As Ms. May is finding out overbearing law can be expensive

It's a fairly standard observation that most things and actions have both costs and benefits. Paying unemployment pay for a longer period alleviates poverty but also raises long term unemployment.  Dealing with climate change might make the future better but at the cost of making the present worse. In terms of laws about secrecy, privacy and so on we normally look at the costs as being the curtailment of civil liberty and the benefit as being greater security from the terrorists and the like. But as Theresa May has just found out the costs can also be economic:

Theresa May summoned the internet giant Yahoo for an urgent meeting on Thursday to raise security concerns after the company announced plans to move to Dublin where it is beyond the reach of Britain's surveillance laws. By making the Irish capital rather than London the centre of its European, Middle East and Africa operations, Yahoo cannot be forced to hand over information demanded by Scotland Yard and the intelligence agencies through "warrants" issued under Britain's controversial anti-terror laws. Yahoo has had longstanding concerns about securing the privacy of its hundreds of millions of users – anxieties that have been heightened in recent months by revelations from the whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Perhaps rather than Ms. May summoning Yahoo (and excuse me, but is that actually the correct word there? Does a British Minister really have the power to command the arrival of a private citizen in the Ministerial offices? Rather than politely request?) the rest of the government should be summoning Ms. May to ask why she's pushing legislation so repressive that firms are fleeing the country. Becausetheterrorists is a reasonable enough answer to why we have spies at all but keeping them corralled enough that people still wish to do business in our fair land seems a reasonable enough thought, doesn't it?

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This is rather the point of student loans though

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Osborne's Surprise