This piece first appeared in the Conflict Issue of our Magazine.
Mark Littlewood was at the time of this interview Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs and the IEA’s Ralph Harris Fellow. He has overseen significant growth in the IEA’s size, influence, and media profile during his tenure, which began in 2009.
Mark also sits on the Board of Big Brother Watch, a non-profit organisation fighting for the protection of privacy and civil liberties in the UK. Mark is recognised as a powerful, engaging and articulate spokesman for free markets. He is a much sought-after speaker at a range of events, including university debates, industry conferences and public policy events. He also features as a regular guest on flagship political programmes such as BBC Question Time, Newsnight, Sky News and the Today Programme. He writes a regular column for The Times and features in many other print and broadcast media.
SpeakFreely: Thanks for taking the time to speak with us, Mark. The IEA received widespread attention last Autumn due to its influence on the economic policy of Liz Truss’ short-lived premiership. What impact has the media coverage of that period had on your overall mission?
Mark Littlewood: It’s a real frustration. The IEA is in the business of the battle of ideas – not in the game of policy engineering. Liz Truss has been a regular attendee of IEA events for well over a decade and our goal is to try and encourage policy-makers to think in a free market and classical liberal fashion. How they execute or communicate their specific policies is not in our wheelhouse. If that backfires, there’s collateral damage to all those in that broad ideological space. But nothing lasts forever.
As time goes on, more and more people are starting to conclude that the medical diagnosis that the UK is over-taxed, over-regulated and spends too much on the state sector is correct – even if the surgery on that occasion was not brilliantly conducted.
SF: What are the most significant lost opportunities from Truss’s mini budget, and what are organisations such as the IEA doing to mitigate these?
ML: There is a danger that opponents of free markets will perpetuate a myth that rolling back the frontiers of the state is a practical impossibility – not merely undesirable. It’s important to understand the interlocking factors that led to Liz Truss’s downfall. Even if she is blamed for some of these, she can’t be blamed for all of them. We need to patiently explain the series of events that went wrong – and instructions such as the Bank of England and the Treasury should not escape criticism. For an exceptional analysis of the real, complex story, I’d recommend Jon Moynihan’s articles in The Critic magazine and on CapX.
“If you want to see changes in public policy, you need to take an interest in educating and informing policy-makers.”
SF: Free-market think tanks are often the subjects of conspiracy theories among the British left. Is it a double-edged sword to gain influence in Westminster if people will then see you as part of a shadowy establishment?
ML: I think there might be a trade-off here between wanting a quiet life and wanting an influential one. I am firmly in the latter camp. If you want to see changes in public policy, you need to take an interest in educating and informing policy-makers. Emphatically, this does not mean think tanks should involve themselves in elections or political campaigning, but I do want to see a British government which appreciates the importance of free market reform. That involves controversy and some risk and might even mean that think tanks can’t entirely be in control of their own reputation, but we shouldn’t be embarrassed about striving for more people in political power to see the world in a classical liberal way. I don’t think the IEA should deliberately court controversy in a flippant fashion, but if criticism is the price of having influence on the wider debate, so be it.
SF: What role do you think free-market think tanks should play in modern politics? How can they best promote their goals while maintaining public trust and confidence?
ML: Don’t be too tactical. Explain concepts – don’t merely rattle off prescriptions. One lesson I’ve learnt from the failure of the Truss government is that providing analysis is as important as putting forward policy ideas. If you haven’t persuaded people of the underlying problems afflicting the economy then your solutions may not gain traction. Again, to use a medical analogy, if the patient does not accept the diagnosis they are unlikely to embrace the need for surgery.
SF: What do you think is the most pressing issue in terms of economic reform that the wider culture should be paying more attention to?
ML: To underscore my previous answer, I fear we live in a society which most people would describe as free market or capitalist. So, when things don’t appear to work, free markets or capitalism are lined up to take the blame. In fact, across the West we have been drifting into a more statist and interventionist society for the last couple of decades. If higher taxes, more state spending and heavier regulation were the main answers to our problems, then we should have been living through a golden era. We need to reset how people understand the starting point of where we are at or this drift will continue. I think getting this analysis across is a prerequisite of shifting towards policy change in a liberal direction.
SF: For any readers unfamiliar with the IEA, which of the institute’s research publications would you recommend as an introduction?
ML: There are hundreds to choose from, covering almost any topic you could imagine. But if you want to understand the IEA’s core mission and approach, I’d recommend Waging the War of Ideas by my predecessor, the late, great, John Blundell.
Picture: Former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss speaks at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland.
Photo by Gage Skidmore, 20 February 2025.
