Labour’s failure to gain Uxbridge & South Ruislip has been seen primarily through the lens of Sadiq Khan’s highly unpopular proposed expansion of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) to outer London. That’s no great surprise; the Tories went big on ULEZ during the campaign and the scheme itself is understandably unpopular as among already […]
What does the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota have to do with cricket in England and Wales? A great deal, according to a new independent report, which has concluded that racism is ‘widespread’ within the sport. According to Cindy Butts, Chair of the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC), the inquiry was set […]
I’m old enough to remember when a Conservative prime minister pledged to cut net migration to the ‘tens of thousands’. Fast-forward a decade or so and we’re looking at a figure of 606,000 – a new record, and one that Rishi Sunak would probably rather didn’t have his name attached to it. It’s worth breaking […]
One of the highlights of today’s National Conservatism Conference in London is a speech from Home Secretary Suella Braverman, in which she says Britain must do more to train up its domestic workforce, including fruit-pickers. ‘There is no good reason,’ Braverman says, ‘why we can’t train up enough HGV drivers, butchers or fruit pickers. Brexit […]
The Coronation was one of those historic moments that reminded us of how traditional institutions can act as the social glue that helps to bind together modern Britain. The ceremony itself was a glorious celebration of both our country’s Christian traditions and our proud status as a confident multi-faith democracy. It was the embodiment of […]
It may only have been a few lines long, but Diane Abbott’s letter to The Observer managed to pack in a veritable smorgasbord of historical inaccuracy and obscenely offensive rhetoric. The veteran MP has since had the Labour whip removed, and issued a grovelling apology, including the bizarre claim that her letter was the result […]
It is the talk of British political Twitter and second place on the Sunday Times bestseller list. Professor Matthew Goodwin’s new book Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics is hot property. I should start by saying that I’ve long admired Goodwin as both an insightful author and a trendsetting ‘entrepreneurial academic’, combining his scholarly […]
There’s little doubt that the authorities in this country have repeatedly bungled investigations into child sexual abuse. So today’s announcement from the Prime Minister and Home Secretary of a new package of measures to deal with this national outrage are more than welcome – even if many will wish the Government had done more, sooner. […]
Racism, misogyny, homophobia and jaw-dropping levels of incompetence – the word ‘damning’ barely seems adequate for Baroness Casey’s final report into the behaviour and internal culture of the Metropolitan Police. Anyone who read her interim findings would have expected this to be a pretty no-holds-barred account of life in London’s police service, but the findings […]
Since the August-September 2022 Leicester disorders, there have been in the region of 150 arrests or interviews without caution, along with multiple weapons-related convictions. Subcontinental-style sectarian violence, primarily between young Hindu and Muslim men, spilled over onto the streets of a regional English city. Yet after all this we heard barely a peep from national […]
With a White Paper on the horizon, the case for a robust Independent Regulator for English Football (IREF) has rarely felt stronger. While northern provincial towns such as Bury and Macclesfield have seen their clubs disappear as a result of gross financial mismanagement, the Premier League is an ever-growing embarrassment of riches. The latest Deloitte […]
The UN’s highly trained diversity experts will be in town next week to carry out an investigation into the UK’s problems with racism, xenophobia and ‘Afrophobia’. The ‘Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent’, which is set to meet Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch, is not a big fan of this government. It concluded […]
In a policy area all too often characterised by vague blandishments, Rishi Sunak’s introduction of a concrete, testable target to deal with the backlog of asylum claims is a welcome development. With pressure building on the Home Office to get to grips with the Channel crossings, the PM has declared that the small-boats crisis on […]
The 2021 census reveals the changing face of modern Britain, a country that is evolving at a rapid pace in terms of demographic change. Perhaps the most striking statistic is that, for the first time, well under half the population of England and Wales (46.2%) identify as Christians. The fall has been precipitous: just 20 […]
A year on from Tory MP Tracey Crouch’s fan-led review of football governance in England, the country’s most popular sport remains in urgent need of institutional and cultural reform. English football has suffered its fair share of tragedies in the lower leagues and scandals at the very top. The winding-up of Macclesfield Town and expulsion […]
As the Treasury’s announces that it will aim to have 6% of its staff come from black backgrounds, it’s worth revisiting the debate on racial quotas in employment. It has been reported in The Telegraph that a memo appeared on the department’s intranet service for civil servants last week, stating that ‘for the first time […]
With police announcing that the firebombing of a migrant processing facility was motivated by extreme right-wing ideology, there will be renewed concerns over Britain’s fastest-growing threat. Andrew Leak, the 66-year-old who hurled up to three incendiary devices at the site in Dover, is believed to have later taken his own life. What’s particularly concerning is […]
Michael Gove doesn’t tend to shy away from making big decisions – and he has already made a very significant judgement call just days into the Sunak government. The newly re-appointed Communities Secretary has decided to end the Government’s work on establishing a formal definition of ‘Islamophobia’ – a problematic term that tends to conflate […]
It may feel like a footnote, given the extraordinary economic crisis the country faces, but the arrival of Britain’s first non-white Prime Minister does feel like a watershed moment. (Rishi Sunak is not Britain’s first ethnic minority PM, however – that was Benjamin Disraeli way back in 1868.) Sunak’s rise to PM will understandably carry […]
For anyone who thought the reputation of the Metropolitan Police couldn’t get any worse, the initial findings of the Baroness Casey Review will make for grim reading. The interim report was commissioned in the aftermath of the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by serving Met PC Wayne Couzens. Casey’s investigations have found that […]
