Students and parents deserve the truth about Britain’s education system. Successive governments have pushed generations along a single, well-worn track; through primary and secondary school, into college or sixth form and finally to university. The underlying promise appeared straightforward: if students followed this route and graduated with a degree, higher pay would follow. Politicians of […]
1776 has a claim to being the single most important year in the history of the English-speaking peoples. America declared her independence, James Watt sold his first steam engine and Adam Smith invented modern economics. Edward Gibbon might also win ‘highly commended’ for publishing the ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ in the same year. […]
On Good Morning Britain last week, Kemi Badenoch laid out her plan to address Britain’s intergenerational inequality. Her message was clear: student loans are unfair, graduates face a heavy burden and reform is overdue. For most of the past decade, despite its modernisation, youth policy has not exactly been the animating force of the modern […]
Last Friday morning, there was a palpable sense that Britain was having a nervous breakdown. The abominable Greens had stormed to victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election; in Parliament Square, the statue of Winston Churchill had been defaced with graffiti branding the Greatest Briton a ‘Zionist war criminal’ and calling for the globalisation of […]
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 […]
An unsettling look at the economic settlement that Britain now seems willing to accept can be found in this week’s latest fiscal forecast. By the end of the forecast period, borrowing will have decreased from 5.2% of GDP in 2024–2025 to about 1.6%. Public debt stabilises at roughly 95% of national income. At those levels, […]
Fresh off the plane from Denmark, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has embarked on another Scandi-inspired immigration and asylum policy blitz, much to the consternation of some of her parliamentary colleagues. Among her announcements is a deceptively simple plan to impose visa bans on several countries whose nationals are abusing study visas to gain entry and […]
Something is going very wrong in European football. The sport has never been richer, yet it has rarely felt flatter. The great promise of football – its unpredictability, its capacity for genuine surprise – is eroding before our eyes. Every year, a handful of ‘superclubs’ hoover up the most promising players, dominate domestic leagues, collect […]
In a spirit of amused devilment, I took part in the first great March by the ‘remaniacs’, as it entered Trafalgar Square and went down Whitehall. Led by Eddie Izzard, Peter Tatchell and Madeleina Kay (the so-called ‘Super EU’ girl) and her dog on Sept 16, 2016. At the time I was amazed that they […]
Before I begin, let me share that I noticed a strange phenomenon when buying a coffee at your local coffee shop. I paid for the hot beverage and said ‘thank you’. But the lady did not say ‘you’re welcome’ back. She said, ‘thank you’. Our mothers taught us it was ‘thank you – you’re welcome’. […]
There were no new policies announced in today’s Spring Statement, so in economic terms, all eyes were on what the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) would say in its revised forecasts. As always, there was some significant stuff to see. The core story was one of things getting worse before they get better. And only […]
What is happening in Armenia? Armenia is the world’s oldest Christian country. It is a profoundly Christian nation, and its faith survived decades of Soviet repression. However, what is happening now threatens that legacy. Armenia’s Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, is lashing out against the Armenian Holy Apostolic Church as it refuses to bow to his […]
As it touted the latest recipe change to its flagship beer Punk IPA in December, BrewDog decided to splash the news across many of the country’s billboards. The tagline? ‘Tastes like commercial suicide’. Rarely has a marketing campaign from the brewer proved so honest. This week, the one-time £2 billion company agreed a sale to […]
Britain’s doctor shortage didn’t happen by accident. For more than a decade, governments capped medical school places – frozen at 7,500 in England for years and only rising this year to 8,126 – and turned away thousands of qualified home students. The predictable result was that the NHS filled the gap by recruiting doctors from […]
This week’s edition of Nimby Watch comes to you from the busiest railway station in the country. Want to have a guess where we are before you dive in? Okay then, where are you taking us this week – anywhere nice? We, my friend, are going to Liverpool Street Station, in the City of London. […]
For years, Iran’s Islamic Republic tried to sell a picture to the world, as George Orwell once put it, by ‘giving an appearance of solidity to pure wind’. Its negotiating technique was never complicated; it was simple stonewalling. Yet it is striking how different administrations interpreted that posture. Barack Obama saw them as complicated, sophisticated […]
Watch or listen to CapX’s weekly podcast ‘The Capitalist’ wherever you get your podcasts.
