About the Honest Money Initiative

We believe our monetary system should be fairer

What is the Honest Money Initiative?

Put simply, our monetary system is unfair and we believe radical change is necessary:

Remove the power of the Bank of England to create unlimited quantities of new money

rewrite the Bank of England Act

We call it “Honest Money”.

Every household and business should be able to earn, spend, invest and save Pounds, safe in the knowledge that the currency will keep its value year after year after year. 

Our Steering Group

Geoff Blanning

Geoff Blanning

Co-Chair

Geoff Blanning is a former Investment Manager and Member of the Group Management Committee at Schroders Plc, author of “Put the tools away now, please” (2021) and Co-Producer of “Ex Nihilo: The Truth About Money”, a Cobden Centre documentary film, soon to be released, which exposes the fundamental flaws at the heart of our monetary system.

Max Rangeley

Max Rangeley

Co-Chair

Max Rangeley is Manager of The Cobden Centre and has served on the boards of other leading think tanks in London and Brussels. He founded an award-winning microchip company and has organised and moderated high level technology events, such as the artificial intelligence roundtable discussions in the European Parliament.

Toby Baxendale

Toby Baxendale

Toby Baxendale is an entrepreneur/investor who co-founded the Cobden Centre with Steve Baker MP around the time of the Great Financial Crisis to warn of the dangers of irresponsible, dangerous and at times dishonest monetary policy that still bedevils us today. He believes fixing the monetary system and providing a stable financial base, will in turn, go a long way, to fix many of the UK’s social and economic problems.

Eamonn Butler

Eamonn Butler

Dr Eamonn Butler is Director and co-founder of Britain’s leading free-market policy think tank, the Adam Smith Institute, and a leading author and broadcaster on economics and social issues.

Kevin Dowd

Kevin Dowd

Professor Kevin Dowd is a Senior Fellow at the Cobden Centre and Professor of Finance and Economics at Durham University.

Tim Evans

Tim Evans

Dr Tim Evans is Professor of Business and Political Economy at Middlesex University London and has been ranked by City AM as one of the UK’s ‘Top 75’ economic policy thinkers.

Jonathan Escott

Jonathan Escott

Jonathan Escott is an experienced former investment banker working in London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, Toronto, Tokyo and Dublin, dealing with government agencies, central banks, sovereign wealth funds, endowments and institutional investors. He is currently Chairman of the Trojan Funds (Ireland).

Dominic Frisby

Dominic Frisby

Dominic Frisby is a writer from London, behind the popular Substack The Flying Frisby. His books include: Life After the State: Why We Don’t Need Government, Bitcoin: the Future of Money? and Daylight Robbery: How Tax Shaped Our Past and Will Change Our Future.

Mark Littlewood

Mark Littlewood

Mark Littlewood is Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs, and 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 powerful, engaging and articulate spokesman for free markets and is a regular guest on flagship political programmes such as BBC Question Time.

Dan Hannan

Dan Hannan

Lord Hannan of Kingsclere is an author and columnist, and Co-Trustee of The Cobden Centre. He serves on the UK Board of Trade and is a Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Party responsible for its international relations. He was a Conservative MEP for 21 years and wrote the New York Times bestseller ‘Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World’.

Abdallah Guezour

Abdallah Guezour

Abdallah Guezour has 27 years investment experience in Emerging Markets, Currencies and Commodities. Over this time period, he has gained expertise in analysing the interplay between money supply, financial liquidity, asset prices and the real economy.

Kerry Halferty Hardy

Kerry Halferty Hardy

Kerry Halferty Hardy is a lecturer and consultant on innovation and entrepreneurship and adviser to international companies and NGOs. She is a board member of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Institute for Economic Studies Europe and the American Club of Paris and a voting member of the American Institute for Economic Research.

Daniel Lacalle

Daniel Lacalle

Daniel Lacalle, PhD, economist and fund manager, is author of the bestselling books ‘Freedom or Equality’ (2020), ‘Escape from the Central Bank Trap’ (2017) and others. He is Professor of Global Economy at IE Business School in Madrid and was ranked as one of the top twenty most influential economists in the world in 2016 and 2017.

Colin Lloyd

Colin Lloyd

Colin Lloyd has been following the ebb and flow of financial markets for more than 35 years. He has worked for brokers and asset managers in commodities, money markets, capital markets, equities and foreign exchange.

Dominique Lazanski

Dominique Lazanski

Dominique Lazanski is a digital policy and strategy consultant and owner and director of her own company, Last Press Label. She has worked on cybersecurity policy and internet governance co-ordination with the UN, OECD, WTO and others, and was a member of the UK’s Open Data User Group in the Cabinet Office from 2012-14 and the Tax Transparency Board in HMRC in 2013.