The latest government "innovation," which follows in a long tradition of stealing ideas from the private sector designed to improve our lives and using them for other means instead, is central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

Designed not to exist in any physical form whatsoever, CBDCs would give their central bank issuers entirely new powers. Indeed, much of the manoeuvring that was required in 2008-9 to rescue the financial system with taxpayer-funded bailouts would have been so much easier had CBDCs been in existence. But if easier, is that necessarily a good thing for the economy as a whole?

Nigel Farage doesn't seem to think so. And he has come up with a plan to counter the government's efforts.

To answer the question, it is important to differentiate between CBDCs and the concept of private, distributed digital currencies, including those such as bitcoin, that are built using distributed-ledger technology (DLT). In some ways they are opposites.

Rather than offer an alternative currency, CBDCs are mostly aimed at making monetary policy easier to implement and, potentially, more powerful.