Shabana Mahmood will be pleased. New Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows that net migration fell to 171,000 in 2025, the lowest level (outside of Covid) in any calendar year since 2008. On the current trajectory, it will fall below 100,000 for the first time since 1997 this year or next. Job done, then? […]
Across Whitehall, pressure on government departments to reduce costs has never been greater. With UK borrowing costs at their highest level in 28 years and the Chancellor under intense pressure to meet her Budget rules, every pound of public spending is under scrutiny. Labour’s target of £14 billion in efficiency savings by 2029 sets the […]
I walked the dog recently along the Thames Path, around the source (or one of the sources, so as not to cause a fight) of the River Thames. This time of year, much of it is all dried up, and you can walk along the bed of what in the winter is full-flowing river. Wondering […]
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 […]
Keir Starmer says he is fighting to stay. The problem is that is all he is doing. Last week’s King’s Speech was written to save his skin, not to fix anything. Take the spiralling welfare bill, which even his own Chancellor recently admitted desperately needs gripping. But there was no Welfare Bill in the King’s […]
For thousands of years, governments have been tempted to respond to inflationary pressures by imposing caps on prices. Diocletian’s AD 301 Edict on Maximum Prices is a famous early example, but there were repeats throughout the ages. By the 1970s, prices and incomes policies were being used by many governments to try to counter inflation. […]
The first rule of Labour’s EU Club appears to be that ‘you do not talk about rejoining the EU’. Indeed, Andy Burnham’s and Wes Streeting’s not-very-principled position on Brexit seems to be that they want the UK to rejoin the EU but do not want to be too open about this until after either of […]
Below is a transcript of a speech delivered by the Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride at an event hosted by the Centre for Policy Studies on May 19, 2026. . Today, our country is paying more to borrow than any other major western economy. The yield on 10-year gilts is now sitting consistently above 5%. Meanwhile, average yields […]
When I went to Manchester last year, there was one place I particularly wanted to visit: the Free Trade Hall. The building was constructed in the middle of the 19th century to commemorate the repeal of the Corn Laws. Manchester was then the heart of manufacturing, the Industrial Revolution and, most importantly, the struggle against […]
You’ve done it. After 15 years of staring at a screen and someone else’s quarterly KPIs, you have finally resigned. The dream is close. Your own coffee shop. Your other half is on board, if a little nervous. The bank, after a polite interrogation, has approved the business loan. You scout a unit on a […]
A confession: I have never read Karl Marx’s ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’. I don’t have a noble excuse for not having done so, just bone idleness. Nonetheless, I have Wikipedia, a penchant for clichés and a horror at the evolving Labour leadership race. If the fall of Boris Johnson was a tragedy for […]
A collective howl of despair could be heard throughout the unionist community of Scotland last Friday at the prospect of five more years of SNP rule following the Holyrood elections. I can’t have been alone in feeling a bit like a prisoner, incarcerated for a crime I don’t remember committing, having looked forward with faint […]
The bond market has finally lost patience with Labour. The 10-year gilt yield this week is back above 5% – around 5.09% as I write – its highest since the 2008 financial crisis. The 30-year gilt has touched 5.81%, its highest since 1998. Labour’s credibility is being repriced in real time. And the omens are […]
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 […]
I was in a field in Kent as the local election results came in. As an unapologetic adherent of the metropolitan elite, it’s not my natural environment. But over the weekend it became increasingly clear that I’m not the only Londoner who’s out of touch with the rest of the country. The capital is now […]
If we were to bring UK income taxes closer into line with those in Europe’s major economies, it would cost the average taxpayer £1,015 per year. One argument often stated nowadays is that Britain should move towards European-style taxation. But given this cost to the taxpayer, it is certainly not a policy I would advocate. […]
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