Jon Chadwick 
Last week, YouGov retracted a poll suggesting church attendance was rising in the UK. The results, it turned out, had been distorted by bots or AI. This is disappointing given that the research was published last year, and got a lot more attention than the retraction did. To understand why that matters, it helps to … Read more
Small boat crossings have fallen again. They are down around 30% for the first three months of 2026 compared to the same period last year. There was a similar fall between August and December last year, down 30% year on year , and down roughly 50% from their peak in 2022.. At this point, it … Read more
The 10th anniversary of Brexit is a few months away. Between now and then there are local elections, where Reform—formerly the Brexit Party—hope to make significant gains. I’ve spent the last few weeks travelling up and down England’s east coast, photographing and visiting places where Reform has already won, and places where it hopes to. … Read more
Foreign influence in British politics is no longer theoretical. Last month I wrote about some unusual patterns of political funding flowing into Reform. British electoral law doesn’t allow foreign donations, but Reform appeared to have found a way around this—using UK-registered companies as a kind of front. It turns out I may have been too … Read more
No. One of the more eye-catching claims doing the rounds this week comes from a Fortune article arguing that the U.S. government is “insolvent”. The evidence? The Treasury’s own financial statements for 2025 show roughly $6 trillion in assets against nearly $48 trillion in liabilities. Add in long-term “unfunded” obligations for Social Security and Medicare … Read more
Why People Get History So Wrong “History is the biography of great men,” once said a very famous idiot. It’s a terrible way to understand the past — academically, intellectually, and frankly, morally — and yet people still believe it. Loudly. You can see it in the endless culture war skirmishes over symbols. The recent … Read more
Are Parts of Britain Under Sharia Law? The easy answer is: no. So if no part of the UK is under Sharia law, why are people so angry about it? To understand that, you need to start with how the British legal system actually works — which is already more complicated, and more unusual, than … Read more
A decade ago, the United States looked like it owned the future of electric vehicles. Tesla had redefined what an electric car could be. The technology, the brand, the cultural momentum—all American. With early policy support under Barack Obama, the US had both the innovation and the initial market lead. And yet, today, the centre … Read more
Durham is an odd place. Not odd in an exciting way — my kids always called it Dullham. But odd nonetheless. The city was shaped by two very different forces. The first is intellectual and religious. Durham is the shrine of Saint Cuthbert and the burial place of the Venerable Bede, home to an ancient … Read more
