When SpaceX’s share price fell last week, Elon Musk lost another vast slice of his fortune. That hardly qualifies as a national tragedy. But it is a reminder that one of the richest men in history owes much of his wealth to a company routinely presented as the ultimate triumph of private enterprise. The reality … Read more
Inside the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship I attended another far-right meeting this week. This one didn’t feature skinheads, St George’s flags or chants outside a hotel. Instead there were smart suits, venture capitalists, cabinet ministers, think tank directors and some of the most influential figures on the international conservative right. It was the Alliance for … Read more
We woke up 10 years ago to discover Britain had voted to leave the EU. For many a day of national humiliation. I started writing Industrial Estate of Mind shortly after the Brexit vote. At the time I was working just outside Durham in an area that had been solidly Labour for generations but had … Read more
I was in the Cambridge pub in Liverpool when the news showed Margaret Thatcher leaving Downing Street. She was being replaced by another Conservative, but we drank anyway. Not because the government had changed, but because an era had ended. If I’d gone out drinking every time a prime minister left Downing Street over the … Read more
British politics is trapped between two comforting fantasies. We have a fiscal problem. We can’t afford the levels of Government spending that we want within the taxes that we pay. Each side of the political divide has an easy answer to the problem. The first belongs to the right. We are told that Britain’s fiscal … Read more
I am not a big fan of Andy Burnham. That might seem a strange thing to say given that I am a member of Mainstream, the pro-Burnham group within Labour. Burnham is an astute politician. His municipal socialism is not far from my own instincts and, unlike many politicians, he has experience of life outside … Read more
I went to a far-right rally last week. It wasn’t big. Fewer than 75 people turned up. They were outnumbered by a left-wing counter-demonstration of nearly 500. The police outnumbered the right-wing protesters by roughly three to one. At the heart of these arguments is integration: the idea that immigration has changed Britain and that … Read more
How the Economics of Crime Changed the Capital If you wanted to rob a bank in London in the 1970s, there was at least a certain logic to it. Cash was everywhere. Workers were often paid in cash. Pubs took cash. Shops took cash. Payrolls arrived in envelopes. Bank branches held large sums of money, … Read more
