The number of people crossing the Channel in small boats fell again in May. In May 2025, 3,738 people crossed the Channel in small boats. In May 2026, that figure was 2,713 — a reduction of 1,025 people. More importantly, this is not a one-off. Crossings have now fallen in eight of the last ten … 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
Over the last few weeks I’ve been travelling up and down the East Coast, visiting places that already have Reform MPs, and places they are targeting in the upcoming local elections. You can find the other pieces below. I’ve saved the most interesting for last: Sunderland. I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m a Sunderland … Read more
Small boat crossings are falling. They are down around 40% in April 2026 compared to the same month last year, and down roughly 38% so far this year. That makes nearly nine months of sustained decline. More strikingly, the pace of that decline is increasing — from around 30% in the latter part of 2025, … Read more
One of the daftest things I read on line is the assertion that “you can’t rewrite history” This, of course, is nonsense, history is rewritten all the time, that is how history works. Each generation writes it’s own history, attitudes change, new facts emerge, documents are found in the archives, things are dug up from … Read more
If you wanted to design a policy that looks like it fixes the NHS workforce crisis without actually fixing it, you might end up with something very like the Medical Training (Prioritisation) Act 2026. The Act requires the NHS to prioritise UK-trained doctors when allocating foundation and specialty training posts. In plain English: British graduates … 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
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
The Sun has published a list of award winning restaurant closures . This has become a bit of an obesssion with the Sun which has run similar stories over the last few weeks. It immediately caught my eye because of a mistake. It listed 1 Michelin starred Hjem in Northumberland as closed. Hjem isn’t closed, … Read more
Immigration has fallen sharply in both Britain and the United States over the past year. In Britain the change has been dramatic. Net migration fell from 649,000 to 204,000 in the year to June 2025 — a drop of roughly two-thirds. In the United States border encounters have collapsed from around 1.5 million to roughly … Read more