The last time I wrote about Reform UK’s annual conference I was doing it as the Deputy Editor of this fine publication. A year on, how much has changed? Greeting you as you enter the conference hall is the familiar fare for the familiar fee. Chicken and chips stands sit next to anti-Labour propaganda, accompanied […]
Depending on who you ask, the welfare state is either the only thing left in Britain worth fighting for or a byword for state failure, waste and deceit. A cursory look at the statistics will leave readers under no illusion as to which is the correct interpretation. In the 2025/26 financial year, we are projected […]
When I was born in 1998, Britain had reached an optimistic point. It was the era of ‘Cool Britannia’: Tony Blair had won a landslide majority the year before to the tune ‘Things Can Only Get Better’, business was confident in our economy, employment was rising and we had low inflation. Yet by the time […]
As Andy Burnham stood outside Downing Street on Monday to launch his new regime, our new Prime Minister did his best to prove to his 349 parliamentary backers that they had made the right decision. Much of his speech was rhetorical filler. ‘I will put the care of people at the heart of everything I […]
Andy Burnham is not a forward-looking man. His musical interests stop at around 1998, his approach to industry is straight out of the 1970s and his favourite football team hasn’t won a trophy for over thirty years. It’s little surprise then that he takes a dim view of the ongoing tech revolution. It was reported […]
September 2023: what a time that was to be alive. Aerosmith began their final ever tour, Kim Jong-Un arrived in Russia for an audience with Vladimir Putin and Rupert Murdoch stepped down from the boards of Fox and News Corp. It was a good month for news. Yet that month another turning point in world […]
Brace yourself, but I don’t mind Michelle Obama. Sure, she might prattle on about the evils of white, corporate America too much for my liking, but the former First Lady certainly doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and this was on full display at this week’s SXSW festival in London. Addressing the crowd, Obama warned young people […]
Admired for his reformist approach to the NHS, Wes Streeting is generally seen as the most market-friendly figure on the British Left. Yet his call for social media companies to be treated like tobacco businesses reminds us that even the best of a bad bunch can still be pretty awful. After resigning as Health Secretary, […]
Whether through pig ignorance or wilful blindness, politicians of all stripes have presided over the slow decay of Britain’s economy for at least the past two decades. Under the Conservatives, taxation and public spending increased while growth and productivity slumped. It was largely this legacy that saw them ejected from office in 2024 when, after […]
This was not the King’s Speech Keir Starmer imagined it would be. The crisis engulfing the Prime Minister has become so terminal that Buckingham Palace even questioned whether it would be appropriate for the King to speak at all. But Starmer hasn’t maneuvered himself to the top job for nothing, and he patently won’t go […]
On Monday, it seemed that Rachel Reeves had crossed the Rubicon into complete economic ineptitude. It was reported that the Government was considering a one-year rent freeze for private tenants to soften the financial blow of the Iran war. Under the plans, landlords would be prohibited from raising rents for a limited period of time, […]
It takes a special kind of political crisis to make a right-winger agree with Diane Abbott. As Keir Starmer faced MPs on Monday over his appointment of renowned sinophile and friend of Jeffrey Epstein Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US, Abbott struck at the heart of the Prime Minister’s weakness. Portraying himself as feeling […]
Enjoy April Fool’s Day while you can, because there’s nothing funny about what’s coming next. With the exception of my birthday, there’ll be little for CapX readers to celebrate this month as we begin to feel the impact of the Chancellor’s many and varied tax hikes. As if Britons weren’t squeezed tightly enough already – […]
This week, it was reported that Nigel Farage is backing down on his plan to renationalise half of the water industry and overhaul energy companies as part of Reform UK’s ‘new ownership model for critical national infrastructure’, in which the state and pension funds would own half each. Following Robert Jenrick’s appointment as Reform’s Treasury […]
After the non-event that was the Spring Statement, yesterday’s Mais lecture by Rachel Reeves was supposed to give us the granular detail of the Chancellor’s plan to rescue Britain’s economy. I hope no one held their breath. The speech was at times incoherent, and felt like an exercise in buck-passing more than the decisive plan […]
From Alexander the Great to Benjamin Franklin, nations and empires have long imprinted on their currency the likenesses of their most respected luminaries. It projects power, influence and most importantly, immortalises historical legacy. Who knows this better in the modern age than us Britons? Go to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and much of the Caribbean, […]
The Green Party’s victory in last week’s Gorton and Denton by-election was a grim indicator of where British politics could be heading. With 40% of the vote, Hannah Spencer won her campaign by stirring the pot of local sectarianism; releasing campaign videos in Urdu and Bengali, accusing the Government of funding ‘genocide’ in Gaza, and […]
Britain is a world leader! Nope, not in economic growth, opportunity or general happiness, but in the size of its human resources industry. Just when it seems as though the 2020s couldn’t get any more joyless, Blighty outdoes itself. A new report from the think tank Policy Exchange exposes just how large and overbearing our […]
Say what you like about him – and I often do – but Tony Blair remains inescapable. Perhaps that is why, almost 30 years after he first entered No.10 as Prime Minister, Channel 4 has a new three-part series following his journey from Fettes to Iraq. The series features interviews with Blair’s wife Cherie and […]
‘It’s painful to say, but I think the best way to proceed is to ignore it.’ It’s the kind of supportive message you might expect from a friend you consulted for advice on, say, how to get over a breakup. Not the advice you would send to Jeffrey Epstein if you were one of the […]
