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
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
Britain has committed itself to one of the most ambitious net zero programmes in the world. Targets are set. Timelines are clear. Policies—subsidies, mandates, bans—are steadily pushing the economy towards decarbonisation. On its own terms, this is a success story. Emissions are falling. Coal is disappearing from the energy mix. Electric vehicles are becoming more … Read more
In 1970, Ted Heath unexpectedly became Prime Minister, replacing Harold Wilson for what turned out to be a turbulent four years. His Chancellor, Anthony Barber, embarked on one of the most ambitious — and disastrous — economic experiments in modern British history. The resulting “Barber Boom” was a huge dash for growth: tax cuts, relaxed … Read more
I used to work in Redcar. Every morning I would drive past the steelworks. It dominated the landscape, physically and psychologically. You could see it from miles away: towers, chimneys, flames, steam, conveyors, endless geometry in rust red and grey. Whatever else Teesside was, it was a place that made things. Even if you never … Read more
There has been a lot of comment about the latest UK growth figures. The headlines are undeniably good. Britain is now the fastest-growing economy in the G7 on recent quarterly measures, and since the General Election only the US has grown faster. That is particularly notable because the US is running a budget deficit of … Read more
The Office for National Statistics has quietly revised the government’s borrowing figures. And the picture is, on the face of it, better than expected. Borrowing in March 2026 came in at £12.6 billion — £1.4 billion lower than a year earlier, and the lowest March figure since 2022. More importantly, borrowing for the full financial … Read more
There is a structural problem in modern politics that we don’t talk about enough. Markets move on information. Governments create information. And in an age of erratic communication, that information is often released in ways that are unpredictable, informal, and badly timed. Take Donald Trump. One of the defining features of his recent presidency has … Read more
UK ministers are reportedly considering triggering a break clause in Palantir’s £330 million contract for the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP). The clause, available from February 2027, would allow the government to exit the seven-year deal early. The review follows mounting pressure from the British Medical Association, MPs and campaign groups, who have raised concerns … Read more