This is the transcript of a speech delivered by the Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions during the Commons debate on the Pension Schemes Bill on April 15, 2026. Who knew that the Pension Schemes Bill would become so controversial? It is a Bill on which there was so much consensus; a Bill […]
This week the IMF cut its forecast for UK growth by a hefty 0.5 percentage points to 0.8% for 2026, the sharpest downgrade of any G7 economy. The OECD last week went lower still, to 0.7%, leaving the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast of 1.1% looking increasingly optimistic. Britain cannot afford to persist with an […]
As London heads toward local elections on May 7, voters will hear plenty about housing, crime and the cost of living. But on the streets, literally underfoot, a smaller, more visible issue is shaping perceptions of how well the city is run: the explosion of dockless e-bikes. What should have been a triumph of consumer […]
This week, Nimby Watch is… everywhere. Or at least, it’s in ‘nature, parks and green spaces’ across the country. Right then, where are we going this time? Well, for once, it’s not so much about where we’re going as where the Nimbys are headed. That sounds ominous. It is! A coalition called Vote For Nature […]
Over the past year, my pastime has been defending Americans from Ofcom, the UK’s internet censorship agency, while parrying demands from regulators in Australia, the EU and Brazil. Most readers will know about this work because of a cartoon hamster. That hamster, sent in a letter to Ofcom on behalf of my client 4chan, illustrated […]
We are facing one of those delightful clashes between equity and efficiency. Sadly, it looks like equity might win, which would mean a ‘fairer’ society – by the estimation of some people – but also a decidedly poorer one. I refer to this from Zack Polanski – the unthinking man’s Left populist du jour: ‘And […]
The Government’s plan to tunnel under Stonehenge has been struck down, having its planning consent formally revoked. The cost of this current stint of planning and consultations amounted to an eye-watering £179 million. At the same time, HS2 continues its slow progress northwards: continuously scaled back, delayed and vastly more expensive than when first promised. […]
Only last week, the Chancellor set out, once again, the Government’s ambition to get the economy moving. The language is familiar: growth, investment, opportunity and, of course, AI. This Government likes talking about growth, while choosing policies that make it harder to achieve. The route to economic growth is not a mystery And it is […]
A spring conference rarely grabs the national headlines. It is typically a chance for party faithful to shore themselves up before a local election, and party officials to take a weekend away. It’s why much of Ed Davey’s spring conference speech last week floated under the national radar, bar the odd headline about the Liberal […]
Nearly three years ago I launched Next Gen Tories (NGT), a pressure group to focus the Conservative Party on winning back voters under the age of 45. For too long, the Conservatives had ignored the growing problem that younger generations weren’t achieving the key milestones that might make someone feel like they have a greater […]
If you want to feel really gloomy, think back to the beginning of the 1990s. The West had won the Cold War. The Gorbachev era seemed to suggest that Russia was embarking on a path of stability and democracy. There were indications that the Chinese leadership was interested in cautious moves towards international legality. Other […]
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 […]
If the definition of political success is when other people start claiming your ideas as their own, then this week’s speech by Richard Tice committing Reform UK to creating a UK sovereign wealth fund ought to count as a pretty big win. I first proposed the idea in a policy paper more than a decade […]
There is something endearingly ridiculous about Matt Goodwin. The gamekeeper turned poacher of national populism is like the Alan Partridge of political studies: self-important but not self-aware and in a relentless pursuit of self-promotion. He was responsible, during his (very) brief time as a ConservativeHome columnist, for the funniest article that I have ever edited. […]
Although it is early days, it does now look as if a cyclical recovery is starting in the UK economy. The best evidence is the recovery in retail sales from its six-year post-Covid slump. Since consumer spending is around 60% of GDP, a consumer recovery is critical to getting GDP rising. The recovery is also […]
When it comes to the global trading system, there is an ongoing battle between two competing models. The first sees regulatory competition with equivalence and mutual recognition as far as regulations are concerned. That’s the classic system embodied by the likes of the United States, the World Trade Organisation and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement […]
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