Every year, I eagerly await a report that confirms what I see before my eyes. KPMG’s ‘Illicit Trade in Tobacco Report’ is a beast of research, conducting in-person ‘pack-surveys’ (where packets of tobacco, whether to be rolled or already neatly packed into paper, are surveyed to find whether they are legally bought or smuggled, counterfeit […]
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has launched the largest ever public offering of stock today, selling $75 billion worth of shares. SpaceX emphasised its remarkable achievements in its IPO filing: ‘We are the primary launch provider for the US government. In 2025, we launched 11 of 12 National Security Space Launch (‘NSSL’) medium and heavy lift missions […]
On July 27, 2025, the US President Donald Trump invited the President of the EU Commission Ursula von der Leyen and other top EU officials to his golf course, Trump-Turnberry on the West Coast of Scotland. Their meeting sealed a trade deal, which von der Leyen described as ‘huge’, but which critics described as a […]
This week, Nimby Watch is in Winstanley, in the historical county of Lancashire. But, like certain other people in Winstanley right now, we’ve got our eyes on Westminster… Okay then, why are we in Winstanley. Where exactly is Winstanley, anyway? Well, if you’re part of the southern Westminster elite, you might say that Winstanley is […]
Over the past few months, the TaxPayers’ Alliance sent hundreds of freedom of information requests while researching Prevent, the Government’s counter-terrorism programme designed to stop people becoming terrorists. FOI requests to local councils, questions to the Home Office, requests for the most basic financial breakdowns – where the money went, who received it and what […]
Brace yourself, but I don’t mind Michelle Obama. Sure, she might prattle on about the evils of white, corporate America too much for my liking, but the former First Lady certainly doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and this was on full display at this week’s SXSW festival in London. Addressing the crowd, Obama warned young people […]
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 […]
Ten years ago, the EU referendum created two new political tribes: Leavers and Remainers. As Sara Hobolt and I show in our new book ‘Tribal Politics: How Brexit divided Britain’, both tribes are very much still with us. Even today, about 60% of people in Britain identify as a Remainer or a Leaver, and people’s […]
Recent rhetoric suggests a slight but notable shift in Russia‘s attitude toward ending the war in Ukraine. In remarks following Russia’s Victory Day parade, Vladimir Putin stated that ‘the matter is coming to an end’. Even in its opacity, the comment signals a potential recalibration in Moscow’s approach and an implicit recognition that the time […]
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. […]
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 […]
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. […]
In leisure centres and town halls across the country, the cheers of the victors can be heard alongside the half-hearted claps of the vanquished. Democracy at its most local – and for the people involved, most personal – is being played out in over 130 English councils, including every borough in London. Few beyond the […]
Society and politics are forged by movements. The evolution of our country, and its state today, is a consequence of these movements, and their influence on our institutions. When people think of politics today, they think of parties, but parties have constraints that movements do not. Britain’s history has made this clear time and time […]
Wes Streeting is the most interesting member of the Labour front bench. He is also a lucky man. Not only has he survived a brush with cancer: he had been condemned to death before he was born. Under pressure from her mother, his mother had decided to have an abortion. At the last moment, she […]
The Institute for Government was sceptical, to say the least, in its initial response to Pat McFadden’s bonfire of the quangos. As it stated, ‘the number of bodies is the wrong measure of success’, given that it is ‘an easy metric on which the media can focus’, but which can ‘create an illusion that major […]
The Tobacco and Vapes Bill is back in the Lords. I, like many sensible-minded people in Westminster, had hoped the Labour Government had finally realised that it was an unworkable mess which runs roughshod over personal liberty, places ridiculous burdens on small independent shops and risks an explosion in criminality. That it would rightly be […]
Exactly 42 years ago this week, Ronald Reagan stood in a grand hall at the University of South Carolina, confidently telling new graduates that ‘[there] are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits on the human capacity for intelligence, imagination and wonder’. Since that moment, the world’s GDP has increased […]
This publication of this week’s Industrial Strategy, and the first of five associated ‘Sector Plans’, marks the latest step in delivering on the Government’s ambitions to boost economic growth. There is much in the papers published that seems sound, including the importance of unlocking investment in skills, R&D and infrastructure – all of which are […]
A Chancellor’s Spending Review is a chance to set out the Government’s fiscal priorities for the years ahead, and signal which political issues are most important. But there was one giant, gaping hole in the Review. No mention of welfare at all. It was barely an asterisk in the reams of documents and announcements. That is odd […]
America’s top universities have long been magnets for global talent. But now, they’re being dragged into a political storm – and Britain should seize the moment. On May 5, US Education Secretary Linda McMahon barred Harvard from seeking federal research grants. Further threats followed: to over $1 billion in grant funding, and even to Harvard’s […]
Happy Tax Freedom Day, to all who celebrate! Although it’s not exactly a cause for celebration. British people have spent 162 days of 2025 paying off their taxes. By our calculations, Labour will see us off with the highest tax burden in UK history by the end of this Parliament. Is there any way to […]
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