Leading article
The case for trust
Our Plan is entirely new, comprising – 1. The whole News of the Week: selected, sifted, condensed and arranged as…
World Health Shambles
The United States has long regarded itself as better prepared for a pandemic than any other country in the world,…
The Boris Factor
Ending the lockdown will require a leap of faith – one that can really only be made by the PM
Testing times
The failures of Britain’s pandemic planning have been brutally exposed in the past few weeks. The scandalous lack of protective…
On liberty
For days, the Prime Minister had been resisting the kind of measures which have placed many other countries into lockdown,…
A common cure
For the Chancellor to produce an emergency bailout package just six days after delivering his Budget is an extraordinary state…
The debt virus
It’s always tempting for governments to respond to economic trouble with a debt-fuelled spending splurge, but it’s a notoriously blunt…
Civil unrest
Thirteen years ago, when John Reid became Home Secretary, he declared the ministry he presided over ‘not fit for purpose’.…
Trial and error
A cornerstone of any -functioning democracy is the separation of police and the courts on one hand, and government and…
Despite Brexit
After the vote for Brexit, it was often said that our departure from the EU was most likely to harm…
Borrowed time
The nature of the Johnson government is still not clear, but has become more so with the announcement this week…
Costing the Earth
After being sacked as the chairman of the COP26, the UN climate conference which is to take place in Glasgow…
A new ally
The moment of Britain’s departure from the EU was always likely to be an anticlimax, both for those who expect…
Stopping traffic
The news this week could easily have led with the deaths of 14 Afghan and Iraqi migrants in the English…
Treating oil companies as pariahs will kill off any green revolution
When fossil fuel divestment was merely a gesture by universities, the Church of England and the Prince of Wales it…
There will never be a better time for Tory radicalism. Is Boris ready?
What is the point of a Conservative majority? The answer might once have been to implement Conservative policies. But now…
Twelve things we’ve learned from the 2019 election
Britain’s parliamentary democracy is easily mocked: the medievalisms, the men in tights, the ayes to the right. But it has…
Politics has fractured along new fault lines – those elected must repair the cracks
It’s easy to see why the Labour party tried so hard to avoid this general election. They looked certain to…
This is the most important election in modern history – so vote, and vote Tory
Next week, voters will decide the future of the government, of Brexit, and perhaps of the Union. Jeremy Corbyn has…
Does safety-first Boris Johnson have any ambitions on the world stage?
There is a large vacuum at the heart of this general election campaign. Aside from the topic of our relations…
The Tories must be careful not to pave the way for Corbynism
To say one thing for John McDonnell, he shows a refreshing preparedness to use a general election to lay out…
Our flood defences aren’t fit for the climate we have now
This week’s political fuss over whether the floods in Yorkshire constitute a ‘national emergency’ misses the point. It is too…
The case for amnesty: why it’s time to offer citizenship to illegal immigrants
There is an unspoken truth about British life: we have two classes of citizen. The first are those born or…
Boris is taking a huge gamble with an election – but it could pay off
Contrasting Boris Johnson’s enthusiasm for a general election with Jeremy Corbyn’s reluctance, it would be easy to assume that the…
Brexit and the power principle
It has become perceived wisdom that we are heading for a ‘people vs parliament’ election. But that is a false…
