Rachel Reeeves’s days are numbered
In her Budget speech today, Chancellor Rachel Reeves will have four goals. Two political – keeping her own job and…
The pointlessness of removing the two-child benefit cap
If the leaks are correct, Rachel Reeves will use today’s Budget to abolish the two-child benefit cap. Another £3.4 billion a…
How bad will Rachel Reeves’s Budget be?
After a needlessly long run-up, Budget day is finally here. Investors, bond traders and house builders are breathing a collective…
Will Rachel Reeves’s two Budget gambles pay off?
It’s traditional to describe Budgets as a political gamble. Rachel Reeves is actually making two bets. First, that voters can…
Starmerism was always doomed to fail
Numerous civil servants have recalled their first encounter with Labour ministers following their election victory last year. After the new…
The burqa, dress codes and democracy
The public bushfire over the banning or not of the burqa continues to burn. Sadly, much of the language used…
Parliament cancels A Super Progressive Movie trailer: ‘It might offend someone’
Last night in Canberra, I attended One Nation’s launch of the trailer for A Super Progressive Movie – the feature-length…
Charleston notebook: following an English country band through the Holy City
My impression of Charleston, a city I’ve been visiting since my late teens, is that it is oddly more European…
Removing jury trials is a democratic outrage
In June 2020 the impact of Covid led some to argue that trial by jury should be temporarily suspended. David…
They should never make another James Bond film
The 25th and most recent entry in the James Bond franchise, No Time to Die, premiered over four years ago.…
Make Gordon McKee a minister
With his viral video explaining debt-to-GDP ratio through the medium of biscuits, Gordon McKee is putting the ‘nom’ into economics.…
The BBC’s new Civilisations treats us like idiots
Everyone’s moaning about political bias at the BBC. They have done for years. And they’ll continue to. The right’s accusations…
Why would Putin sign Trump’s peace deal?
It was summer 2022. Ukraine had just taken back Kyiv, people were returning to the city, and the mood was…
Ukraine-Russia 28 point peace plan – is this the end of the war? | Pete Shmigel S3 Ep 13
The world waits to see if the Trump-led 28 point peace plan offers Russia enough to stop its advance into…
Only radical change can cut NHS waiting lists
A research letter in the Future Healthcare Journal, laying out the scale of performance failings in the NHS, has attracted a…
Watch: Labour MP’s bizarre Putin warning
To the Commons, where this afternoon parliamentarians have spent some time discussing the G20 and Ukraine. The Prime Minister updated…
No one wants to hear from the Tories
For a party long described as Britain’s ‘natural party of government’, the Conservatives have spent an astonishing amount of time…
The battle for Ukraine’s electric grid
On Sunday, Ukrainian drones attacked the Shatura Power Station located about 75 miles east of Moscow. The 1,500-megawatt gas-fired facility…
Lammy to scrap jury trials in backlog crackdown
Under a shake-up of the legal system, it transpires that juries are to be scrapped in all cases except murder,…
‘Peace’ is just another ploy in Russia’s playbook
Predicting Russian behaviour is a fool’s errand. As a young ‘stringer’ in Kyiv during the dying months of the Soviet…
Reeves’s Budget is dead on arrival
The Budget speech has no doubt been finalised. The red box has been dusted off. And the pie charts are…
Starmer apologises over banned TikTok dance
Of all the things the public might think Prime Minister Keir Starmer should apologise for, a TikTok dance is probably…
Rachel Reeves is running out of excuses
The Chancellor addressed her backbench troops last night, ahead of Wednesday’s Budget. Rachel Reeves’ remarks sought to impress upon her…
Trigger warnings are out of control at the University of Essex
You don’t need a PhD to see that censorship thrives in universities. In the past few weeks alone, a professor…
