What if we’ve misunderstood socialism all along?

People argue endlessly about whether Britain or America is “more socialist”. They usually point to the NHS, mutter about taxes and move on.But what if the real answer isn’t found in hospitals at all — but in food banks, lobsters, and who decides how people eat?

This week’s issue looks at two stories that seem unrelated, yet reveal the same underlying tension: how much control governments exert and where that control quietly hides.

First, a paradox. Britain is routinely caricatured as a nanny-state socialist economy. Yet when it comes to feeding the hungry, the United States runs a vastly more centralised, government-engineered system - purchasing food, allocating it through federal programmes and distributing it via a parallel food economy for low-income citizens. Britain, by contrast, mostly hands people cash and hopes the market or a volunteer fills the gaps.

Second, a lobster. Or rather, what the banning of live boiling says about regulation, tradition, unintended consequences and the widening distance between policymakers and the businesses they govern. When welfare rules collide with commercial reality, the results are rarely as simple as the legislation suggests.

If you’re interested in policy beyond slogans, markets beyond ideology and why “statism” often shows up where we least expect it, read the full story.