Innovation

Everything you need to know about Labour’s rolling crisis
December 1, 2015
SOMETHING remarkable is happening in British politics. In September the Labour Party elected Jeremy Corbyn, one of its most far-left and rebellious MPs, to its leadership after a campaign...
Labour’s sensibles are starting to push back—but they should push harder
November 17, 2015
THE political implications of the attacks in Paris are only just starting to unfurl. But there are early indications that one might be the accelerated growth of (ultimately inevitable)...
David Cameron is playing a self-inflicted bad hand well
November 10, 2015
AFTER months of vague talk about “renegotiating” Britain’s EU membership and a flurry of visits to European capitals by the prime minister and his lieutenants, the moment had come....
The bile spewed at Tony Blair is not just unfair—it is counter-productive
October 29, 2015
FOUR years after its last hearing concluded, six years after it was commissioned and twelve years after the war began, the Chilcot inquiry into Britain’s participation in Iraq may...
The Conservatives deserve little sympathy for their defeat on tax credits
October 27, 2015
THE House of Lords, Britain’s upper house, has just voted to stall the government’s planned cuts to tax credits. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies these would have...
The case for ditching the NHS
October 23, 2015
If the taxpayer-funded model is not politically workable, Britain should adopt a social insurance systemTHE NHS is in a mess. Many studies suggest that it is worse than its...
English-only votes set Britain on the path to federalisation—or break-up
October 22, 2015
THE House of Commons has just voted in favour (by 312 MPs to 270) of English votes for English laws (EVEL). Superficially a piece of legislative housekeeping—it became law...
The Scottish National Party’s triumphant hesitancy
October 17, 2015
I MISSED Nicola Sturgeon’s final speech to the Scottish National Party (SNP) conference in Aberdeen today (I was mingling with the junior doctors at their protest in London; of...
What Geoffrey Howe’s career revealed about power—and Thatcherism
October 11, 2015
NOTHING in Geoffrey Howe’s ministerial career became him like leaving it. Browbeaten and humiliated one too many times by Margaret Thatcher, he stepped down as deputy prime minister and—as...
George Osborne’s plan to let boomtowns boom and failing towns fail
October 5, 2015
The chancellor's conference speech contained a theory about how Britain is changing—and what the state should do about itGEORGE OSBORNE has just completed his speech to the Conservative Party...