The news from Gwynedd arrives heralded by a certain, perhaps premature, parochial, nationalist, triumphalism: house prices, it is proclaimed, have succumbed to the local council’s campaign against second homes, plummeting by a seemingly significant margin. To some eyes, this may appear a vindication of local prerogative, a victory for affordability wrested from the grasp of […]
As Los Angeles burns, with ten dead and over 10,000 homes destroyed, a deeper story emerges about how well-intentioned red tape has turned a natural disaster into a regulatory catastrophe. The fires raging through Pacific Palisades and beyond aren’t just revealing the physical vulnerability of California’s hillside communities – they’re exposing the fundamental weakness of […]
As lockdown lifted in England this week there was a palpable sense of joy. Not everything is back to normal, we can only eat and drink outside and it is unseasonably cold, if mercifully dry. However the jubilation felt by ordinary people was not felt by the anti-obesity lobby — their aim is for a […]
Global Britain became very real this weekend. As the EU threatened to seize vaccines and impose a hard border on the isle of Ireland, the noises out of our own sceptred isle could hardly have been more different. With the vaccine programme going strong, ministers have started to sound off about handing surplus stock to […]
I was hoping for a little bit of peace and quiet this Christmas, instead the chap who used to lead the Labour Party has promised us a last minute present that no-one has asked for — a Project for Peace & Justice. In a video released at the weekend, Jeremy Corbyn said that he thinks […]
It’s been a day of high drama at Westminster, the kind that gets all the insiders het up about and which can make or break careers, but which most people will only notice in a quick news report at the end of the day. It is one that is worth knowing though. Priti Patel has […]
Is the Pope a Catholic? After his third encyclical, released on the feast of his papal namesake St Francis this Sunday, I’m not exactly sure. The target this time was the evils of individualism, neoliberalism, and capitalism. It is fascinating that the Holy Father decided to use St Francis of Assisi to lambast the free […]
Both the Welsh and Scottish governments are up in arms at the idea that the UK might actually be a United Kingdom with a functioning internal market and no barriers to trade between her constituent parts. No, I wasn’t aware that was controversial either. As powers return from Brussels the question arises where the rights […]
Netflix’s Street Food appears at first to just be a series about grilled meat, fresh empanadas and quick bites from food carts around the world. The latest series, set in Latin America, is a reminder though that behind every business is a personal story — overcoming loss, challenging your limits, not accepting the pernicious idea […]
Some politicians are known by just a single name. It’s the big golden prize to be one of them. For most, the most likely name to be known by will be their surname. But for a gilded few, the country knows them by their first name. Winston, Maggie, Boris. It’s a special club with few […]
We’re going to walk from a public health crisis into an economic one. Stock markets are crashing, oil prices plummeting and big high street names running out of cash and falling into administration. You can put an economy in effective stasis for a short while – we basically do so every Christmas and various bits […]
Happy Canada Day to the nearly 100,000 Canadians living in the UK, the 600,000 Brits living in Canada, and to the 37 million people that call Canada home! Today commemorates when the three colonies of the Province of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick federated into a single dominion in 1867 and eventually became one […]
Rory Stewart is the modern day spiritual preacher for the secular class. He talks of “love,” of “issues” that only the enlightened have seen, and calls for people to “come together” in the “centre”. The secular class think they’re seeing something new because they don’t go to church, but they’re getting hoodwinked. Stewart has called […]
There is no bigger bogeyman for the left than “the neoliberal”. They must imagine some kind of mangled beast, which can be blamed as the bogeyman for all of society’s ills. Well. The Adam Smith Institute is proud to challenge this stereotype. You see, we are neoliberals. And we unashamedly support neoliberal policies. Once upon […]
I’m going to admit something. I think it is something to which plenty of other people — in fact, most people in Westminster — would admit to if were they being honest. If in 81 days the United Kingdom leaves the European Union without a deal, I have little in the way of certainty about […]
A lesser spotted announcement in last week’s Budget was a commitment to ensure that empty lots on high streets — flats above shops and disused malls — could be transferred quickly to housing. It’s a war I’ve been waging for a decade. It’s something I’ve raised with nearly every councillor, MP or housing executive that […]
It’s official. We are most definitely not at the ‘back of the queue’ when it comes to a trade deal with the United States. Actually, we’re at the front. Well, we’re technically third if you take it in order of the letters released today by Robert E. Lighthizer, the US Trade Representative, to the House […]
Plaid Cymru have a new leader and he’s been committing news, from demanding a focus again on independence, to demanding an end to Brexit. But as neither of those are going to happen, let’s look instead at one of their particular bugbears: the Welsh language. I grew up on the border between north-east Wales and […]
