Here it comes again. Whoever Andy Burnham chooses to be his Chancellor of the Exchequer will face the same challenge as all their predecessors since Gordon Brown: producing ‘fiscal rules’ to reassure the City they will be prudent holders of the nation’s credit card. With Britain’s national debt higher than it’s been for decades, and […]
The ‘Burnham effect’ that propelled Labour to victory in Makerfield is only the latest example of regional and devolved democratic leaders who are miles more popular than their opposite numbers in Westminster. Political talents as diverse as Boris Johnson and Alex Salmond prospered after being sprinkled with devolved political fairy dust. So do these roles […]
The battle of essays between Labour Party grandees has given British politics a distinctly retro feel over the last week, as Tony Blair, Keir Starmer, Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham behaved like competing 18th-century pamphleteers explaining in earnest detail why things will only get better if they’re in charge. The ideas these once-and-would-be-future Labour prime […]
The 6-7 craze is about to turn from a meaningless, but ultimately fun, meme into something decidedly more serious: the number of UK Prime Ministers in the last 10 years. British firms and families are battling spiralling energy bills while our towns and cities are disfigured by rashes of vape shops, epidemics of shoplifting and […]
Even though the final local election results won’t be declared for a while yet, it’s clear there are glum faces in our two traditionally-biggest parties, an enormous trademark grin from Nigel Farage at Reform UK, and that Zack Polanski’s Greens are on the march. The populist parties aren’t gaining because they discovered a magical […]
Anyone who’s ever watched ‘The West Wing’ knows it’s only fiction, but wishes it wasn’t. It’s a glowing picture of how government ought to work. But as the never-ending fallout from Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US shows, the reality is often closer to ‘The Thick Of It’ or ‘Yes Minister’ instead. Behind […]
This week saw Labour’s key benefits reforms come into force. Ministers and their outriders in the press and social media have been arguing that measures like abolishing the two-child benefit cap will cut poverty. But everybody else sees people who work paying higher taxes to fund benefits for those who don’t, with senior journalists like […]
Every so often, in up-and-coming neighbourhoods full of progressive metropolitan types, a group of community-minded idealists will set up a restaurant where diners pay what they feel their meal is really worth, rather than anything as capitalist or bourgeois as a preset price. They don’t last long, of course. The number of right-on diners willing […]
Almost buried under this week’s avalanche of news reports on war in Iran and who-said-what-to whom in the newly-released Mandelson files, was an announcement from the Treasury Select Committee launching an inquiry into ‘widespread dissatisfaction’ over student loan repayment terms. They can say that again. It may not be as urgent or compelling as drone […]
If the definition of political success is when other people start claiming your ideas as their own, then this week’s speech by Richard Tice committing Reform UK to creating a UK sovereign wealth fund ought to count as a pretty big win. I first proposed the idea in a policy paper more than a decade […]
How times change. It was only last autumn when I outlined here in CapX how an already-sleazy new Government needed an integrity reset to clean up politics and save its own reputation at the same time. Now it is increasingly clear that we are facing a growing integrity crisis in UK politics – and the […]
Governments generally use Christmas and the New Year to bury bad news, hoping no-one will notice while they’re distracted by paper hats, mince pies and brandy butter. But this year Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook decided to ring the changes by swapping the traditional Scrooge costume for announcing glad tidings of comfort and joy instead. The […]
Dry taps and bottled water for customers of South East Water in Tunbridge Wells, Thames Water going bankrupt in slow motion, spiralling bills across the rest of the country and to cap it all, fat cat pay and bonuses for water company bosses. The water industry is about as popular as a burst sewer at […]
Arise Sir Idris Elba, Sir Christopher Dean and Dame Jayne Torvill. This year’s New Year Honours list had a host of well-deserved gongs for famous and not-so-famous names, alongside the usual criticisms about back-scratching cronyism too. Whatever the rights and wrongs of last week’s list, the idea of getting a gong or a title feels […]
This article is the latest in a fortnightly series of policy proposals from John Penrose and the Centre for Small State Conservatives. You can read the previous instalments here. This week, the Government announced a multi-million-pound boost for apprenticeships in an attempt to improve young people’s life chances with a smoother transition from school into education, work […]
When the Office for Budget Responsibility had finished grovelling and prostrating itself for leaking the entire Budget in advance, it made a genuinely eye-popping admission about what was actually in it. They said that, after they’d downgraded their growth forecasts to match Britain’s lacklustre economic performance since the 2008 banking crisis and the Covid pandemic, […]
This article is the latest in a fortnightly series of policy proposals from John Penrose and the Centre for Small State Conservatives. You can read the previous instalments here. Wes Streeting wants you know that he really, definitely isn’t plotting against Keir Starmer. Honest. In fairness, with NHS productivity flatlining since the pandemic, resident (formerly known […]
This article is the latest in a fortnightly series of policy proposals from John Penrose and the Centre for Small State Conservatives. You can read the previous instalments here. Most UK families, business leaders and investors will spend the next month trying to ignore the ever-darkening economic clouds that are gathering in the run-up to Chancellor […]
This article is the latest in a fortnightly series of policy proposals from John Penrose and the Centre for Small State Conservatives. You can read the previous instalments here: Only Thatcher-sized reforms will end Britain’s malaise Britain’s benefits system is unfair for all involved Labour’s change to Ofwat doesn’t hold water The fiscal farce that’s bankrupting […]
This article is the latest in a fortnightly series of policy proposals from John Penrose and the Centre for Small State Conservatives. You can read the previous instalments here: Only Thatcher-sized reforms will end Britain’s malaise Britain’s benefits system is unfair for all involved Labour’s change to Ofwat doesn’t hold water The fiscal farce that’s […]
