I can only assume that some contributors here are completely unaware of well documented historical precedents in the car industry, besides the evidence of the UK tech sector itself.

Who ever is talking it always pays to do 'due diligence' and find out what kind of a track record they have, and what their underlying agenda (or that of their paymasters) is likely to be.

The 'plan' may even make sense, but that doesn't mean that those putting it forward aren't going to use it as a trojan horse for the plan they always have: taking as much loot as possible, as quickly as possible, and to hell with the consequences for everyone else.

So, by all means judge 'the plan' at face value, but then go away and ask the hard questions, like: how likely are we to be screwed over; and, what can we do to minimise that probability, because 'the plan' (given appropriate safeguards) actually makes sense?

Then if they start wriggling you know it was a trojan horse all along.

Sure - due diligence can be done by saying, in one line "a report by the right leaning think-tank known to favour low tax solutions" - that's literally all that is needed, not chapter and verse about who founded the organisation three decades ago.

As for trojan horses, are you really suggesting a sound economic strategy should be discredited because maybe the current lot will balls it up? I'm reasonably confident that they're not going to be in charge much longer, so perhaps - just perhaps - debating what policies we think the next lot should pursue would be a good idea.

I've not yet experienced a government (of any flavour) that hasn't messed up plans and taken every opportunity to service their personal needs over those of the country. That's pretty much a given, so it makes sense to consider the overall approach being taken and look at concrete evidence for possible success. Without failure, assuming a policy is good or bad because of the political leaning of the originator is guaranteed to lead to bad decisions.

If we're going to ad. hom. away anything that doesn't fit our political leanings, I guess we should stop pretending this is a technology site.

It's not an ad hom to call them cretins - that's just based on previous poor performance. A few years back, the then IEA Deputy Director Richard Wellings turned up to a House of Lords Select Committee to "give evidence" as an "expert" and spent a significant amount of time slating HS2. He finished - when challenged with a quite reasonable question - with:

"I do not know any of the details of what HS2 would actually look like"

Indicating that he hadn't actually read the f-ing report they were there to debate! Which included a map... and a description of the project...

"Something something ... I'm very important and have an opinion so you should listen to me..."

Call me underwhelmed by the quality of their research...

If a child has blatantly plagiarised two of their last three pieces of homework... then you check the rest of their work all the more carefully (without giving the others a free pass either).

It is completely irrelevant whether these people like Liz Truss, were founded by Thatcher or are personal friends with Putin

Well... it is and it isn't. The first rule in reading any sort of document - historical, policy or research is to ask Who wrote it, Who commissioned/funded it, and Who was it written for? You don't believe everything you read in vendor marketing bumpf do you?

If it was written by an organisation which recently backed obviously-bad policies that tanked the markets, who do not like to reveal their secretive financial backers, and who are writing for a government with an extremely poor economic track record... then it is entirely reasonable to ask those questions and retain some scepticism when reading.

This is how Tufton Street operates. One logo puts out a report. Other logos declare it "exciting" or "innovative" or put out some "independent" study which comes to broadly the same conclusions. It's like a Russian propaganda campaign, with a half-dozen apparently-unconnected fake news sites which re-report each other's stories and build a fake web-of-trust. Once you know, it's obvious. But the average punter doesn't know that when the Taxpayer's Alliance put out a "study" and BBC News get someone on from the IEA to talk about it... they're one and the same.

As it is, they don't seem to be arguing for any sort of actual industrial strategy - mostly just lower taxes. For a specific sector mind you - but then next week they can copy-and-paste a different sector in, stick an IEA logo on the front and release a "new" report advising them to lower taxes for a different sector. And eventually that's just a general veneer of "lower taxes for all our mates".

They also argue against any sort of investment, rolling out the old trope of "the UK's severe fiscal constraints.", perpetuating this idea that the UK is somehow broke and cannot aspire to much at all. Investment doesn't have to mean picking winners or subsidies though, more like creating conditions for business to do well, clustering of skills and suchlike - and that tends to be a semi-proactive endeavour to develop those communities of private enterprise.

So this report is a nothing-report. It basically says "Don't do anything, don't invest, just do some tax credits for the companies who don't want to come here anyway because of Brexit, but who might register an office so they can launder some revenue through the UK and get that rebate."

This is all backed up by the guy from Gartner, who concludes:

Gartner vice president for semiconductors and electronics Richard Gordon said of the report that the incentives mentioned – taxation credits/reliefs, lowering barriers to skilled immigration, and cutting planning red tape – were "table stakes." He added: "They should be doing this anyway for any industry they want to encourage."

...

He went on to say: "I get the impression that they want to be able to say that they are supporting 'a semiconductor industry' in the UK, which is true but very narrowly scoped and targeted."

He's saying "Your industrial strategy is non-existent, this report doesn't say anything new - you should be doing it for everything. But the people in power don't actually GAF anyway, it's mostly for show".

Refer back to my comment on Who wrote it, Who commissioned it and for Whom to read.

A low-tax, right-wing advocacy group wrote a report that said "do as little as possible" for a government whose central policy is to do as little as possible. Call me shocked.

I guess this is the sort of position they laid out in front of Astra-Zeneca. So A-Z have gone to Ireland.

I suppose it just a continuation of the "shoot yourself in the foot and blame everyone else" strategy.

We have plenty of incentives:

IR35, one of the highest income taxes in the world, Twitter police (burglary? don't even bother calling), health care for patient people not patients (long wait lists), poor infrastructure (train ticket across the country costs the same as all inclusive holiday somewhere warm). Oh and your business claimed R&D and you are not a member of WEF? Tax inspector is already on you.

So if you want to lower income tax for semiconductor worker, that is going to play nicely with workers from other sectors during cost of living crisis.

I think that think tank, probably has much more to do with tanks than thinking.

Indeed. "make it easier for highly skilled workers to come to the U" Well incentives were one of the reasons I went to work in the semiconductor industry - for ASML in Eindhoven.

The Dutch have the 30% rule for tax on highly skilled workers.

The Eindhoven region also actively encourages high tech workers to come and visit there.

Sadly I now live back in Blightly with 10% inflation.