BY JASON REED In this alternative timeline, everything has changed in the space of a month. The crisis that grips the world is sure to be era-defining. Horrifying statistics fly through the air like stray bullets. Graphs of doom plague our news feeds. The sheer volume of total unknowns is Read more…
BY HARRY WILKINSON For years, we have been warned that a catastrophic environmental crisis is on its way – whilst living in a world that is uncertain about what a real global crisis looks like. Well, now we know. The coronavirus pandemic is horribly real. We need to learn the Read more…
BY LEWIS FEILDER For years, the Left has been shrieking about the privatisation of the NHS, despite only a tiny 7.3 per cent of NHS spending going to the private sector. They always gloss over the fact that the Blair and Brown governments introduced private providers to increase patient choice Read more…
BY CHRIS BULLIVANT Jeremy Corbyn believes that the Government’s response to COVID-19, to underwrite salaries and the entire economy from a magic money tree, has vindicated his own policy approach. He believes Corbynomics won the election in 2019, an expression of that most peculiar quality of his, delusion and denial, Read more…
BY CLARE GOLBY “What a great opportunity this is going to give us.” These words are part of a statement made by Ian Lavery MP, Chairman of the Labour party. What was he talking about? He was talking about the current Coronavirus pandemic and its potential usefulness for the Labour Read more…
BY MADSEN PIRIE Opinions differ about the optimum unit of government. The nation state largely succeeded the age of empires. The British withdrawal from empire mostly left a host of new station states in its wake, whereas the end of the Soviet empire saw the re-emergence of the former nation Read more…
BY TOM HARWOOD It is almost always a bad idea to pursue measures that should be enacted in normal times in times of crisis. In this instance, however, it’s time to make an important exception to the general rule. Now is the time to liberalise this country’s restrictive, outdated Sunday Read more…
BY MO METCALF-FISHER Our pubs form part of the backbone of local communities up and down our country. We all have a favourite. The place we so eagerly went, to get in our first pint at 18. Perhaps the place you discovered your limit of what constituted sensible alcohol consumption, Read more…
BY JAMES YUCEL Only three months since I made the trek to Glasgow to recommence my first year of university, I find myself writing this piece back home in sunny Suffolk, with lectures, tutorials, and all forms of assessment permanently cancelled. It’s every student’s dream – an immediate pass for Read more…
BY JIM BARRINGTON There’s nothing unusual about disagreements amongst scientists – indeed it is that exchange of theories and ideas which often lead to consensus and thereby conclusions. The BBC programme Inside Science on Radio 4 is deservedly well-respected, explaining and commenting on sometimes complex issues in a way that Read more…
BY MATTHEW LESH Just moments ago I received a call from Lake District Farmers informing me that my meat hamper would be arriving on Wednesday. Lake District Farmers are normally an invitation-only wholesale meat distributor to fine dining restaurants. But after orders dried up last week they began retooling their Read more…
BY MADSEN PIRIE There was an obsession with inputs into education, begun by Tony Blair, but continued by Labour leaders since then. They measured “improvements” in education by the class sizes, the amount spent refurbishing buildings, and by the level of teachers’ pay. The real measure of education is, of Read more…
BY HENRY HILL As the Government prepares to pass the Emergency Coronavirus Bill, giving itself the powers and flexibility it feels it needs to meet the challenge of COVID-19, one of my favourite legislative concepts is getting another airing: sunset clauses. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a Read more…
BY TOM HARWOOD The left has been revelling in the unprecedented interventionism of this government in response to the Covid-19 epidemic. Over the weekend, Jeremy Corbyn claimed the response showed that he had ‘won the argument’, whilst Labour’s media outriders claimed that somehow the hundreds of billions of pounds committed Read more…
BY ADAM HAMDY I previously wrote two pieces challenging the government’s assumptions. Read the deep dive here and the short dip here. Now, the government’s advisers have now admitted they got their assumptions and modelling wrong. By their own reckoning, the government’s initial approach, if implemented, would have led to Read more…
BY MATTHEW LESH In H. G. Wells’ classic, The War of the Worlds, it is ultimately bacteria that forces the invading aliens to succumb. Humans are today learning the same lesson: despite our advanced technology, a pathogen emerging from a wet market in Wuhan can have truly devastating global effects. Read more…
BY JASON REED The Brexit debate is over – or, at least, it should be. Boris Johnson winning his stonking majority in December ought to have been the final nail in the coffin of the Remain campaign. We left the EU in January, and the material exit date of 31 Read more…
BY MADSEN PIRIE To solve a problem, one needs to know what the problem is. Most people want to combat poverty, meaning that everyone should be able to access sufficient food, accommodation, healthcare, and other necessities. This is what the welfare state with its various benefits seeks to do. The Read more…
BY TOBY YOUNG “The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.” Those are the words of the late historian Robert Conquest – his third law of politics, and it’s still applicable today. Substitute “the Read more…
BY MATTHEW GROVES 1997 was a turning point in the history of the United Kingdom. A Labour landslide after the party had been almost twenty years in the political wilderness meant everything was about to change. Most notorious for its attacks on civil liberties through criminal justice legislation and Read more…