Beware Labour’s desire to get cosy with Europe
There was nothing seriously unexpected in Rachel Reeves’s speech today to EU finance ministers. Most of it was non-committal flim-flam:…
The Lords needs more peers like Charlotte Owen
It is clear who is the unnamed target of Labour’s rule change over political nominations to the House of Lords.…
Why did the state let Kneecap win?
There was something predictable in the government’s agreement last week to accept defeat in the Belfast High Court. The overtly…
Is there really a human rights crisis in the Highlands?
It’s grim up north in Scotland, we’re told. A mission from Edinburgh has produced a report about the woes of life…
Why shouldn’t schools encourage middle class aspirations?
Education Minister Bridget Phillipson wants to make our schools engines of ambition and social mobility. Good for her. Unfortunately, some…
Non-crime hate incidents are out of control
It’s police overreach season again on free speech and non-crime hate incidents, or NCHIs. On Remembrance Day morning, we had…
Surely no MP can vote for this assisted dying bill
There’s a beguiling simplicity to the idea behind Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, published yesterday. If…
Raising university tuition fees will only delay the inevitable
Universities in the UK desperately needed Bridget Phillipson’s announcement this afternoon of a rise in tuition fees. The Education Secretary…
Street lights are costing Britain too much
The East Riding of Yorkshire is flat, prosperously agricultural and slightly off the beaten track. Deeply conservative, it isn’t the…
Chris Kaba and the danger of inquests
The firearms officer Martyn Blake was cleared of murdering Chris Kaba this week. Kaba was a serious wrong ‘un: a…
Labour’s worrying creep back towards the EU
In Labour’s manifesto this year, Keir Starmer cannily sought to reassure any Brexiteers out there by ruling out a return to the…
Boris is right: we need a referendum on the ECHR
Nobody should be surprised that Boris Johnson favours a referendum on leaving the ECHR, as his book now makes clear. Boris…
Why tuition fees should go up
The fees English universities are allowed to charge home students in England are fixed by government fiat. At £9,250 per…
Labour’s two-tier prison plans
There are not many women in prison, but those who are inside show worryingly high rates of mental illness, suicide…
Why the cost of replacing Britain’s border fleet has soared to £300 million
The fleet of border control cutters responsible for patrolling our waters (and at times for dealing with irregular migrants on…
Labour is in denial about our bad universities
Our universities are in a mess. Too many degrees lack intellectual quality and utility, and leave those doing them with…
Scrapping one-word Ofsted verdicts is a mistake
The decision to scrap one or two-word Ofsted inspection grades for England’s schools is good news for teachers – but…
Starmer may regret an outdoor smoking ban
It’s a curious political world. Few who voted Labour last month actually wanted Labour policies, or for that matter had…
The worrying return of non-crime hate incidents
The longer it continues in office, the more reactionary and beholden to vested interests this government turns out to be.…
Louise Haigh’s LTN policy is doomed to fail
The Labour party is in a bind over cars. Its instincts – collectivist, green, managerialist – strongly favour anti-car measures…
Are too many young people going to university?
University hopefuls trepidatiously opening their official A-level emails this morning will on the whole be happier than last year. All…
Will a social media crackdown really stop future riots?
The riots of 2024 will be remembered for many things. One of them is the way the establishment spectacularly closed…
Why Britain must say no – again – to China’s ‘super embassy’ in London
The previous Tory government may not have been very successful in containing the global ambitions of China, but at least…
24-hour courts are risky, but right
Yesterday evening, the government instituted a little-known procedure called the Additional Courts Protocol. Set up following the 2011 London riots,…
Does Labour care about free speech on campus?
Universities fought tooth and nail against plans to impose fines if they failed to uphold freedom of speech. That proposal…
