The debate surrounding Britain’s support for Ukraine has become one of the strangest in modern politics. Not because the sums involved are small, but because they are so large. Tens of billions of pounds have been committed since the Russian invasion in 2022, yet serious public discussion about the long-term implications of that commitment remains … Continue reading
Think about what happens when we finish with a plastic bottle, a food container or the wrapping from something we’ve bought at the supermarket. We put it in the recycling bin, or perhaps the general rubbish, and give it very little further thought. Once the bin lorry has taken it away, the problem seems to … Continue reading
Every so often, a political story from abroad lands with a thud that feels uncomfortably familiar. Donald Trump’s promise to hand out $5,000 to every adult American if Republicans hold Congress is one of those moments. It isn’t a policy. It isn’t a programme. It’s a bribe — the kind you reach for when you’ve … Continue reading
The latest Safety in Custody statistics from the Ministry of Justice are not just another grim annual release. They are a ledger of a system that has lost control of its own environment. Violence in Britain’s prisons is no longer episodic or exceptional; it is structural, predictable, and woven into the daily fabric of prison … Continue reading
Andy Burnham’s first appearance in the Commons as Prime Minister was meant to signal a change of direction. He walked out of Downing Street with the air of a man ready to confront the country’s long‑ignored structural problems — water, energy, transport — the basic machinery of daily life that has been left to rot … Continue reading
There are institutions so deeply stitched into the national fabric that we forget they were ever built at all. The BBC is one of them. It did not simply appear as a natural feature of British life; it was constructed — deliberately, ambitiously — as a civic project rooted in the belief that a nation … Continue reading