Should universities have a say before speakers are excluded from the UK? The Government has cancelled the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) of a controversial left-wing US political commentator, in a move that prevents him from appearing at one of the UK’s oldest debating societies and raises renewed questions about broad and discretionary powers used to […]
According to reports over the weekend, Rachel Reeves is considering whether a new generation of public-private partnerships (PPPs), the modern successor to the old Private Finance Initiative (PFI), could help Labour’s ambitious plans for a new generation of towns. With borrowing constrained by Labour’s own fiscal rules, debt interest costs elevated and public finances under […]
Rachel Reeves probably did not expect regulatory reform of ring-fencing rules to become one of her more significant achievements as Chancellor. But credit where it’s due, the Government is right to pursue serious, common-sense reform of ring-fenced banks (RFBs) in order to free up capital for investment in British businesses. Since the 2008 Global Financial […]
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, […]
How big is the state? It might seem like a bit of an odd question to ask and there are a number of ways you can answer it. We can look at how much it spends as a share of national income (expected to have been 44.8% in 2025/26), or how many people work for […]
It’s no secret that the strong commitments to free markets that, at least rhetorically, marked many conservative parties from the 1980s until 2015, are no longer so robust. Full-throated support for free trade, for example, is hard to find in Donald Trump’s Republican Party. Other Western centre-right parties have proved more resistant to protectionist sentiment. […]
When the Labour Government gained power in 2024, Matthew Syed proposed in his Times column the creation of a ‘Department for Long-Term Thinking’: a department that would take government out of the fog of the 24/7 news cycle and encourage policymakers to focus on the bigger picture. Although translating that idea into practice would probably […]
This week, Nimby Watch is in south-east London, just for a change… Alright then, where have you brought me this week? We’re in rapidly-gentrifying Peckham, in south-east London. Specifically, we’re by the Aylesham Centre, a shopping centre that has clearly seen better days, and they definitely weren’t recent. Hang on a second, haven’t we been […]
The 6-7 craze is about to turn from a meaningless, but ultimately fun, meme into something decidedly more serious: the number of UK Prime Ministers in the last 10 years. British firms and families are battling spiralling energy bills while our towns and cities are disfigured by rashes of vape shops, epidemics of shoplifting and […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
Watch or listen to CapX’s weekly podcast ‘The Capitalist’ wherever you get your podcasts.
