If you think this summer has been sticky, count yourself lucky you were not in the Cabinet in August and September 1931, in the midst of possibly the worst economic crisis the country has ever faced. It is worth looking at what happened then, because high energy and Government borrowing costs mean a crisis of […]
This week, Nimby Watch is on its way to Edgware – but it’s taking the long route… Ummm…where are we? Because I’m going to be honest, this doesn’t look too familiar… Well, for now, we’re in the West Bank, the larger of the two territories that make up Palestine – the other, of course, being […]
This week saw a south-Atlantic gale of outrage after Argentina’s chainsaw-wielding President Javier Milei repeated his country’s entirely bogus claim to the Falkland Islands, with President Donald Trump twisting the knife by saying the USA’s view of the issue was ‘under review’. It came just weeks after Argentina’s footballers brandished a ‘Malvinas’ banner at the […]
There is a standard response from any Chancellor or Prime Minister asked questions about government finances: ‘I am not going to write the Budget in front of you’. And neither should they. The Budget is a potentially market-moving financial event. The figures it contains have to add up, make sense. The measures have to be […]
The Victorian economist William Stanley Jevons was clearly a worrier. When, in 1863, the Tyneside arms-maker Sir William Armstrong calculated that Britain’s coal would run out in 212 years, Jevons checked the sums. Armstrong had assumed the country’s appetite for coal grew by the same tonnage every year. But it actually grew by the same […]
Last week, I met my friend Becky for coffee in Buenos Aires. Becky lives on Las Malvinas and, unsurprisingly, calls them ‘the Falklands’. I never do, of course. After nearly ten years in Argentina, I have learned to discuss this particular subject in something closer to a stage whisper. Hearing the ‘F’ word spoken at […]
Margaret Thatcher is back in the news. But it is not her admirers on the Right who have put her there. It is our new Labour Prime Minister, whose diagnosis of our country’s ills seems to be that Britain was on the right path up until 1979, when the Conservatives got into power and precipitated […]
The verdict is clear. The Right has woken up to the innate statism associated with a statutory Net Zero target. Reform UK reject it outright, and the Conservatives have pledged to scrap the 2050 deadline and the 2008 Climate Change Act by which net-zero targets are enforced. Both accept the approach is a millstone around […]
Late on August 28, trade talks between Canada and the United States broke down, an escalation in the trade war that the Trump administration began with Canada in early 2025. This escalation isn’t because Canadians favour tariffs as much as the US president, but because they refuse to quietly acquiesce to American demands. It might […]
A rare glimmer of sanity as Reuters reports that the British clothing retailer Next ‘has won an appeal allowing it to keep paying warehouse workers more than sales consultants’. The report adds that: The ruling on basic pay overturns a key part of a 2024 Employment Tribunal decision in favour of over 3,500 current and […]
This morning, John Healey delivered his first major speech as Chancellor. He set out his vision for the economy and, while it was encouraging to hear his determination to drive growth and solve the NEET crisis, all while claiming to be committed to fiscal discipline, it was quite light on detail. However, one specific point […]
Dear Andy Burnham, Firstly, I must congratulate you on your new role. I am sorry that I have not written to you sooner and I know that you’ve technically been in post for a while now. In my defence though, you did go away almost immediately after taking office. The reason that I am writing […]
The last time I wrote about Reform UK’s annual conference I was doing it as the Deputy Editor of this fine publication. A year on, how much has changed? Greeting you as you enter the conference hall is the familiar fare for the familiar fee. Chicken and chips stands sit next to anti-Labour propaganda, accompanied […]
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is not a publication most would be familiar with. It is meant as a repository of overviews of big topics in philosophy broadly defined, inclusive of political theory. As such, entries added to it are unlikely to generate strong responses by the experts deeply familiar with each individual entry. Every […]
Channel 5 has announced that it is preparing to dramatise the Peter Murrell embezzlement scandal. The 90-minute film will be made by Wonderhood Studios, whose most recent work was the well-received ‘Downfall’ about Huw Edwards. Not much is known about the production as yet, but those hoping for a deep dive into the complexities of […]
The ‘moron premium’ is back with a vengeance this week, with 10-year gilt yields approaching 5.30%, their highest since 2007, while the 30-year is again threatening 6%. Pantheon Macroeconomics estimates that higher borrowing costs have cut the Chancellor’s fiscal headroom from £23.6 billion to around £13 billion. Meaning almost £11bn has disappeared before the Budget […]
