Ordering water firms to cut bills is a mistake
Water companies have sweated the assets they were handed upon privatisation in the late 1980s. They have failed to invest properly,…
What’s the truth about ‘irregular migration’ levels?
Should we trust a new study that claims that the level of irregular migration in the UK has essentially not…
Private schools should be cheaper
Independent schools are an asset to the education system and they have been singled out by Labour for a tax…
Is there really a private school exodus?
Will Labour actually gain some revenue for slapping VAT on school fees, or is it heading for fiscal embarrassment as…
What has become of the Wellcome Collection?
In 2022 the Wellcome Collection caused a stir by closing its Medicine Man exhibition on the grounds that it was…
Ed Miliband’s ‘new era’ for energy policy is anything but
How the ground is shifting now that Labour finds itself in government and is actually responsible for UK energy policy.…
You can’t deal rationally with the rail unions
The idea that the government had somehow managed to draw a line under the rail strikes by offering drivers and…
Badenoch is the best the Tories have got
What an ordeal. If there is one thing more trying than watching a leader’s speech at a party conference, it…
The uncomfortable truth about the end of UK coal
Should we celebrate the end of Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Britain’s last coal-fired power station, whose boilers went cold on Monday, bringing to…
Can anything stop Germany’s decline?
Brexit is, we’re told, a disaster that shaved a hefty slice off UK economic growth. But there does seem to…
Boris Johnson has just proven he was unfit to be prime minister
For the past five years, I have been in something of a conflict: was Boris Johnson an unconventional but essentially…
Why did it take Baroness Warsi so long to quit the Tory party?
There will be little surprise that Baroness Warsi has resigned the Conservative whip; the greater wonder is that she didn’t do…
Is Labour’s non-dom crackdown backfiring already?
It takes something when even the Guardian is warning you that your tax rises might end up costing more than they raise…
Why are we deceiving ourselves about Britain’s obesity problem?
Is it really true that obesity rates in England have stabilised or fallen, as has been reported today – and…
Would scrapping the monarchy really save us money?
Britain’s republicans won’t give up. In spite of trying to use the coronation of Charles III as an opportunity to…
The hidden costs of furlough
It wasn’t long ago that a Conservative government was congratulating itself for achieving the lowest unemployment figures in half a…
Is there really a ‘butterfly emergency’?
Anyone else getting fed up with ‘emergencies’? There was a time when that word meant something, but not any longer…
How the EU turned on Ireland’s low-tax project
First, the good news. The Irish government is about to receive a €13 billion windfall in the form of back…
Does the evidence support working from home?
I am sure that the business secretary Jonathan Reynolds picked up many useful skills in his previous job in local…
Is Rachel Reeves damaging the High Street’s recovery?
The former boss of Sainsbury’s, Justin King, warned on the Today programme this morning that Rachel Reeves has damaged the…
The poisoned chalice of trying to nationalise Thames Water
Keir Starmer won the Labour leadership election in 2020 on the back of a promise to nationalise public utilities. In…
The problem with Labour’s green energy plan
Ed Miliband told the EnergyUK conference this morning that he wants to take on the ‘blockers, delayers and obstructionists’ who…
Does Starmer have the gall to send asylum seekers to Albania?
Sending asylum-seekers to Rwanda would, of course, be a moral outrage. We know this because Labour shadow ministers kept telling us…
Cheap electric cars could be the latest Brexit benefit
If Starmer were to rejoin the EU tomorrow, arch-Remainer Gavin Esler tweeted the other day, what benefits of Brexit would…
Miliband’s empty energy promise
Though not quite up there with history’s great political texts, Ed Miliband’s letter this week to the director of the…
